Sol (00:02)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol, founder of the BestInterest app for co parents. At BestInterest, and on this podcast, my goal is to help you find peace in the storm. Today I'm joined by Jill Kaufman and Justin Milrad, the co authors of the CoParenting Playbook. Jill is a licensed therapist, mediator, divorce coach, and longtime co-parenting expert. Justin is an entrepreneur and divorce coach whose

own divorce escalated into an eight-day trial and seven figures in legal expenses before he and his former spouse found their way back to a healthy co-parenting relationship. I'm excited for this conversation because Jill and Justin both bring professional and personal hard won experience to a hopeful idea that divorce itself does not have to damage children, but unresolved conflict can. If you're struggling to let go of resentment, communicate productively,

or build a relationship with your co parent that allows your children to thrive, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Sol (01:03)
Hi Jill, hi Justin, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you both joining us today.

Jill Kaufman (01:08)
Thank you so much for having us.

Justin Milrad (01:10)
Yeah, thank you. Great to be here.

Sol (01:12)
Now, Jill, we've had you on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast before back in season one, so listeners may be familiar with you. And Justin, you're a new face, so let's start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about why you're here and what brings you to the podcast today?

Justin Milrad (01:28)
Yeah, absolutely. Justin Milrad. I'm originally from Canada, Toronto to be specific, but I live here in Atlanta, Georgia. I got divorced in 2024 and never expected that in my life. My ex and I had the perfect marriage, or at least we thought for many years. We were the couple that many people wanted to be. And then when it was time to go through a divorce, you know, COVID very hard on us. We owned a business together.

And when we went through our divorce it turned into a war. It was a eight day jury trial. We spent seven figures suing each other. We had a business that we both owned and I saw and experienced and contributed to extreme ugliness in our divorce. Since then I became a divorce coach. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've worked in

every aspect of entrepreneurship from owning an HVAC company to a mental health and substance abuse treatment program. I became a divorce coach because I don't want anyone to go through the pain that I did. And kind of fast forward, my ex and I are getting along great. We're friends. We both feel that we went through a really silly cycle and it got

out of control and co-parenting I think is the most important thing we can do for our kids. Divorce can really damage kids if parents have extreme conflict. If you handle it well, it's as if the parents were never divorced and the kids are thriving. And I'm happy to say that my kids are thriving because of the the work that my ex and I have done.

Jill and I, we've been working together for a little over a year, and we put together a book on co-parenting, which is kind of a playbook. and that's why I'm here.

Sol (03:07)
Great. So much of that story resonates with me and I'm sure many of our listeners. So thank you for sharing that. And Jill, now over to you. Can you remind us a bit about what you do and and why you're here?

Jill Kaufman (03:18)
Absolutely.

So I'm a licensed therapist, divorce coach, mediator and co-parenting expert. I've been teaching parenting classes since the 90s for a long time. I went through my own very high conflict divorce, not nearly like Justin's, but it was not good. It impacted my kids in a negative way, and that's why I do this now because I want to protect children from what a lot of children have to go through.

My ex and I also get along now, which is really good. My kids are all thriving too. They're adults. My kids are all adults.

Sol (03:48)
Yeah, that's a wonderful goal to get to. And I'd love to hear more about that journey of how you each found that pathway for yourselves. Also, Justin, as you alluded to, you're here together because you co-authored a book together. And I'd love to hear more about how that ended up happening. How did the two of you decide to to do that?

Justin Milrad (04:07)
So, Jill, if it's okay, I'll go first. I met Jill probably a little over a year ago and I'm part of her her network group. She's just someone who continually pops up as an expert in the field, and I can tell in her heart of hearts, she wants to help people. When it came time to putting this book together, I was looking for a partner

of someone who really understands the connection between mind, body, spirit, and soul, understands the finances, understands the role of parents, and how to make kids thrive. Her background was perfect for that. I reached out to Jill and asked her if she was interested. Thankfully she said yes, and we worked on this book and I feel really good about it. The impetus for me was that, as a divorce coach,

I experienced many clients going through divorce or post divorce where they had really bad relationships with their ex. I think a big part of that is we're programmed that if you're divorced, your ex is evil. And they're gonna do everything in their power to make your life difficult and miserable. While that may be true in some cases, it's not true in

frankly, many cases. Like many things in life, if there's good communication and there's systems in place and there's conversations and you don't have to agree on everything, but you can make life a lot smoother, not just for the kids, but for yourself, because if you think about it, we're always on edge. If our ex is gonna send us a message or we're gonna run into them, we don't know what to expect.

