October 22, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of 1 in 3, child psychologist Dr. Royster joins Ingrid to unpack how to protect children’s mental health in high-conflict co-parenting and post-separation abuse situations. A calm home, a steady voice, and the right words at the right time can change a child’s life—even when a co-parent thrives on chaos.
Dr. Royster breaks down the three main co-parenting models—collaborative, nesting, and parallel parenting—and explains when each approach fits. If your ex uses control, blame, or litigation as leverage, you’ll learn why parallel parenting may be the safest path and how to apply it without escalating conflict. She also shares practical scripts for debriefing after exchanges, helping parents validate feelings, reduce anxiety, and protect their children from emotional harm.
We get specific about documentation that holds up in court—tracking patterns, transitions, and measurable effects on your child instead of drowning in daily notes. Dr. Royster outlines when to seek trauma-informed therapy—for signs like chronic anxiety, extended sadness, or regression—and how to find a therapist who understands domestic violence dynamics and high-conflict divorce.
When therapy access is blocked, she offers backup options like coaching, group support, and tools for managing tech conflicts, recorded calls, and inconsistent rules between homes. The message is hope and agency: one attuned, consistent parent can be a powerful buffer against instability and manipulation.
If this episode helps, subscribe, rate, and share so more families facing post-separation abuse can find clear, compassionate guidance. Tell us the next question you want a child psychologist to answer on 1 in 3.
Dr. Royster’s Links:
https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/dr-karalynn-royster/
https://learnwithlittlehouse.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kids-first-co-parenting-with-dr-royster/id1828016840
https://www.instagram.com/learnwithlittlehouse/
https://www.youtube.com/@learnwithlittlehouse
https://www.tiktok.com/@learnwithlittlehouse
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
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Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Co-parenting and specifically high conflict
co-parenting in the context ofpost-separation abuse are topics
we're all becoming increasinglyfamiliar with on this podcast.
But the truth is, there's stillso much more left to learn.
Please welcome my guest joiningme today, child psychologist Dr.
(00:20):
Royster, who is here to help usdive deeper.
Hi, Dr.
Royster.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
I'm so happy to be here.
Thank you.
Okay, so before we dive into ourconversation, could you give a
bit of a background just so thelisteners can get to know you?
SPEAKER_03 (00:37):
Yeah.
Well, so let's see.
I'm in Colorado and I'm aWisconsin native.
You and I talk about that a lot.
Um yeah.
That's also why it's so easy totalk to both of us, I think.
Um I have two kids, and we liveand parent here in Colorado.
(00:57):
We have for a long time.
I'm a child psychologist.
I have my own practice here inthe Denver area.
It's called Little HousePsychology, an homage to Laura
Engelsweiler, who started inWisconsin as well.
That's right.
Little House in the Big Woods.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
My daughter started reading that book.
SPEAKER_03 (01:14):
Yeah, just the other day.
Go back and read them.
You're a little bit like, ooh,there's this is problematic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's some problems.
But uh, I loved the books when Iwas little.
And so that's where the practicename came from.
And then I do therapy almostexclusively with children.
That's my specialty.
That's what I've always loveddoing.
(01:35):
And I work with a lot of kidsfrom two homes.
And so I see those childrentherapeutically.
And then over time, I started torealize that there's this whole
group of people that, moms inparticular, that really struggle
to know how to support theirkids in that dynamic.
And as the therapist or as theirpsychologist, I was really
(01:58):
limited with what I could andcouldn't say, right?
You really have to be veryneutral.
And so out of that came mysecond business, which is learn
with a little house.
And that is a coaching businessonly for moms who are moving
past or still in high conflictdivorce, post-separation abuse,
(02:22):
um, managing having their kiddosgo in and out of these really
toxic dynamics.
And so I do a lot of work theretalking with moms about how,
like if I could be a little bugin your ear when a kid comes
back and says something reallyoff the wall to you, that's what
I do in that business.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
Okay, perfect.
SPEAKER_03 (02:41):
So it's a very long introduction.
SPEAKER_01 (02:44):
No, but that's exactly what we need here.
So um, okay.
Well, and well, I was looking atyour profile, and then there's
you had a few terms that Iwasn't really sure.
The difference betweenco-parenting, parallel
parenting, and nesting.
SPEAKER_03 (02:55):
Yeah.
I don't know what that is.
Okay, this is great.
So I'm happy to talk about this.
I would say that the goldstandard for kids, what helps
kids a lot post-divorce, is whatwe consider to be collaborative
co-parenting.
So that's kind of the goldstandard.
(03:17):
Basically, you can think of itas kids do worse when there's
more conflict.
Right?
So everybody's kind of trying toget to this really beautiful
co-parenting dynamic, right?
Where, you know, you get along,you can stand by each other at
the soccer game and the policedoesn't get called.
(03:38):
Um, you can generally text eachother, you can talk to each
other, you're not super worriedabout your co-parent, you know,
talking shit about you orsabotaging your relationship,
right?
This is definitely kind of thedynamic, very business-like, is
very collaborative as well.
