Sol (00:02)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host Sol, founder of the BestInterest app for Coparents. At BestInterest and on this podcast, my goal is to help you find peace in the storm. Today I'm joined by Hallie Strauss and Kate Alcamo, co-founders of the Co-Parent Collective. Hallie is a psychologist, parenting coordinator, evaluator, and mediator who works with families stuck in high conflict dynamics. Kate is a licensed marriage and family therapist and child specialist

who helps parents understand what divorce feels like from the inside of a child's world. I'm excited for this conversation because they both bring different lenses to the co-parenting experience, how to reduce conflict between the adults and how to protect the emotional safety of the kids caught in the middle.

If every co-parenting message feels like a battleground, and of course stress is bleeding into your parenting, or if you're trying to move from spouse mind back to parent mind, well this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Sol (00:59)
Hallie

and Kate, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you on today.

Hallie Strauss (01:03)
Thanks for having us.

Kate Alcamo (01:03)
Thank you for having us.

Sol (01:04)
So this is a special interview having two of you on. and I look forward to tapping into each of your wisdoms. You're also together the founders of the Co-Parenting Collective. Is that correct? Great. All

Hallie Strauss (01:16)
Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Sol (01:17)
Before we dive into the interview, I'd love to first just touch in with each one of you. And if you can bring us into a moment of peace that you experienced this week

in your own life. Just bring us into there for a moment.

Hallie Strauss (01:31)
Gosh.

Kate Alcamo (01:32)
We both have a lot of young kids.

Hallie Strauss (01:34)
It's interesting. I was supposed to be in court this morning, I was, and the case settled as I arrived, which I think is a good moment of peace. It is

I think hopefully gonna work out for the kids the best way. So I think professionally that would definitely be my moment of peace of the week.

Sol (01:49)
How about you, Kate?

Kate Alcamo (01:50)
My sister-in-law from Florida came up yesterday and we took an evening stroll together, which was really nice to be with somebody that I feel really connected to and really at peace with. And just talking about parenting and life and all the things and just having a moment, just the two of us was really nice, really relaxing.

Sol (02:10)
Great. Well thank you for joining us today. Both of you came together to work on the Co-parenting Collective and you come from different backgrounds. I'd love to hear more about this journey, perhaps starting with you, Kate. How did you arrive into this field and and where you're at today?

Kate Alcamo (02:24)
Sure. I am a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist by training. And for a number of years, I actually just worked in a local middle school in a school-based program, which was wonderful. And during that time, my mom, who is an attorney, told me about collaborative divorce. She's like there's

this newer thing, you should really get involved. And then at that time, just professionally wasn't in a space to do that or even just do the work. So was like, oh yeah, yeah, I'll look into it down the road. When I opened my practice in 2016, I got trained. Having come from doing a lot of work with kids who have parents who are divorced or who going through the process, it was really nice to see a process option

that puts family first and kids first and wanting to be involved in keeping kids out of my therapy office ideally and seeing those families thrive in a different way than families who go into litigation and those options that maybe drive more conflict. There's always conflict there, but some options just drive more conflict. And I just honestly wasn't expecting to get involved in the work and just have loved it.

So collaborative divorce, divorce coaching, therapy with parents who are going through divorce, child therapy with kids going through divorce. All different facets of the work, which is nice and rewarding. I'm super excited to be doing this with Hallie, just again, trying to be proactive in creating a different option for families to do it differently and have better outcomes,

particularly, we're very kid driven. So, for the kids.

Sol (03:57)
That's great. And Hallie, how about yourself? How did you come together in this arrangement?