But when you create those ground rules and you have conversations and you feel like you're in a safe place, even if you're not gonna agree, but at least you have a mechanism and a system, it's much more productive. And and the data proves it. I did lots of research on the data. It's not a divorce that damages kids, it's conflict that can damage kids. The research says that

a divorced couple that has a productive co-parenting relationship, it's as if they were in a happy marriage and never divorced. And that's pretty amazing.

Sol (06:04)
Jill, anything to to add to that journey?

Jill Kaufman (06:06)
Yeah.

As a therapist, and I do a lot of co-parenting counseling, I see a lot of people who are really raw in their emotions and they're very vulnerable. When those people go to the wrong sources to get guidance from, like attorneys, it turn it can turn into a war. I'm not throwing all attorneys under the bus,

but this happens way too often. I want people to understand that your emotions are real. It's so understandable that you have anger or resentment or frustration, whatever you're feeling is normal. But what you do with that is so important. What I love about this book, it's like a workbook where it really teaches you how

to manage and process those emotions so you're not taking it out with your co-parent in front of your children. Even if it's not in front of your children, your children feel that tension between the two of you and it impacts them. So that's what I think is different about this. It really helps people understand what to do with all of those emotions.

Sol (07:07)
Staying in that vein, you've both alluded to the impact that co-parenting can have on our kids. I'm curious from your perspective, when you've seen families go through this transition, what are some of the signs that indicate that a child is is thriving in a co-parenting dynamic?

Jill Kaufman (07:27)
Basically, it's gonna have an impact, right? Children are going to grieve, they're going to potentially regress, they're going to maybe ignore it and just avoid the whole thing. All of those things are normal. When you see children who are in that for extended periods of time,

that's when it really is is damaging. If you see where there's alienation, where one of the parents is saying something negative about the other parent and the child, who previously had a good relationship with both parents, now all of a sudden doesn't have with one parent. That's a problem. And that's not good, that damages kids.

Sol (08:06)
When we're approaching this as parents, sometimes we're wondering, well, how are my kids doing, right? How how much is what I'm witnessing as a normal adaptation to the two home lifestyle, versus how much is they're adjusting well or how much is this a red flag that I should be addressing?

Jill Kaufman (08:24)
Kids will handle it all different ways, but at each stage they're going to have an adjustment. When you first tell them there's an adjustment, when you move out of the home is another adjustment. Parents don't need to be worried about that. If there is something concerning, then they can see a therapist, and if both parents are supportive of that, that's really important too. But

all kids handle this differently. So there's not like one thing to look for.

Justin Milrad (08:50)
Parents typically know their kids pretty well. If their grades are slipping, if they're not eating well, if they're not sleeping, those are always signs of concern. But it could also be other things that are coming up, so having those open conversations. At the same time, when you see your child is experiencing joy, that's a really good sign. When

kids are put in the middle and they're parenting the parent, that's a really bad sign. Those loyalty bonds, you can usually tell in the conversations that you're having with your kids whether or not they're hurting and whether they feel stuck in the middle. I think as parents, it's our job, we have to hold the pain. We have to hold sometimes the narrative that wouldn't serve them well.

We have to make the best decision for them in the long term. Jill and I developed something called the child first decision filter. Step one is we ask the question of, how does this directly impact my child's well-being? And if it's neutral or negative, we don't do it. We also have to ask ourselves the question of, is this for my need or is it for my children's need?