But I would say even friendly.
(04:00):
Okay.
So that's collaborativeco-parenting.
Anytime you hear somebody talkabout that, they will tell you
that took a lot of work.
That took a lot of time.
We still have our moments,right?
Like if we could parentpeacefully together, we might
still be together, right?
So that's a that's kind of whatpeople are working towards.
And that's what the researchtells us helps kids the most.
(04:22):
On both, you can kind of thinkof that as the middle of the
road.
On both sides of that areparallel and nesting.
Nesting is a term that we usefor folks that you can, it's
comes from bird nesting.
Think of birds, right?
Um, think of birds.
The bird nest is the familyhome, and the kids stay there,
(04:46):
and one parent flies, quoteunquote, in and out of the
house.
So there's usually a separatehouse on the outside, like a
small apartment or something,that the kids really never go
to, but the parents transitionin and out of the house.
It works best when it'stemporary.
So, in in cities and places likewhere we live, in Colorado, I
(05:09):
assume also in Tennessee, housesare really expensive.
The housing market's bananas,even if you had the money to get
a house, would be hard.
And so a lot of families usethis while they're still in tied
up in divorce proceedings,right?
If you're waiting to sell thehouse or you're waiting for, I
(05:29):
don't know, part of your umsettlement to help you purchase
a second home, right?
Like this kind of dynamic.
As you can imagine, thatrequires a very high level of
cooperation, right?
Because if you got salty when hewouldn't unload the dishwasher
before, imagine when you're notthere and you come back from
(05:51):
your apartment and thedishwasher is dirty, right?
So it's it requires a prettyhigh level of cooperation.
Okay.
So that's kind of the nestingidea.
Then at the far end of the otherside of the continuum is what we
call parallel parenting.
Parallel parenting is you wantto think about it a little bit
(06:11):
like um like a divided highway,right?
Like an interstate.
You're going one direction, yourpartner's going the other
direction, you do not cross themedian, right?
What happens in our house is myown rules, my own punishments.
They don't, it's not like if Itake away the iPad at my place,
(06:32):
I can expect the iPad to betaken away at the other house,
right?
Um rules are separate, routinesare separate, there's very
little communication across theinterstate, right?
And typically, parallelparenting, it's very normal for
folks to do parallel parentingbefore they can get to
(06:55):
collaborative.
And that's because there's a lotof healing and hurt, right?
So along the grief process,that's pretty normal.
And then you move towards that.
But we also see it in situationswhere there was abuse, violence,
um, where there'spost-separation abuse, where
there continues to be thisreally high conflict, very
(07:16):
litigious, very intenserelationship.
Then we often recommend parallelparenting for everyone's sake.
It's better for the courts, forthe legal proceedings, and it's
also better for usually theco-parent's own mental health,
right?
There's less, there's lesscrossing.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Well, I think, unfortunately, for probably a
lot of the listeners, given thisas a domestic violence podcast,
is that it's probably acombination of parallel parking
or parking, parking, parallelparenting um with the abusive
ex, like playing, crossing thatmedian and playing chicken with
(07:57):
you.
SPEAKER_03 (07:58):
You know, this is not my quote.
I didn't come up with this, butI read somewhere that it's like
co-parenting, quote unquote,whatever you want to call it,
um, is one of the only dynamicswhere you're expected to stay in
contact with your abuser.
You have to.
You have children, right?
And and sometimes that persondisappears, but often the types
(08:24):
of folks that engage in abuse,narcissistic abuse, domestic
violence, that that type ofabuse are really interested in
power and control and havingkids in the dynamic is like, I
don't know, their fuel.
Like they're they're notinterested in what's best for
their kids.
They're interested in power andcontrol over you.
(08:47):
And the way they do that isthrough the kids.
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Exactly.
And that I think is wherethere's the potential for so
many, I guess, mistakes that thethe victim parent can run into
because they're trying toadvocate for their child or
children.
They're also trying to navigatethis whole power struggle that's
(09:11):
happening.
And there's this fine linebetween advocating and becoming
too aggressive, to where thecourt system looks at that
parent and thinks they'reactually the controlling one or
they're actually the aggressiveperson.
SPEAKER_03 (09:28):
Yes.
And I think what gets reallytricky too is in cases where
it's it's more of an emotionalor narcissistic abuse, that's
very hard to prove.
Right.
And so, and it's you know, it'snot as clear as something like
(09:51):
physical abuse, where there's aCPS report, there's an injury,
it's not, it's not debatable ifit's happening or not.
And the classic move is to say,uh, well, she's just poisoning
me against the kids when momsare trying to talk about this
kind of concern they have fortheir children's well-being.
SPEAKER_01 (10:14):
Right.
So many thoughts on sure.
And I've had a few people comeon and and talk about this in
you know, different fromdifferent points of view.
But uh like what do you I don'tthink we can hear enough.
(10:36):
Like, what do you do?