Hallie Strauss (04:02)
Yeah, so I came at it from a different lens. All through grad school I had worked in psych institutions, inpatient facilities and the court, the the Child Guidance Clinic at the DC Superior Court. I liked the intensity of an inpatient setting. I went to do my postdoc and did that at St. Elizabeth Hospital out here in the DC area and realized that that was not

for me. Once I got into that setting, was a little bit tougher than I thought kind of physically. I wanted to leave there and do something else that was just as intellectually stimulating and intense, but without the bodily harm. I started looking at what I had been interested in and I had always been fascinated by divorce, how

couples get from this point of being so in love and creating a family to ending that and separating, and what makes that happen and how do these puzzle pieces fall together. I jumped in with two feet and started getting trained to be a custody evaluator back in 2015-ish and then kept going down that route and became a mediator/ PC. I do the evaluations.

Kate and I were introduced by a mutual mentor and we got lunch and we really hit it off and we stayed in touch. I think Kate one day was like, "I have this idea" because we bring our our complementary expertise to the divorce process. We weren't sure how that might go. If we wanted to work more with training professionals or working with attorneys and judges, or if we wanted to be

more working with parents and kids directly. And that's how we landed where we are with the with the Coparent Collective.

Sol (05:28)
And do I understand that you often serve as a as a parenting coordinator? Yeah.

Hallie Strauss (05:33)
Yes. Yep. That's

like about maybe like

20-40 percent of what I do, either as a parent coordinator or a similar role. We have a a couple of different names for it out here in our jurisdictions that are starting to catch on just kind of as a case manager or a treatment coordinator or some kind of variation on PC role.

Sol (05:50)
I would love to dive into that a bit more because I imagine many of our listeners either haven't heard that term or maybe they referred to it with a different term. So what does a parenting coordinator do and how does it differ from the other roles you mentioned?

Hallie Strauss (06:02)
A PC is somebody, it depends on the jurisdiction, how you end up working with them. It's essentially a trained mediator with an additional subset of training skills. They work with parents who can be going through the divorce process, they can be many years post, it can just be, parents who are still stuck in this conflict who need some ongoing help

make decisions. They're people who might have kids with special needs or many needs or complex needs, and they have a hard time agreeing on what's best for their kids. They might go to a parent coordinator to have somebody that they're meeting with, either regularly or ad hoc to help them make decisions. PCs can be mental health providers or attorneys.

I'll get referred clients either through attorneys or they'll find me. I'll tell people who make their way to me on their own: if you're going between a mental health PC versus an attorney PC, a mental health PC really helps if you do have kids with those complex needs. Kate and I have worked on a couple of different cases together where you have the children each have therapists or the children have that need to be

coordinated with, but you don't want to bring the therapist necessarily into the conflict. So you'll have the PC doing the talking for them. Or you have kids on the spectrum or kids who have IEPs, 504s who need some guidance with that or with communication in general, versus the times when I've been unsuccessful, because that also absolutely happens, is when there's more where I've referred them to an attorney PC, is if there's a differing opinion about

how to read their MSA or their any

Kate Alcamo (07:25)
Mm.

Hallie Strauss (07:26)
of their agreements. If parent A thinks that this is the stipulation, and parent B thinks the spirit of the agreement was this stipulation. That's where I would refer to an attorney PC. They can be really helpful. Some families choose to meet with PCs pretty regularly, and then some families it's, twice a year before the holidays and before camp. I think it can help

move families along. The goal is to build skills so that they don't need you anymore.

Kate Alcamo (07:46)
As a child therapist, sometimes I wish I could make it a requirement of the families I work with, the kids, especially if there's high conflict to work with someone like Hallie, whether it's a PC or a co-parenting coach, because it really helps insulate the therapeutic work with the kid when you're not having to play multiple roles.

As therapists, we can coordinate with them. They can take what we're seeing in the therapy room and help the parents, put into place structures or routines or better parenting skills. It's just a really nice collaborative relationship.

Sol (08:17)
I'm curious how you manage more high conflict situations where maybe this was even a court ordered situation to go to a parenting coordinator. How do you manage the the inevitable triangulation that happens in these types of dynamics?