Am I gonna do something because I wanna poke the other parent or I wanna, focus on what's fair? Then based on those decisions, we try and remove the tension so that the kids aren't put in a difficult decision and we do what's best for our kids. I went through a divorce where there was a a betrayal and I was angry and

I was the victim in my head for almost three years. And it wasn't until I hired a divorce coach who actually made me realize the radical acceptance of I probably will never ever get justice and nothing will ever truly be fair. And that's okay because no one wins in divorce, but you can win in life.

When I heard that and internalized it and did some introspection, it changed my entire mindset that I am going to be the best dad that I can possibly be to my kids. Even though I have some some bad history with my ex-wife, there's still a part of my heart that belongs to her. And I know it's the same with her. Most of the times we're good. And I'm going to cherish the past. I'm not going to look

back at it anymore, I'm gonna look forward and build the best life that I can live. I think that's really important because a divorce has a end date. The process of divorce has an end date. But we're gonna be in a business partnership with our kids for the rest of our lives. And I think that's really important.

Jill Kaufman (11:19)
I wanted to add to that, that we can give skills how to co-parent, but doing the work on yourself is really a big part of this because you can't be a good co-parent if you're struggling yourself. If you're a victim, I like what you said, you're a victim in your head. If you get out of that victim mind frame, then you you can be a really good co-parent. But it's very hard to do that when you

have all that built up anger and and you feel like the victim.

Sol (11:45)
Yeah, let's dive into that a little bit more because that's a theme that is very common to talk about on this podcast, getting out of the victim mindset. I think it can be really valuable. Could you lead us through maybe some ways that we might identify that in ourselves, that we are in that victim mindset and how we could get out of it?

Jill Kaufman (12:03)
If you have a really hard time detaching and want it to be fair, you need something from your ex that they're not giving you. You're really stuck in that place where you can't move forward because you need, them to apologize or them to recognize what they've done to you.

You have to know that that's not a good place to be. And you have to do something yourself because you cannot control them. So you're waiting for them to say the right things or do things different or recognize something is never gonna happen. You're giving them all of this control. So taking your control back is really accepting the radical acceptance, like Justin mentioned, of

what is happening right now. And what is happening is they're going to be whoever they're going to be, but you have complete control over how you're going to be. So that is what you do. From therapy, support groups, journaling, whatever it is you need to do to do that work, you have to get through this. Fourteen years past my divorce,

there's a part of me that still wants some of that. That never a hundred percent goes away, but it's so much more manageable at this point because I've done the work and because I've moved on and I've moved forward and I'm enjoying my life. What Justin said is, when you're enjoying your life, that is what you want. You don't want to be stuck in the place where you're focused on on your ex.

Justin Milrad (13:28)
The serenity prayer really helped me, and when I worked in mental health and substance abuse, we obviously use that a lot. The phrase, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I take that with some of the work I did with my divorce coach and my therapist. And then it was really interesting. There's a guy by the name of Jesse Itzler, who's an entrepreneur.

I was taking one of his courses and at the time he was about 52 or 53, and he talked about his four kids, and he put into perspective for me how many more winter vacations he has with them, and how many summer vacations. I thought about it, and at that time, I went backwards and I started calculating the ages of my kids.

I'm thinking to myself, well, I may only have four more, winter breaks with my eldest. That really put things into perspective for me. And then I heard another statistic that said, you will spend 90 to 95% of your time with your kids by the time they're 18. And that blew my mind. And that just compressed time for me. And that was my point of hitting rock bottom,

where I said, okay, I gotta stop fighting and I have to accept that some things are unjust. And these were the cards that I was dealt. I'm just gonna say this was God's plan and I'm gonna make the best of it. In hindsight, not only am I really happy that I did that, but I really focused on building the version of me that I call You 2.0.

And I, met a wonderful woman in, two more weeks, it'll be our three year anniversary. We're engaged to get married. She did the work and we're very happy. I hope that's gonna continue. But of course I didn't want to get divorced. This isn't the life I imagined. I didn't want this for my kids. But with that being said, I had some sort of agency and control to say I'm no longer the victim and that I have

control over my life and I'm gonna do what I feel is important while at the same time taking care of my kids and their future and certain things that I used to have with a giant house and fancy cars, well, it's gonna take some time to to rebuild that. And if I don't ever get that again, I'm okay with that.