You know, how do you how do you,when you're getting your kids
home and you realize that what'shappening, you know, you're
doing that sort of parallelparenting, but what's happening
at that other house is damagingor, you know, not not creating
this stable environment for thekids to where they're
(10:57):
emotionally healthy, they'readjusting well, or you know,
even bad not taking on baddestructive behavior.
How do you counteract, I guess?
SPEAKER_03 (11:08):
Yeah.
Well, and I think this goes backto what you what we were talking
about earlier about why it'simportant to understand what
lane that you're in.
Because if you have acollaborative dynamic, if this
is somebody you even have abusiness-like relationship with,
or you have you're workingreally hard to assume the best
of your co-parent, you're gonnahandle those situations
(11:31):
different, right?
Because you might know your kidis being a kid and trying to
play you guys off of each other.
So your kid might come back andsay something like, Well, dad
says you're really stupid withmoney, right?
If I'm in a collaborativedynamic, I may think to myself,
or even just with my own kids,right?
(11:51):
We're still together, we'repartnered, right?
I know that they wouldn't saythat about me, right?
So it's really easy for me to belike, Well, I wonder what your
dad was thinking when he saidthat.
Or I'm pretty sure your daddoesn't think I'm stupid if he
said that, you know, likewhatever, right?
You might address it.
(12:11):
And then you might go to yourco-parent and say, Hey, look,
uh, they said you said this, andI know you would never say that.
What do you think is going onhere?
Right.
Imagine that with someone toxic.
And I'm using that term toencompass all of what this
podcast kind of talks about.
You you would never, right?
(12:33):
You wouldn't open yourself up tothat.
You to your child might bethinking, well, it's pretty
likely they did hear that, andit's pretty likely they meant
it.
And now I have to offset this,right?
So, how do we manage that?
Well, this is why there's wholeother programs and systems.
It takes a different set ofskills.
(12:54):
It really does.
The first thing that we talkabout all the time is
documenting, having a very goodsystem for how and what you're
documenting.
Because in these post-separationabuse dynamics, you the list of
what you're documenting isendless.
So there's a strategy that Irecommend folks work with their
(13:17):
attorneys on around what is itwe're trying to achieve?
What is it I'm really trying toprove that they are consistently
speaking poorly about me?
Or I'm really trying to approvethat they trying to prove, not
approve, trying to prove thatthey're inching closer and
closer with transitions.
They're getting earlier andearlier and earlier, right?
(13:40):
Or I'm seeing a pattern of everytime kiddo comes back from a
long visit, we have fall apartfor two days.
Whatever it might be, you'reyou're strategically documenting
that because otherwise you getsuper overwhelmed documenting
everything.
Okay.
So there's that piece.
And then there is support andcoaching around what to say and
(14:03):
what not to say to kids, right?
Sometimes I work mostly withmoms.
Um, sometimes moms have read orkind of been, it's been drilled
into them to not say anythingpoorly or or bad about their ex,
right?
And over time, the way that getstranslated is I just won't say
(14:27):
anything.
The kid comes back and they saythat dad said I was stupid.
I'm not supposed to say anythingbad, so I don't say what I want
to say, which is no, he'sstupid, and he's stupid for
telling you that.
Which of course you might thinkbut not say, right?
And so you end up sayingnothing.
You say something like, oh,okay, and then move on, right?
(14:53):
But when kids' mental health isat play and when it really is
like turning against you, youneed to go a step beyond that.
And you need to say somethinglike, I really appreciate you
telling me that.
What did that make you feel likewhen he was talking about me
like that?
Or, gosh, you know, we don'tcall people stupid.
(15:17):
What is that's kind of a hurtfulthing to say to someone.
You see how that's not talkingbadly about him at all.
It isn't.
I'm not saying he shouldn't besaying that to you.
I'm saying, what did that feellike to hear that?
And thanks for telling me.
So it's that type of skill thatwe teach.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Okay, and that's also putting it on the kid to
recognize their feelings and tounderstand that their feelings
are validated and okay to feel.
SPEAKER_03 (15:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Because you also have to imaginein that dynamic, it's probably
not safe for that kid todisagree with that toxic person.
SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (15:57):
Uh, and and that could be actual physical safety,
but it could also be emotionalsafety.
This is someone that will shameme or call me stupid or make my
life hell if I say, like, hey, Idon't think mom's stupid.
Right.
And it also speaks to yourrelationship with your child
that they're coming back andsharing what they saw and felt.
SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, our goal is alwaysthe we want our kids to be well
adjusted and stable.
So other than that, are thereany other things that parents
can do to make sure that theyare helping their children
develop to become emotionallysecure, and especially in these
(16:43):
like really diverse chaoticenvironments?
There's so much.
SPEAKER_03 (16:48):
I mean, there's so much you can do.
We have a whole like program onthis, right?
Because it's many, many smallthings.
So part of it is teaching kidshow to test reality themselves,
right?
How to look around and sort ofdiscern.
(17:09):
And this takes a lot of time.
Younger kids kind of justbelieve what their parents say,
right?
It's very threatening to notbelieve that.
But if you continue to helpteach them how to discern and
question and observe, over timethey do start to see things for
(17:30):
what they are, right?