Hallie Strauss (08:31)
That can be absolutely a work in progress. Sometimes it's putting a team into place. I'll recognize pretty quickly upon doing my intake process that these people need more support than I can give individually. I'll refer to a coach often, or I'll say, "I need to bring your individual therapists on board"

and then it becomes more of a team effort, which I think is typically more beneficial, where we have

people that are working with them and the parents individually and trying to help. I can be involved on a very wide spectrum with PC cases where you can copy me on every email or you can send me every email before you send it to your co-parent, which is why I've referred to your app several times to say, you should be doing this and it would take a lot of pressure off me.

Sometimes people just need to be redirected to an app where there's

a coach or a tone meter or something that will help them from not writing these inflammatory messages to each other that really just further the conflict. Some of my cases are way over on that end where I say you have to be on one of these apps and I'll monitor your communications there. And then, I have people on the other end where I'm meeting them once a year to go over a bunch of things that that they're pretty much in agreement with, but they need that touch point.

A lot of times, I would say it's it comes down to offloading on an app, having a container, which Kate and I have talked about in the Coparent Collective, of setting these boundaries for themselves, of you don't want to have those messages pinging you and somebody texting you

every 15 minutes and why haven't you responded? It's dysregulating. Containing it to an app or platform is really helpful, as is obviously, you know, having a team that can be there to support, but also

bring about change in a in a gradual way or a supportive way.

Sol (10:04)
Do you in these situations have any binding authority to make changes, or is that left to the courts or the attorneys?

Hallie Strauss (10:11)
It depends. I actually do prefer having binding authority, if possible. I never would have thought when I started out. But the problem being that you can make a recommendation that people are going to consider, but that's a lot of times where that ends. If you have one parent that really wants something and the other parent that doesn't,

there's no impetus to to compel them to move them forward. Half the time when attorneys come to me, it is very high conflict and half the time they just need a touch point. But they'll often say "they're open to giving you binding authority," and I think that can be helpful but albeit it can be really messy too again, 'cause that sometimes involves removing a therapist or

changing therapists

or I've had cases where I was very close to picking their child's school, because they just couldn't

agree. But with binding authority, it can be scary for parents. Ultimately I think they would rather make that decision with their co-parent than having a stranger make it. You don't want a stranger deciding where your kid goes to preschool.

You want your co-parent to come to the table and figure that out with you. I It's jurisdiction and professional specific, but I think there are certainly pros and cons to having that binding authority.

Sol (11:15)
Shifting to you, Kate, I'd like to take a look at these parents that you're you're interfacing with, with kids. They're navigating

some really challenging decisions and they're coming into your office. What are some of the patterns that you see in these parents, and how would you say you see the impact

on their kids?

Kate Alcamo (11:33)
We do a lot of work with this in the Co-parent Collective and some of the courses that we have.

They get lost in the conflict with their co-parent instead of what's in the best interest of their child. So it drives a lot of how they parent. There are a number of parents who struggle to parent because they're constantly thinking about, is this going to get back to their co-parent? Is this going to create issues in that co-parenting relationship? Or are they going to use this against me or any number of things? So sometimes you're trying to support them in helping their child and there's a fear to do

it in the most effective way because of how that's going to play out in the co-parenting relationship and dynamic. I think there's those power struggles. That's probably the biggest challenge that I have is being able to work with a kid when you have parents who are constantly at war with each other and just not agreeing to things,

not because it's not what they want, but it's because they just want to go against their co-parent. Right down to finding a therapist or agreeing to do therapy or a schedule for the child. I mean, these kids don't get the support that they really need often because it gets stuck in that conflict and that power struggle. We always talk about spouse mind versus parent mind and parents acting from that spouse mind. And

all of that relationship stuff that is pulling them in that direction versus as a parent, what would I do in this moment? As a parent, what do I want for my child? It's hard for them to make those decisions.

Sol (13:04)
So when you encounter these couples going through this, we hear the term "it takes two to tango." Do you feel like that's the case in a lot of these situations that you've seen, or is it typically a high conflict individual with someone that's just trying to survive?