Jill Kaufman (15:37)
Yeah.

Sol (15:37)
Yeah,

it takes a tremendous amount of courage, oftentimes to say yes to getting a divorce because it's not something that any of us ever expected for ourselves and it involves a lot of letting go. So I hear in your story that you went through this process of letting go of that and then stepping into the next stage, which is having the courage to forgive and move on into the next chapter fully.

Justin Milrad (16:02)
Mm-hmm.

Jill Kaufman (16:02)
Can

I add to that the letting go part? I mean, that's everything. Letting go of being in control of my kids when they were not with me, letting go of being able to do every holiday with my children. Letting go of anger at myself. That was a big thing. I was angry at myself that I've married my ex for so long.

I know everybody's like, well, you have your kids and that's great. But I was like, I should have known and why did I do that? And then I had to let that go. I had to forgive myself because I did the best that I knew at that time. And thank God I did it. I'm not mad at myself anymore. Thank God I did it. I have my three kids. They're awesome adults that I get to hang out with. I just went to a show with them recently. I'm remarried.

I'm so happy. I have three stepkids. Same with you, Justin. I would much rather be with my the person I had children with and have an intact family. That would be awesome. But I'm much happier than I was when I was married to my first husband. You have the opportunity to do so much with your life. I think people don't see that when they're going through this.

But

letting go is so important.

Justin Milrad (17:09)
On the topic of co-parenting and having an effective co-parenting relationship, I'm gonna say this on the record. I love having 50% of my nights to myself. Originally I sat, watched TV, ate too much, drank too much, and it was self-destructive. But once I actually realized that this could be wonderful time to do things that I want, I really enjoy it.

And because my ex and I have a great co-parenting relationship, I am not restricted to communicate with my kids. If it's my night and there's a baseball game or a concert or something fun that I want to do with my kids, I'll reach out to my ex. And if they don't have plans and they're available, she's gonna say, Go for it. And we do that vice versa. So, there are certainly some benefits for being in this situation, but it's just another reason why

you want to make sure that you have a system in place to have a good co-parenting relationship.

Sol (18:05)
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 (18:27)
And

now, back to the show.

Sol (18:29)
I'm hearing these stories and there's actually a piece that you said, Justin, that's sticking with me right now, where you said that a piece of your heart is still with your ex. Could you explain that more to me? Because that's such a powerful statement, and it feels like it's part of this journey that you've been on.

Justin Milrad (18:46)
Absolutely. Fifteen years together, three beautiful kids, dozens of trips, most of the times we're good. Up until COVID, which took a real toll on my marriage and lots of other marriages, things were great. We started a business together that was extraordinarily successful. On the outside that looks great, but it also created a lot of stress in our marriage.

One of the things that I come back to often, especially in divorce, is you loved this person at one point, right? We all loved our exes. We all imagined a future that we had with them. And that future didn't play out the way we had expected. It's okay to grieve that because that's worth grieving. But she will always be a memory of mine. I didn't delete old pictures of her,

or old pictures with my kids. In my house and in her house we have pictures of each other on the wall and I'm not talking about in a bookshelf that no one sees. I'm talking about on a wall. And I think that's an important part of co-parenting because it's not really for me to see. It's for my kids to see. They notice and they say things like, "we're so happy that you're friendly with each other."

And it sure beats the alternative. I also know not in every case can that be a possibility, but I would urge every parent to really try their hardest to get to that point. I'll say with a handful of my clients, we've done these intense two, three session activities where we get together and we lay out all the issues on the table, and none of them are really that major.

We come up with resolutions and moving forward it just makes it such a more pleasant situation. Jill, curious what your thoughts are, but I think in 90% of the the cases the relationship can be improved tremendously.

Jill Kaufman (20:29)
Absolutely. It can, but you're right. Sometimes there's one party that's just not willing to and you just have to accept that. But most of the time what I tell people is, keep trying, 'cause you never know when it could happen. Maybe at some point they've moved on, even if they hadn't in the beginning, because that happened for me.