So if you're doing that in anon-judgmental way that doesn't
put them in the middle, thatreally helps.
The best things mom can moms cando has to do with, and this is a
way oversimplified way ofthinking of it, but controlling
what they can control, right?
(17:52):
So if you want to raise kidsthat speak their mind and share
with you and think feelings areokay, then you are really
encouraging those things in yourown time, in your own lane of
the highway, right?
And you're continuing to try tosupport that with the other
lane, but knowing that youcan't, right?
(18:14):
Right.
unknown (18:15):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (18:15):
You can't text him and be like, listen, when she
starts crying, you better say,It's okay to cry.
It's not gonna probably do theexact opposite.
Exactly, exactly.
But you can, when she comes backand she says, I started crying
and I got in trouble for it, youcan say things like, Well,
that's not okay.
(18:36):
Sorry that happened to you.
Yeah, it's always okay to cry.
unknown (18:40):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (18:40):
Right?
So you're reinforcing yourvalues whenever you can.
SPEAKER_01 (18:44):
So I can do thinking.
I know.
And then remember, I was sayingit's swirly.
SPEAKER_03 (18:54):
So it's I have to like well, and it is an
oversimplified way.
I mean, we're trying to distilllike what I teach in six months,
right?
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Well, okay, so let's say parents are are doing all of
you know these techniques, theseum techniques.
When when uh is there any likewarning signs or like red alert
sign, or you don't want to getto a red alert, but any signs
where you're thinking, I mightneed to actually have my child
(19:24):
go seek um, you know,communication with somebody, not
seek help or that there'ssomething wrong with them, but
finding a a third party for themto talk to.
SPEAKER_03 (19:34):
Yeah, and we'll talk about some of the difficulties
with that as well.
Um the classics, so the firstsign that I always talk to moms
about is trusting yourintuition.
There really isn't anything morepowerful.
You know your kid best.
If you're starting to be like,wow, we are way sadder for way
(19:56):
longer, right?
Or this now feels bigger thansomething I can manage myself.
It's becoming less of a they'remildly distressed and more like
we're anxious all the time,right?
Or we're getting depressed.
With littler kids, we see reallybig behaviors.
(20:18):
A very common one is separationanxiety that is not really
developmentally appropriate.
There's periods when that'spretty typical, um, and lengths
of time that it's prettytypical, right?
So you're starting a newclassroom and you're four.
It's pretty normal for that totake a couple weeks for you to
adjust.
(20:38):
But if we're now three months inand they're still pulling your
screaming child off of you andthey're saying, gosh, you know,
it takes her an hour to calmdown.
That's we're edging out of whatI would consider pretty typical
behavior, right?
So you're watching for thoseoutliers, right?
(21:00):
Behaviors that are either moreintense than they were, or more
frequent than they were, right?
So maybe occasionally we had ahard time with transitions.
That feels pretty typical.
Now it's every time.
Now it's even a transition from,you know, I don't know, like
(21:21):
inside to outside.
We're gonna go play inside, andthat transition now melts us
down.
Okay.
That's the kind of stuff you'rewatching for.
The other big thing with kids isregressions.
So it's just a fancy way ofsaying we had a skill and now we
don't.
So we were talking, now we'renot.
We were totally polytrained, nowwe're having accidents every
(21:42):
night.
Um we, I don't know.
Well, I guess physicalregressions, like we could ride
a bike or we could walk, and nowwe can't.
That probably is more like aphysical therapy kind of thing,
but you're looking at like weused to be able to cope with
things pretty well, and nowwe're really struggling.
That's when you want to bringsomeone in.
SPEAKER_01 (22:04):
Yeah.
And what what does one look forwhen they're looking for
somebody for your their kids totalk to?
SPEAKER_03 (22:11):
Yeah.
So here's here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
Let me tell you, let me tellyou.
Um you want somebody that iswilling and has experience with
divorce, and in particular withhigh conflict divorce.
They, those kinds of folks canbe a little like unicorns.
(22:33):
They're very hard to find.
It tends, speaking as a mentalhealth professional, it's very,
very litigious and very, verystressful to be involved in a
case like that.
And for those reasons, manymental health professionals will
say no.
Okay.
It's very hard to find atherapist for your child in
(22:54):
these situations.
And that's even if you can getyour co-parent to agree to it,
which lots of times that's awhole other court involvement.
Um, so it can be really tricky.
You do want someone withexperience because you need them
to know when someone is puttingon a show for them, when a
(23:20):
parent is trying to manipulate achild or gaslight a child.
You need them to be able to seethat.
Okay.
And to not be easily influencedby the competing narratives.
It's very speaking as someonewho does this work, it is very
hard to stay neutral andrequires a lot of consultation
(23:42):
and support from the mentalhealth professional.
And it's really tricky to findthose folks.
So that's what you're lookingfor.
It's hard to find.
SPEAKER_01 (23:53):
Well, and how do you how do you do that?
Because I feel like if there'ssay you're interviewing
different um people and you'reyou're saying, hey, I want you
to be able to tell if you knowmy ex is gaslighting my children
or if they're manipulating.