Kate Alcamo (13:19)
I mean, certainly there are situations where it's one person that's high conflict and the other person is just doing their best to navigate it. But I'd say even in that, there are things that the kind of lesser high conflict person can be doing slightly differently. It's just a different set of skills and a different set of issues to address. But as we talk about a lot,

high conflict individuals can really pull low conflict individuals into doing things and saying things that they normally wouldn't, to defend themselves, to protect themselves, to assert themselves, that obviously as therapists, we totally understand and we can validate. And we know that a lot of these things often then impact the child.

One example I would say is that sometimes when there's a high conflict co-parent who's maybe sharing too much information or saying things, blaming, talking negatively about the other parent, the other parent can get pulled into trying to defend themselves or challenge what the high conflict co-parent is saying. But ultimately, that puts the kid in this place of who do I trust? How do I make sense of that? They really struggle to find a sense of self and a sense of place.

So again, you understand why that happens and, there are different choices that could keep kids out of the center and keep kids from feeling the impact of those dynamics.

Hallie Strauss (14:37)
In a number of coaching cases that I've worked on, the hard part is getting that one parent, the lower conflict parent, who's like, "it's them. I'm trying my best. Why should I have to do X, Y, and Z? Why

should I have to buy the Mother's Day card? They're not doing that for

me. It's not fair." A lot of I

think with coaching and with PC is really

reminding one or both, that one side de-escalating can immediately

vent the pressure, and bring the tone down a lot. And also really validating that parent. I always say it takes a lot to be the one to extend the olive branch. And almost always outside of, cases of domestic violence or coercive

control, almost always I see

an immediate decrease once somebody extends that olive branch and is able to do that. But it takes it takes a lot of strength to be able to extend the hand with this person that you're often so embroiled with,

Kate Alcamo (15:22)
or not even extending the hand, but just not engaging in the conflict as

Hallie Strauss (15:25)
Yeah, also that.

Kate Alcamo (15:26)
as hard as that is, right? Like not being part of that dynamic.

Sol (15:30)
Yeah, I'd love to dive into that a little bit more too. When you're seeing parents that are also navigating a court system, maybe simultaneously

to co-parenting. How does one disentangle what's going on in the court from what's going on in the co parenting dynamic? 'Cause I know that's kind of a difficult thing to blend.

Hallie Strauss (15:48)
That's a lot of what I do as a PC.

I'll get lucky with attorneys who are collaborative, want to work with each other. So a lot of times I will meet with the attorneys as a PC and just say, "we need a touch point, here's what's going on on both sides, here's what you need to advise your clients to do," or I'll say, "Here's what the treatment team is recommending." That's also something

that comes up a decent amount when you're in that team setting as a PC is

being able to give the treatment team recommendations a voice in court without them having to go to court and without them having to feel pulled to make recommendations that are out of their lane. Right. So about things

like access or they're not coaching the parents, but they can give me information which I can then translate into here's how I would coach the this parent and this parent. At the beginning of my career, I remember one of my mentors was like

"you need to have a clause in your paperwork that you don't do PC work while they're in active litigation." So my first few cases, I was like, I don't do PC work when I'm in active litigation. And then another mentor of mine was like, "How are you gonna tell people that you're not gonna shepherd them into the basement when a tornado is coming? You can't do that." And I ended up taking that avenue of, a lot of these people are constantly in litigation, so to say

"I'm not gonna help you while you're doing that" can leave them a little bit stranded. Sometimes it is just bringing down the pressure or being a voice for either the treatment team or being a voice to the attorneys to try to get them on board collaboratively.

That can be a big part of PC work.

Sol (17:10)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get 10 off with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (17:32)
And now, back to the show.

Sol (17:33)
Now, Kate, is there a developmental window for kids? You were talking about them witnessing the conflict. Is there a window where that level of conflict that they're seeing in their parents becomes harder to recover from?