Sol (20:46)
I appreciate that you both have said that. That's been on my mind hearing, especially Justin, your story. It's very inspiring. And yet, speaking for myself, but also for many of my listeners, we find ourselves in a situation that doesn't feel as malleable. It feels like we have to learn how to cope with a high-conflict situation where we feel more guarded and it feels difficult to break those those barriers down. We've done the work.

We've forgiven, but yet also there's kind of this ongoing tension that is challenging. And I'm curious what you either one of you might have to say about that situation and what we can do.

Jill Kaufman (21:26)
It's

not a great place to be. Here's the thing. You don't have to be there if your ex is like that. Cause you can say to yourself, they're gonna do whatever they're gonna do. I can show up the way I want to show up. You can continue to reach your arm out and you can t continue to do the right thing. Eventually that may or may not work.

But you can feel good about that.

Justin Milrad (21:48)
Yeah. We are responsible and in full control of how we feel and how we choose to show up. There's a real mind shift there and it's not easy to do. The relationship can always be revisited, the parenting plan can always be revisited. One of the things that I thought was really important to put in this book that, Jill and I spent a lot of time talking about is

putting systems in place, but also identifying things that would be problematic in the future. So I'll give you a couple examples. Lawyers really do a good job, most of them, understanding the law and getting you divorced. Getting you to the point where you get the stamp on your divorce decree and you're officially divorced. Where I find they do a mediocre job in most cases, not all cases,

Is number one, prep you for mediation. And number two, setting up a a parenting plan for all ages and stages. What I mean by that is number one, if each party doesn't really understand what their budget is and what they need to live, they're gonna have resentment. They're not gonna know what is the right number to walk away with, what can I let go? What do I need?

And then, you think about things like different ages and stages. Well, the needs of a toddler are very different from the needs of a tween. Very rarely do I ever see in a parenting plan discussion about bar and bat mitzvahs, you know, quinciñeras, sweet sixteens,

SATs, tutoring, college. So what creates a lot of strain in relationships? Well, the thing that creates strains and good relationships too, money. 70% of people, it's on their mind, and that creates a big challenge in relationships. Well, if you can talk about those things, you don't even have to solve them all because there are a lot of unknowns in the future, but if you can solve

or at least have something in place for those things, you don't get a phone call or a text message saying, hey, our child is turning sixteen and they need a car. I found a car, it's forty thousand dollars, send me twenty thousand dollars. That's where issues happen. So anything that you can pre-plan, even if it's just let's have a discussion and at the time we'll take a look at our finances and see what's possible.

You are minimizing the chances of something explosive.

Jill Kaufman (24:04)
By the way, you can do this after you have your divorce agreement signed because what happened with mine is my ex just stopped paying the alimony when my mom died because I was inheriting some money. And I was like, you can't do that. And he said, Okay, well we should go to mediation. I said, we don't need to go to mediation, I'm a mediator. So we talked it through. I gave him a proposal, he sent it back, and we came up with an agreement.

We gave

it to someone to write up and you can talk through these things, especially if you have a better relationship. So that's a reason to have a a better relationship because things will come up and you can talk them through and you don't have to go back to court. You don't have to hire attorneys and you can settle these things.

Sol (24:45)
You're highlighting

an interesting catch 22 of co parenting where you are sometimes expected to come to all these agreements right when the fire is hottest and you're at the highest conflict. So it's difficult. You just want to get through it. And so it's nice to to create a system so that or a parenting plan that is flexible enough to adapt to those changes in the future, to anticipate that there's going to be a need to decide it in the future,

without

front loading all of that madness in the beginning, sometimes.