I guess that's kind of the samething.
But you know, how do you know ifthey're gonna, oh yeah, yeah, I
(24:14):
know how to do that.
Is there anything to reallyunderstand if they they truly
know what they're talkingthey're talking about?
SPEAKER_03 (24:23):
And their abilities to to disclose that information,
right?
So the things you want to listenfor is experience, right?
So you want to ask, like, haveyou worked with cases like this
before?
What are your standardprotocols?
Like, how do you managecommunicating with both of us?
How do you manage, you know,even just down to the intake
(24:46):
process, right?
If if a therapist doesn't haveboth parents sign consents,
that's concerning, right?
If they're requesting that youdo an intake together and you're
like, well, look, we don't,that's not the kind of things we
do, you might have to pay extrafor that, and that'd be well
within, you know, you're usingsomeone's time.
(25:07):
But you want someone that islike, well, how comfortable are
you guys?
Like, do you want to do ittogether or do you want to do it
separate, right?
Um, so you're looking forexperience, you're looking for
their processes that are alreadyin place, and then you're
listening for strong boundaries.
So if they can hold boundarieswith people, that means they
likely can also holdprofessional boundaries, right?
(25:29):
Okay.
And so oftentimes, like when Itake a case like this, I will
tell families, like, listen, Ican't make custody
recommendations in the role of apsychologist for your child.
That's not my role.
So don't be playing that gamewith me, basically, is how I say
it.
You know, you don't need toconvince me that she should
(25:49):
never see her mom or she shouldnever see her dad, because it's
not appropriate for me to saythat.
My job is to help her go backand forth between your two
homes, not to judge your twohomes, right?
Right.
There, there are otherpsychologists that do that.
Like that is their job.
It's not my job.
Right.
So you want to hear things likethat.
(26:10):
So you can be like, okay, if achild senses that in therapy
they're being pulled to saysomething, they're being pulled
to say who they like more, whothey want to live with, you've
destroyed the therapeuticrelationship.
It's no longer a safe place.
Right.
How abuse works, hownarcissistic abuse works, how
(26:33):
children in these stressfulenvironments get get kind of
move through it.
Maybe that's the way to say it,is they do have their their
loyalties bounce, right?
They still love someone that hashurt them.
That's very common for children.
You need someone thatunderstands that, right?
(26:57):
So they need to have a strongtrauma background as well.
As I'm talking, I'm thinkingabout that too.
SPEAKER_01 (27:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think with all the playersin that whole process,
attorneys, everybody, you wantsomebody that is trauma
informed, that is going toreally understand the situation
you're in.
I have, I'm totally gonna putyou on the spot here.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
Uh so I can cut it out if it'sterrible.
(27:23):
So that's true.
That is true.
Um, if if you if you hear alittle pause here and it goes to
something else, it's because Ianswered poorly.
Or you might have said, like, Iam not answering that question.
Yeah.
Um, so I have a friend whosechildren were court mandated to
go to a therapist.
And sometimes I think the courtspotentially will give an option.
(27:47):
A lot of times these parents aregoing into the situation and
they don't know who to look foror what to look for, and they're
given a name by the court.
Hey, this is somebody that we'veused.
SPEAKER_03 (27:56):
Yeah, the attorneys know.
Yeah.
Which a lot of times those aregood referrals because the
attorney knows, like, thisperson is great.
SPEAKER_01 (28:03):
Yes.
I feel like this case probablywas not because I feel like this
specific therapist wasunfortunately manipulated by the
abusive parent.
And decisions that have beenmade since have directly
impacted the kids.
So, what do you do in asituation like that where you
(28:28):
can visibly see this is a verynegative effect on my children?
I mean, this got to a very bigextreme that I don't, I would I
can give you details later.
I don't want to give thempublicly because I think it
would be able to be able tonarrow it down to who it is.
But um, what do you do if you'rein a situation where it is a
court mandate, mandatedtherapist and you are seeing
(28:52):
that this interaction is very,very unhealthy for your
children?
Are there any actions like canyou petition for a second
opinion?
Or how does that work?
SPEAKER_03 (29:03):
Yeah, so I think there's a couple things to think
about here.
I think the first is that you dowant to check yourself, right?
So it's really easy for folks inthese cases to be like, well,
that psychologist was a quack,or you know, like this person is
just clearly unethical becauseyou don't agree with what they
(29:25):
said, right?
So you do want to run it throughthat filter first, right?
Is it just like, I don't likethis, I don't like what they're
saying.
Um, it doesn't sound like thatwas the case here, but that is
always a good thing to thinkabout and to process with your
own therapist, too, of like, amI just getting triggered by my
(29:47):
own trauma and my fears aroundwhat's going to happen to my
kids is is seeping into this.
And yet there's a subjectiveperson telling me, like, no,
there, you know, that isn'thappening, right?
SPEAKER_00 (29:59):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03 (30:00):
Um, so that's important to differentiate.
In a situation like this, I'mgonna this is kind of a half
answer.