Kate Alcamo (17:45)
I don't know that I would say harder to recover from. A lot of times I'll work with young adult children, early adult,

who talk about sometimes they wish their parents had gotten divorced sooner because it reduces the conflict a lot and it just limits the amount that they're exposed to all of the time. I think as much as parents can set boundaries and work on reducing the conflict the better and the earlier they get their kids into therapy

to work on the impact of that the better. I I like to think kids are generally resilient with the right supports. And we talk a lot about that in our first course is, what are the protective factors that help kids be successful and what are the risk factors? As parents, knowing those things, maybe it's really hard to limit the conflict. There are certainly lots of ways to do it, but maybe it's really hard, but you can focus on these other things that you can provide for your child that can help them be successful,

be resilient and be okay. It doesn't all rest on exposure to that, but that is also the number one risk factor. High conflict, it just is, right? For things like anxiety and stress, depression, issues in later relationships, high conflict is the biggest issue for kids.

Sol (18:53)
Mm-hmm. And Hallie, do you see that your parents elect for collaborative or parallel parenting or or do you have a choice that you can help them make in that?

Hallie Strauss (19:02)
That's a great question because something that I see relatively often at the beginning of PC work is that one parent will want to be collaborative and one parent will want to be

parallel. There's a lot of talk about parallel being bad, that it's no, this is not good for the kids. And I always reframe that of

Is it most people's goal to live next door to their co-parent and their new families and co-parent together seamlessly? Yes, sure. And you don't get there right away. People need some time on these parallel tracks. They need to be able to process the divorce, to process their own feelings, and then to come back together collaboratively. Also, that can be confusing for the kids if you just jump right into this buddy buddy relationship.

Sometimes I'll have it where parents are trying to bend over backwards to be collaborative and have the other parent at every activity,

where they end up fighting sometimes, or where the kid

like, "Well, why did you get divorced? Like you're spending all this time together

now. You're spending more time together now." So I always reframe that for parents as like I think parallel parenting can have a kind of a bad rep of

being not ideal or it doesn't mean that you're not on the same page. It just means that you're doing things apart, and I think that's okay. The research shows the first two years are post separation are the highest conflict.

Especially in those first two years, if people need to be on those parallel tracks, it's really not like a bad thing per se.

Sol (20:20)
Kate, did you want to add on to that?

Kate Alcamo (20:21)
Yeah, I would agree with Hallie that I think sometimes parents try to rush into the process of what comes later, when they're still in the middle of litigation or making decisions and creating the parenting plan. They try to force something that's not there yet, and that creates conflict. Sometimes it's okay to have maybe a little bit more

boundaries and a little bit more structure early on and maybe a little bit more separateness until you work through those issues, until you find a new footing and adjust. I always think about divorce as, it's something that evolves constantly. The parenting plan can evolve. All these things can change as kids get older, as relationship dynamics shift. If you start it early,

a little bit more boundaried, a little bit more parallel, it can actually help you move into a better relationship down the road. Kids do better with that. it's a lot about how the parents talk to the kids about what's happening and that things evolve and we're working through things and all of that. But I agree with Hallie.

Sol (21:21)
Yeah, I I see it as a way to potentially rebuild trust when trust is broken. And

then once trust comes back, then the collaboration will actually come in naturally because if you trust someone, you're gonna collaborate with them. If you don't trust them, you're gonna not.

Kate Alcamo (21:37)
The other thing I was going to say, and we talk a lot about this, I think this is the unseen thing in divorce, is all of the identity shifts that happen for parents as they're navigating it that

they don't really address, and the emotional implications of all of those identity shifts. And I think sometimes in those first couple of years post divorce, if people can focus their energy on that, which is also in part disentangling the marriage, and all of the stuff that comes with it and shifting from a we to an I and a full-time parent to a part-time parent and new roles and responsibilities,

fewer roles and responsibilities, evolving in what you have control over. There's a lot of work that needs to be done individually. And there's value in doing that in those first couple of years. And that's easier to do when you have a little bit more parallel parenting, more boundaries.

When people can work through that, can come out, like you said, on the other side, a little bit more ready to shift into that business partnership, ready to shift into that new role and dynamic with their co-parent.