Justin Milrad (25:14)
I think having a thought partner is really important. I always say this, You 2.0. Divorce a better way forward. Be very cautious who you seek counsel from. Because if you're seeking counsel from your best friend or your mother you someone who really doesn't like your ex, someone online who doesn't

have a credential,

you may be getting very bad advice. I've seen that play out time and time again. It creates conflict. Another thing is lots of people when there's an issue, especially if they have the financial resources, they're gonna go right to their attorney and say, "My ex..." fill in the blank. Then there's letters going back and forth between attorneys. It's much easier to go to a coach, you can go to a

co-parenting expert, you can go to a mediator. The lawyer, court should be, your last ditch effort for we just cannot have a conversation or we can't come to a resolution. But, when you show up with a bazooka, to a simple gunfight, it's way too much ammunition and it's going to cause lots and lots of destruction.

Sol (26:16)
When

you both were working on this book, were there areas that the two of you found some disagreement that you resolved while you were writing it?

Jill Kaufman (26:25)
There were areas that each of us headed because each of us have different strengths. I wouldn't say we disagreed on much.

We're pretty aligned on a lot of the stuff. But how to support your children is one of my areas of focus. And Justin has done a ton of work in this 2.0, which I think is an incredible way to think about it.

Justin Milrad (26:44)
Yeah, it was more a conversation. I will say there was one part that Jill insisted, that I didn't even really think about, to put in the book that was super helpful, which was putting yourself in the shoes of the kids. What's going through their brain? What are they looking for? How do we as parents really think about their needs? Not our needs, but their needs. That took it to the next level.

Jill Kaufman (27:07)
Yeah, because so we're going through so much. I mean, it's a crisis in our lives and it's hard to remember what it feels like to be a child. This in a child's point of view is a totally different thing. I remember one of my kids said to me, "I didn't decide to divorce, you did." So I shouldn't have to deal with X, Y, and Z. That's how they are.

They're not thinking about you. And that's how it should be, by the way. They shouldn't think about you. You should do the most you can to protect them from everything. Too often we're like, well, can you see all that I'm going through? No, they can't really, they shouldn't see what we're going through. We should handle it, get support so that we can support them.

Justin Milrad (27:47)
In many cases, we don't know what we're doing wrong. There's a requirement pretty much in every state that before the divorce is done, you're supposed to take a mandatory, four-hour co-parenting course. And it's often handed out at the last minute. In my particular case, I loved my lawyer, but it was like a last minute thing. It's, "by the way, for this to be final, you have to take a four hour course."

It was really good. I was not looking forward to it, but it was really good. A lot of the things that I learned, I did them wrong. I feel like the minute that you're either served or you decide to get a divorce or you file for divorce, your lawyer should say to you, "You have to take this course and take it today. Do not put it off." Because you're gonna learn some things that you never really thought of.

One of the exercises in the book that I really love is "am I a toxic parent?" If you'd asked me that question, I said, "Of course I'm not a toxic parent." But when I did the assessment, there were some things I did that were a little toxic. We all do, but we don't

know unless we know. Before I was talking about some sessions I do with my clients

to improve the co-parenting relationship and part of that is there's an assessment. Until you actually ask yourself these questions, you're like, well, yeah, maybe I could see, how this may affect the other party and how this may affect my kids and how I could maybe use different words.

Sol (29:08)
Now,

Justin, you come from a background in business. How much does that perspective apply to the advice that you're giving in this book?

Justin Milrad (29:18)
A lot. I think the biggest part of it, and Jill, keep me honest on this, was the financial component.

I think that's a big differentiator between this book and other co parenting books. If you're going through divorce, it really helps you think about how do you set yourself up so that you'll be successful financially for the rebuild. How are you choosing to

divide assets to ensure you have the liquidity you need and that you don't get yourself in financial trouble. I thought that was super helpful. I think also the the finance background helps you with your longer term planning because a lot of people just want to get it done. It's not about getting it done, because you're only gonna have one chance realistically

to get an agreement and you need to be prepared. If you're gonna be prepared, you're gonna walk away with a deal you can live with. No one wins in divorce. A lot of people leave things up on the table. A lot of people don't know things, they don't understand what a QDRO is, they don't understand what premarital assets are. I can't tell you how many times I've worked with a client

where they have significant premarital assets and their attorney never even brought it up because they're not using a divorce attorney, or the attorney never asked the question, "Where did you get the money to put down on this house?"