And I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01 (30:09):
But the truth is I was expecting no answer.
SPEAKER_03 (30:12):
Yeah, no, the truth is this is a this is an attorney
question.
This is something to ask yourattorney.
SPEAKER_01 (30:17):
That's a good point.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (30:18):
To really and you may even just say and have your
documentation in line, these aremy concerns.
This is my concern with what thetherapist is saying.
This is where it doesn't matchup for me.
Are there ways we can petitionto have an evaluator come in or
(30:40):
to have another therapist put onthe case that we both agree
with?
I would also say that the wayinformed consent works is that
at least here in Colorado, if aparent, we call it polling
consent, but you know, you signall the forms, you do informed
consent.
If if one parent in a case whereI have two parents, if one
(31:02):
parent says no, I stoptreatment.
SPEAKER_01 (31:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (31:06):
I mean, legally, that's your right.
That's what informed consent is,as the consenting adult.
And so if a parent, if it'sstarting to go, you can always,
and you can do this veryrespectfully.
This person could just say,like, listen, I have concerns.
I want to just put a pin in thisfor a minute, and then on the
back end, you're talking to yourattorney about your concerns and
(31:29):
what you can do.
You may lose that case, right?
You may the child may return tothat therapist and continue
work.
But that is your right as aparent.
That's what informed consent is,right?
SPEAKER_01 (31:42):
Okay.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
And actually, it's like verygood advice to go to your
attorney because the last thingyou want to do is start creating
these waves, especially ifyou're in an ongoing, which in
this case they they are in anongoing custody dispute.
So you don't want to, you don'twant to piss off anybody that is
(32:02):
potentially making decisions foryou.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (32:05):
You also do not, courts do not look kindly on
parents in these reallylitigious high conflict
situations standing in the wayof therapy.
Right.
Because courts are rightfully soworried about how the kid is
doing.
They're like, oh my God, theseparents, right?
Like, how's this poor kidhandling it?
(32:26):
Or they know the kid'sstruggling.
SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (32:28):
And so to be the parent that's like, I'm gonna
pause therapy, it's not a goodlook, right?
It's not a good look unless youreally have, you know, you need
to have uh good reason for thatand definitely be speaking to
your attorney before you dothat, do something like that.
SPEAKER_01 (32:47):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (32:47):
But yeah, just because just because a court
orders therapy does not meanusually, sometimes it does, but
you can have court-mandatedtherapy.
In this case, it sounds like thejudge was saying, this kid needs
therapy, let's get him insomething.
Yeah, you know, yeah, I thinkthat's how it's making that
happen.
SPEAKER_01 (33:06):
Yeah, I think that's how it started.
And I don't know if they said ithas to be this therapist.
SPEAKER_03 (33:11):
Exactly.
We don't know that part of theright.
It is often the case that bothparents will submit a couple
names and and it's sort of likepick from one of these three,
because they're keeping in mindthat you know a therapist might
be full, the hours might notwork, the location might not
work, and the likelihood thatthese parents are gonna agree on
(33:33):
one person is low.
So they usually give a coupleoptions, but you don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (33:37):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (33:38):
You know, we don't know with this case.
SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
Um and then, okay, so a less less heavy question.
Yeah.
So if you have multiplechildren, do you recommend if
they are to go see a therapist,psychologist, um, do you think
they go together or should it beindividualized, or do you just
cater to the situation and thekids?
SPEAKER_03 (34:02):
Oh, that's a great question.
Uh, and like all greatpsychologists, I will respond
with it depends.
Um the classic response.
I generally opt for differenttherapists.
And I think that is becausethey're different people,
different experiences.
Sometimes with a sibling setthat is really tight or really
(34:27):
close, or maybe I have an olderchild that's really parentified
and supporting the younger one,um, or a younger child that
wouldn't engage in therapyunless the older sibling was
there, then we might getcreative.
Um, but typically a lot of timesI like them to see therapists in
(34:48):
the same practice, or sometimeseven the same therapist, if
ethically they can do that, um,because they know the family.
And so there's lessopportunities to be swayed.
Okay.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:05):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (35:10):
Is because I was getting a lot of parents calling
me asking for therapy for theirkids because not always
necessarily that they knew youknow, kid was showing anxiety or
some other big issue.
Um, but because they were like,we're in a high conflict
situation, as much as I hate it,we are, and I can't find anybody
(35:31):
to take them, and I can't, andmy ex won't agree.
So how do I help my kid if Ican't get them in therapy?
SPEAKER_00 (35:39):
Yeah, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (35:40):
And so that's where the coaching piece comes in.
Is because then I can be like,say this, do this, respond this
way, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
Yeah, so let's talk more about your coaching.
Like how how does it work?
How do they get in touch withyou?
What happens once they do get intouch with you?
SPEAKER_03 (35:55):
Yeah, yeah.
So learn with little house is isa whole thing right now.
We have a podcast, we have amasterclass people can take
anytime.
And then I also do like specialtopic masterclasses once a
month.
That typically is how peoplefind me and sort of get a taste
of what how I talk and how Iswear and what I talk about and
(36:19):
that kind of thing.