Sol (22:37)
Now, something you said earlier, Kate, is still ringing in my head. It's about I think you related this idea that sometimes parents come in worried that their co-parent is going to take what they say to court and

it's challenging for them to interact with their co-parent or even their kids with that.

So what would you say to a parent who has that fear to shift that?

Kate Alcamo (22:58)
I do that a lot in coaching. I think a lot of the work is just sitting with the anxiety and the fear and normalizing that and also re-centering them on doing what's in the best interest of their kids, despite the fear and anxiety. Obviously there is always a real fear that people are going to do that. Generally, I think if you're making good, value-based parenting decisions,

there's not much that other co-parent can really do with it. And kids do better when their parents come from that place. When parents aren't afraid to set expectations, have rules, have consequences that are appropriate and all of that. I think that's the area parents get really worried about. But I think working with a therapist or a coach to help you

get a better understanding of what kind of parent you want to be can be really helpful to build parents' confidence. I'm making the right decisions whether my co-parent agrees or not.

Sol (23:49)
For a parent who's navigating this and it feels like every communication becomes this battleground, what are things that they can do to navigate that?

Hallie Strauss (23:59)
So this is a big focus of our course is teaching some of these communication tips and tricks and working with parents. It's kind of a twofold, as with a lot of things in therapy. There's something on the surface, there's a technique we can teach or a process we can do, but then there's also the underneath part, which is the emotional work of

disentangling from your ex and self-regulating your emotions, right?

We teach a little bit of both of those, but there's lots of tips and tricks. Our biggest one is, write as if a judge is gonna read it, or if it's gonna be on the front page of a newspaper. And as a custody evaluator, I can tell you there are so many text messages that I know both parties thought nobody would ever see that I'm reading and these are now discoverable and they're going in front of the court.

Same with emails. I had a case last year where I was on the stand for about four and a half hours talking about literally 700 pages of emails. "Go back to page 264 and line four. What does this mean?" And I was like, Is this really what I'm doing?

I think that's a big one, write as if somebody else is gonna see it, coming from this very child focused

way and there's a lot of things you can do to make sure that it's focused on your kids. You could use an app again, like your app, or you can write a draft and let it sit and then come back to it and say, okay, after this

marinates for four or five hours, do I feel better about it or do I need to change the wording here a little bit or make this more direct? We teach things like BIFF brief, informative, friendly, and firm, which can always

be helpful too.

So there's a lot of different ways to help people tweak their communications to de-escalate conflict. That also goes hand in hand with healing, and regulating your own emotions

so that you don't feel so driven to engage in those or less reactive to engaging in that kind of communication.

Kate Alcamo (25:36)
I think I've also started saying a little bit more, write it as if your child is going to read it.

In the child specialist role when I'm meeting with kids and talking to them about, how are things going? What's your experience? What are you observing of your parents? The number of little detectives that I meet

who look at photos on their parents' phone, but really they're opening the text messages and they're looking for information to inform them, to help them feel better, and they're being exposed to a lot of things that parents just have no idea they're accessing. Parents also forget sometimes their phone goes to an iPad that the kid uses and the kid's on an iPad and a message will pop up and

you want to write it like they're going to see it and what do you want them to see about your relationship with their co-parent and what do want them to see about how you're showing up in that relationship. I find that that really resonates too with parents because they don't want them to be exposed to that.

Sol (26:27)
Yeah, that's a really good point. Hallie, earlier you'd mentioned about co-parenting apps. And of course, that is an interest of mine. I

Obviously a lot of us are are becoming aware of AI playing a role in co-parenting now and and that it it's a role that's probably here to stay. I'm curious what you've seen with co-parents using AI. What are some of the pitfalls? What are some of the benefits?