So I think it helps.

Sol (30:34)
Switching gears to the day to day with co parenting, oftentimes conflict from my experience starts with communication. In your book and in your experience, what are some tools or techniques that co-parents can apply to their communication to ensure that things stay on the rails?

Jill Kaufman (30:53)
There's a lot of things that I think people don't realize. They think they're putting it through Chat GPT and they're popping out something that is appropriate. But ChatGPT doesn't get innuendos really. Having somebody, a professional, look at

what you're doing just so that you are aware of how it sounds is really helpful for a lot of people. There's of course the BIFF method. We we go into a lot of methods in the book. Bill Eddy's stuff is one of my favorite things, and being able to make sure that you are being positive.

When you're, focused on some positive stuff that the other parent is doing is really important. I think we let that go too much. They do the gray rock method or the yellow rock. And you don't understand that if you're not saying something positive, it can come off in a really business like way. Some people take that in in a negative way. So if you can find positive things to thank your co-parent for,

to point out, to talk about, I think that's a big, big plus, but you wanna talk about some of the other things in the book, Justin?

Justin Milrad (31:58)
Well, I think communication in general is really important. I think withholding communication is problematic. I'm probably a little biased here, but I feel like women do a better job with planning extracurriculars, school, camp. I call them the backpack ferry. For years my ex-wife made sure that my kids were where they needed to be, when they needed, they're signed up for camp.

They had everything they needed. And then when I had to get more involved, I really didn't know what to do. So withholding that information would not have been productive. But we decided, you know what, you've done it in the past. Let's just split some of the responsibility. So for example, I did the forms, she did the signups, and it's worked out well. Now, that isn't gonna work in every situation because not everyone is like my ex.

But withholding information, people do it out of spite. It happened yesterday with someone, with pickup from camp. The ex-husband didn't know where to get the child, knew the location, but there were like five different entrances. My client said, "Well, I'm not telling him. He didn't read his email." I'm like, "you know, it's for the benefit of your child. It's not a big deal. You know he's incapable of doing that.

And the only one who really suffered was your child and you got the headache, involved in it." So if you can help and support one another, you should. Use a calendar, use one or two communication methods. I'm a big fan of the apps.

Jill Kaufman (33:25)
I did all that when we were together. And then after that I was like, I don't have to do this anymore. So it was really something I was excited about. But you're right, it was hard for him, so I helped a little in the beginning and then, handed it off to him.

Justin Milrad (33:40)
Truthfully some people are capable of learning and being trained and some people aren't. I remember I was consulting a client once and she thought her husband, who's a doctor by the way, anesthesiologist, so he's no dummy, was completely incapable of managing the kids. We went through this assessment and the assessment asks certain questions and then it says, completely incapable,

capable with some training, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And she came out after, she's like, okay, I guess he is capable. When I really think about it, he's just not capable today. And we can set up a mechanism for him to learn. It goes both ways. If, for example, someone gets the house, you shouldn't just walk away and say, okay, you figure it out.

If you're holding the information, here's the number of the gardener, here's how often, you we put fertilizer on the lawn, here's the pool guy, et cetera. You're just making each other's lives easier and you recognize after a while that you're not here to destroy each other's lives and that you have to be business partners in your kids forever, so why be miserable? That's a decision and it's a choice.

Not everyone's capable.

Sol (34:44)
And

it's a decision actually that you need to make on your own, regardless of how you feel about the other person's behavior. And if you make that decision, then eventually the other person might come around. But it's really about you.

Jill Kaufman (34:56)
Hundred percent.

Sol (34:57)
Alright

guys, now it's time for our lightning round. And since there's two of you, this is going to get either awkward or crazy or it's just gonna come out perfect. How it's gonna work is I'm going to read a sentence and then you'll fill in the blank. And we'll do it fast as fingers. So whoever wants to speak, go for it. Alright? Okay. The single most important thing co-parents can do for their children is...

Jill Kaufman (35:21)
have a good relationship with their other parents.

Justin Milrad (35:23)
Be present.