You are from Wisconsin afterall.
SPEAKER_01 (36:21):
I sure am, girl.
SPEAKER_03 (36:22):
I sure am.
Um, you can't really take it outof me as as much as we try.
Um, I don't know that I wouldwant that, but still.
I so they come in that way.
And then there's a couple wayspeople can work and learn the
skills.
So we have some some lower pricepoint products where like a high
(36:43):
conflict communication bootcamp.
I'm working on like a techbundle for FaceTime calls and
all that business.
Um, there's a gaslighting class.
So people can take things likethat, which are more like
passive.
You watch the class, you get aworkbook, you work through
things, and then all the way upto our most our signature
(37:06):
program, which is the kids'first co-parenting system.
That's an intensive.
So it's six months.
Moms get it's only for moms.
You get uh over a hundredlessons that are taught by me on
really common topics, right?
So transitions and not puttingkids in the middle and how to
(37:27):
talk to them when they come homeand say something about you.
Um, and then there's weeklycalls with the moms in the group
and myself.
And so you get that livecoaching.
SPEAKER_01 (37:37):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (37:38):
Um, those are Wednesdays.
I'll do that later today afterwe get off the phone.
And that is what moms love.
SPEAKER_01 (37:46):
I think the call is like the real sauce of then they
can come with a specific, like,this is exactly what's
happening.
What do I do?
SPEAKER_03 (37:54):
Yeah.
I mean, that's literally what wedo.
Like, what the CFI asked me thisquestion.
What do you think?
You know, we reviewed a CFIreport recently.
We've also talked about like,how do I manage when FaceTime
calls are being recorded?
Or these texts are comingthrough our family wizard, and
(38:15):
like I don't know what to dowith it.
Talking parents, and um, all theway down to like the lovey that
won't come back from dad'shouse.
And what do we do about that?
So we talk about kind ofeverything, anything people
need, I guess.
SPEAKER_01 (38:31):
And a huge age span, too, it sounds like, right?
SPEAKER_03 (38:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So my specialty is youngchildren.
That's what I work withclinically most often.
I am finding that there's awhole lot of concerns and and
problems with young kidspost-divorce separation, and
then it sort of ramps up againwhen they get to be teenagers
and they start to get veryindependent and feisty.
SPEAKER_01 (38:59):
Well, I think at that, it's because well, I don't
know exactly why, because, but Ithink part of it is because you
know, they the kids start to getold enough to where they can
start recognizing what's goingon.
And they may not say it outloud, but just little comments
here and there, you're thinking,oh, he or she gets it.
Um, but then when they get thatteenage, I I have a brand new
(39:21):
teenager, he just turned 13.
They get it.
They get it.
Yeah, and and and but then theyalso have that teenage um, I
know everything already.
SPEAKER_03 (39:32):
So yeah, or I get to know all the adult details.
And you're like, no, you don't.
Yeah.
unknown (39:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (39:40):
Like we still don't get to know.
SPEAKER_01 (39:42):
He's wanting, he oh gosh, he loves like Halloween
and scary stuff.
So he's already asking, can Idownload these podcasts?
And I'm like, no, no, I'm 13.
I'm 13, I can't.
I'm like, no, you cannot.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (39:57):
That's literally like tomorrow.
I'm doing a masterclass on techdevice and like tech usage and
just how you handle when likethen he goes to his your
co-parents' house and they say,sure, download it.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Let's watch them together.
Don't tell your mom.
unknown (40:16):
I know.
SPEAKER_03 (40:17):
I mean, this is like, this is my world.
This is the stuff that I'm butthen in this scenario, you knew
you would be like, what do I sayto that?
Well, how do I handle that?
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (40:27):
I mean, when you're when you're together and it's
like, don't tell your mom, or ifit's, you know, grandparent,
like, don't tell your mom I gaveyou the all this candy.
You know, those are harmlesssituations, but yeah, it's a bit
different when you get into thehigh conflict.
Um, I had a question and itpopped right out of my head.
Um we're never short on thingsto talk about.
(40:48):
No, I know.
Oh, um, do you have like aschedule of like if people want
to look at and say, like, oh,that's a master class I want to
take?
That's a great, that's a goodquestion.
SPEAKER_03 (40:58):
The the best way to be in touch is I'm very active
on Instagram, a little lessactive, but still active on
Facebook, and then my website,learnwithlittlehouse.com.
I update it all the time withkind of what's coming on.
And after folks uh enroll or optinto something, then you're on
my email list and I send stuffout every week.
(41:21):
Like this is what's coming up.
And the other thing is I reallylove to hear from the community.
So often my podcast or theclasses are directly from the
women in my Facebook group orthe women in the program are
like, we're really strugglingwith this.
And I'm like, okay, I'll dothat.
I'll do a masterclass on that,or I'll do an episode on that.
(41:42):
Um to try to make it as usefulas I can for the folks that are
using it, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (41:48):
Right.
So what are the what are thehandles?
I'll include all those in theshow notes too.