Hallie Strauss (26:48)
Yeah, absolutely. I've recommended to some coaching clients, put this into ChatGPT or Claude, and have them tone it down if you don't want to use the app. I do think it's here to say and it can be very helpful. I do think a lot of times it'll de-escalate on one side at least. People sometimes don't even realize that they're escalating or that they're

poking a little bit or needling a little bit in even, using something like 'fine' instead of 'good'. Those are just little tiny things that people could change and aren't so emotionally loaded, such that it could improve the communication or it could at least make things a little bit more neutral for people. I think it's helpful for PC work, especially if you are in that more

contentious stance where you might need something to go back to court or you might need documentation for going to court. I have families that only communicate through a co-parenting app because they need everything to be documentable. And there's a lot coming around with AI in custody evaluations. I'm certainly not the expert on that, but falsifying documents, falsifying emails, people are getting burner phones and texting from

the name of their co-parent with that and submitting that to court.

I tend to rely on some of these apps 'cause I know that they're verified, and less

easily impacted by insidious AI, I guess you would say.

Sol (28:03)
I understand the two of you have a course that you're offering. Tell us more about what this course is and how it might help.

Kate Alcamo (28:10)
Our plan is to roll out three courses. The entire kind of structure of it is called the Child-Centered Divorce Playbook. And the first course is geared towards parents in those crucial kind of first 90 days and how to find professionals, process options for divorce, resources that are really gonna help them

be as child-centered as possible. We found oftentimes working with parents who are two months, six months, a year down the road going, I wish I knew about some of this earlier.

So that's what this first course really is. How do we get them as much information as possible early to create a strong foundation for what's to come over the transitions of the family? And with that is the identity shifts and we have some exercises that parents can work through to help them with that.

Course two is going to be everything co-parent communication. So all the things that we were just talking about, what are the skills, tools, resources, shifts that need to happen to make that successful as possible, for families who are low conflict to high conflict. And then the last course will be everything dating to remarrying and

how to bring families together at that point. We kind of felt like those were these key points. Families who are going through divorce, that timeline of where we see missteps that could be prevented, ideally, so they're not coming into our office when the damage is being done or is done and we're trying to repair. So that's our hope to create a different future for them.

Sol (29:38)
That sounds really helpful, especially when you're first going through this process. It can feel very overwhelming and

you don't know where to turn. So having a course like that that will launch them into the process armed with knowledge sounds really great.

Kate Alcamo (29:51)
Thank you.

Hallie Strauss (29:51)
We hope so.

Yeah.

Sol (29:52)
Okay,

so now it is time for our lightning round. And since there's two of you, I'm gonna make it extra challenging. I'm not gonna tell you who

I'm asking the question of, and so whoever

Hallie Strauss (30:02)
Ha ha

Sol (30:02)
answers first

Kate Alcamo (30:02)
Ha!

Sol (30:03)
gets it, all right? So it's like double lightning, okay? okay, so what I'm gonna do I Yes, you should be so nervous.

Kate Alcamo (30:07)
We were nervous about this part.

Hallie Strauss (30:06)
Excellent.

Sol (30:11)
So I have a sentence that I'll read off and then you'll fill in the blank.

Kate Alcamo (30:13)
Yeah.

Sol (30:14)
And either one of you can do it, okay? Ready?

Hallie Strauss (30:16)
All right.

Sol (30:16)
All right. The thing parents get most wrong

in the first year after separation is...

Kate Alcamo (30:22)
not divorce that is the biggest challenge for kids. It's how parents navigate divorce and co-parenting that creates the biggest challenges for kids.

Hallie Strauss (30:29)
I

often see parents introducing new partners very quickly and without a lot of thought in the first year, I would say, where

it's like I thought we were just having a play date with so and so and now you're telling me they're your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever. I see that a lot in in evaluative circumstances where a new partner is introduced too quickly.

Sol (30:47)
It can get so challenging for the kids and also it's sometimes indicative of a parent who isn't really doing the work to move on from that first relationship. So it's a bit of a red flag if you're jumping in right away.

Kate Alcamo (30:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hallie Strauss (31:00)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Alcamo (31:02)
And I think

with that is not recognizing that your children are on a very different timeline than you are

and are going to have their

own experience of the divorce and your co-parent than you do. Yeah.