Sol (35:24)
Mm, I like both of those answers. I'm especially a big fan of presence. Mm, thank you. The thing co-parents say that they think is helpful but is actually damaging is...

Jill Kaufman (35:34)
"I understand why you feel that way about your other parent because they did that to me."

Justin Milrad (35:41)
I'd say, taking sides.

Sol (35:43)
In particular taking sides with their kids?

Justin Milrad (35:46)
With their kids versus

if the other parent is right.

Trying to build their love by agreeing with them.

Sol (35:53)
When a co-parent tells me that they're doing it for the kids, I ask them...

Justin Milrad (35:58)
Does it benefit you as well?

Sol (35:59)
Hm, that's some good introspection.

Yeah, can you tell me more about that?

Justin Milrad (36:02)
If you're doing it for the kids, does it make your life a little easier? Does it give you calm that the kids are getting what they want and what they need?

Sol (36:12)
Yeah, I think you're asking us to be more introspective about the reasons that govern our behavior and our interactions, just so we're fully aware.

The most underrated part of the co-parenting playbook is...

Jill Kaufman (36:26)
the benefits of divorce. The benefits that you get when you get divorced.

Sol (36:31)
Sometimes it's hard

to see the benefits while you're in it. But yeah, I wanna hear more.

Jill Kaufman (36:36)
Like Justin said, the time to yourself is a gift. I just remember 20 years I was married, not having any time to myself, didn't focus on myself at all. And then all of a sudden I had this time and it was really an adjustment, obviously, but once I was adjusted, you look forward to it. It's amazing how much. I mean, your kids are

are gonna leave the house hopefully at some point. So you have to do this at some point, but why not do it, while you're younger? That is a gift. The other thing is that the one-on-one time with your kids without the other parent is really special. You don't have that same dynamic in an intact family. I mean, I could go on. Your kids become more d independent. They really do.

They become stronger, you become stronger.

Justin Milrad (37:19)
I love all those. I just like to add, we're on the hamster wheel of life, right? When you have kids, you're doing the same things, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. You never really get off the hamster wheel to really think about how things are going. Are you happy with who you are? Are you happy with your current situation? Well, in divorce, you get off the hamster wheel. Even though you may not have been unhappy as a

person, you have an opportunity to kind of design and recalibrate your life the way you want it to be. And then I want to add to Jill's point, the one-on-one time is incredible. I feel like in my own situation, we were just running around with the kids doing things every single day, rinse and repeat. And now I'm a lot more intentional with the time that I spend with my kids.

Sol (38:05)
I love both of those points. Just to add to it too, I was reflecting with my partner last night as we were laying in bed and talking about my kids who are with their mom right now. We were planning out activities for them when they come back. And we were reflecting that this time without the kids, actually gives us the space to think about what comes next, which helps me be a better dad, helps me be more involved rather than just constantly running on that hamster wheel of life.

I do get a little chance to breathe and recoup and focus on myself and then it's about them. So I think that they get a better experience with both of their parents because of that dynamic.

Jill Kaufman (38:43)
Definitely. I agree.

Sol (38:44)
Well,

Justin and Jill, thank you so much for being on and telling about your book and sharing your expertise. For those that are interested in getting the book or learning more about your work, how can they find it?

Justin Milrad (38:56)
It's on Amazon. It's called The Co-

Parenting Playbook Proven Strategies for Navigating Divorce, Conflict, and Raising Thriving Kids. I think that's the easiest way to get it. Pretty soon it'll be

Audible as well.

Jill Kaufman (39:09)
And they can get me at DivorceCoachJill.com and Justin, your website.

Justin Milrad (39:13)
Yep, I'm

at www.ReclaimAndReboot .me

Sol (39:17)
Great. Well, thank you so much for being on today. We'll put all of those links in the show notes, and it was great to have you.

Jill Kaufman (39:23)
Thank you so much. It

Justin Milrad (39:23)
Great to be here.

Jill Kaufman (39:23)
was fun.

Justin Milrad (39:24)
Thank you.

Sol (39:26)
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.

Sol (39:44)
The

commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.