Sol (31:12)
Yeah, we're in our rush to kind of hurry past the painful bit. We're missing out that

they're still potentially going through it.

Hallie Strauss (31:20)
Or that

you've been going through this for a long time and this is new to them, right? Mm-hmm. Yes, news to them, yeah.

Kate Alcamo (31:24)
news to them. Yeah.

Sol (31:25)
Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, wow. All right, next one. When a child

comes home and says something alarming about the other parent, the right first move is...

Kate Alcamo (31:36)
Just validate. Just validate. "I hear you. That sounds like it's really hard. Do you want to talk about it?" I had a client tell me one time, and I really liked this. It's the three H's. Divorce or no divorce, I think this is helpful for parents. Just asking a kid, do you want to be hugged? Do you want to be heard? Or do you want to be helped? And starting from that place gives them an option and the resource that they need in the moment.

Sol (31:59)
I love that.

Okay, next one. The difference between a difficult co-parent and a high-conflict co-parent is

Hallie Strauss (32:04)
filings, right? Constantly going back to court.

Kate Alcamo (32:07)
Hmm.

Hallie Strauss (32:08)
Lots of lots of co-parents can be difficult, you know, not wanting to trade

Kate Alcamo (32:10)
Mm-hmm.

Hallie Strauss (32:11)
times or check their email. But high conflict, I would say the two things I would highlight, going back to court a lot or completely non-responsive is actually

one of the most effective ways to be high conflict, is

to be completely non-responsive and making that

relationship just completely stall out.

Kate Alcamo (32:28)
Mm-hmm.

Sol (32:28)
Co parenting with a high conflict ex gets a little easier when...

Hallie Strauss (32:35)
when one party extends the olive branch or when one parent de-escalates, I think then that can really bring down the temperature. But Kate, it looks like you have another answer too.

Kate Alcamo (32:44)
I would say

that you accept they are who they are. I work with a lot of my coaching clients around, they'll get stuck in that, "Why did they do this? Why are they like this? They shouldn't be doing this," which keeps them stuck in this dynamic. And we do a lot of shifting towards "when they do this, it makes me feel..." So they can actually process what it feels like because they're stuck in that 'I want to change it. I know the answer that I can change it,' but you can't. So radical acceptance of my co-parent is who

they are and how can I deal with that.

Sol (33:13)
For a listener now who is feeling a bit down, maybe they're struggling with this co parenting dynamic, or maybe they're fresh into their divorce process, what's something that they could do today to feel a little bit more empowered, a little bit better?

Hallie Strauss (33:28)
I would say take some time to self-regulate, how we started the podcast. Do something for themselves, something

Kate Alcamo (33:33)
Mm.

Hallie Strauss (33:33)
small. It doesn't have to be a huge thing, but put the away, put the put the email into drafts, and go ground yourself, do something outside for five minutes or some kind of regulating activity for five minutes, to bring your nervous system down a little bit, and then

proceed from there. Cause I think when people react, that's much more detrimental overall for the relationship, for the outcome than if people are taking a step back and realizing, I don't have to react. I can plan a little bit more. I can be a little bit more decisive in how I choose to respond instead of reacting.

Kate Alcamo (34:06)
And then I would say connect with a safe, trusted person. When you're in high conflict with somebody, it can feel really isolating. Reminding yourself you have connections with other people that are safe and secure can just help you feel a bit more grounded.

Sol (34:20)
That's great. For listeners that want to connect with the Co-parenting Collective and each one of you, how can they find you?

Hallie Strauss (34:27)
They can find us on Instagram, so we're on Instagram @TheCoparentCollective, and they can find our website which is www.thecoparentcollective.com.

Sol (34:36)
Okay, we'll put those in the show notes. Thanks both for being on today and sharing your wisdom with us. It's been a real pleasure.

Kate Alcamo (34:42)
Thank you so much for having us.

Hallie Strauss (34:42)
Thanks for having us. It

was great.

Sol (34:44)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, please subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on today's podcast appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.