SPEAKER_03 (41:53):
But yeah, it's it's learn with little house.
That's everything.
That's the website, all the wayacross Facebook, YouTube, and
then the podcast is called theKids First Co-Parenting Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (42:04):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
Yeah.
Okay.
And I'll have all those links.
So um thank you.
Thanks for sharing those.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (42:11):
Well, I I appreciate you coming on and sharing all of
this wisdom.
This was such a deepconversation.
I know.
Sorry.
I love it.
SPEAKER_03 (42:20):
I'm way, I'm like so into it.
Usually it's like, how do weprotect kids through divorce?
Which is so important.
But my mom's and I think thepeople listening to your podcast
are it's just it's more intensethan that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:34):
It is.
It's it's very, very intense.
Um, do you think is thereanything we missed?
I think we covered a lot.
You and I could talk for hours.
I know.
Truly.
I know.
Seriously.
SPEAKER_03 (42:46):
But so yeah, I think there's probably a lot we miss,
but nothing that we need toinclude right now.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (42:52):
Okay.
So so wrapping up.
Wrapping up.
Wrapping up.
Um, I think every voice hasstrength.
So is there a specific strengthor message that you would love
for listeners to like thelasting message for them to be
left with?
SPEAKER_03 (43:09):
Hmm.
Yeah.
You know, I really believe thatit takes one person, right?
We know kids who are horriblyabused, horribly neglected,
really, really awful situations.
(43:30):
And it takes one person toreally see you and value you to
build resiliency, right?
And for them to be okay.
And so I really want moms inthese tough dynamics to know
that like, don't underestimatethe power you have as your
(43:52):
child's mother, but also just asthat calm, steady, like attuned
person that is saying, you know,I may not be able to change all
this crazy around you, but I canlook you in the eyes and I can
hold you emotionally andphysically, right?
And we're gonna be okay.
We're gonna figure it out,right?
SPEAKER_01 (44:14):
I love that.
I think so many people probablyneeded to hear that.
SPEAKER_03 (44:18):
Yes.
You can just picture mewhispering it in your ear all
the time.
Yes, on repeat.
SPEAKER_01 (44:23):
It's gonna be okay.
It's gonna be okay.
Okay, well, Dr.
Royster, thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02 (44:30):
This is delightful.
SPEAKER_01 (44:31):
It was.
SPEAKER_02 (44:32):
I'm gonna have you on Kids First very soon.
SPEAKER_01 (44:34):
Yes, I am excited.
I will definitely do that.
SPEAKER_02 (44:37):
Yeah, I'm gonna schedule you like right after
this.
unknown (44:40):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (44:42):
All right, my friend.
We'll talk soon.
Okay, yes, absolutely.
All right, take care.
SPEAKER_01 (44:47):
Thank you again, Dr.
Royster, for joining me today,and thank you, Warriors, for
listening.
I've included the links Dr.
Royster was referring to as wellas her one in three profile in
the show notes.
I will be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong.
And wherever you are in yourjourney, always remember you are
(45:08):
not alone.
Find more information, registeras a guest, or leave a review by
going to the website one inthreepodcast.com.
That's the number one the numberthree podcast.com.
Follow one in three onInstagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at one and three podcast.
(45:28):
To help me out, please rememberto rate review and subscribe.
One in three is a.5 Panoiproduction.
Music written and performed byTim Crow.
Co-parenting and specifically high conflict
co-parenting in the context ofpost-separation abuse are topics
we're all becoming increasinglyfamiliar with on this podcast.
But the truth is, there's stillso much more left to learn.
Please welcome my guest joiningme today, child psychologist Dr.
(00:20):
Royster, who is here to help usdive deeper.
Hi, Dr.
Royster.
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
I'm so happy to be here.
Thank you.
Okay, so before we dive into ourconversation, could you give a
bit of a background just so thelisteners can get to know you?
SPEAKER_03 (00:37):
Yeah.
Well, so let's see.
I'm in Colorado and I'm aWisconsin native.
You and I talk about that a lot.
Um yeah.
That's also why it's so easy totalk to both of us, I think.
Um I have two kids, and we liveand parent here in Colorado.
(00:57):
We have for a long time.
I'm a child psychologist.
I have my own practice here inthe Denver area.
It's called Little HousePsychology, an homage to Laura
Engelsweiler, who started inWisconsin as well.
That's right.
Little House in the Big Woods.
SPEAKER_01 (01:12):
My daughter started reading that book.
SPEAKER_03 (01:14):
Yeah, just the other day.
Go back and read them.
You're a little bit like, ooh,there's this is problematic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's some problems.
But uh, I loved the books when Iwas little.
And so that's where the practicename came from.
And then I do therapy almostexclusively with children.
That's my specialty.
That's what I've always loveddoing.
(01:35):
And I work with a lot of kidsfrom two homes.
And so I see those childrentherapeutically.
And then over time, I started torealize that there's this whole
group of people that, moms inparticular, that really struggle
to know how to support theirkids in that dynamic.
And as the therapist or as theirpsychologist, I was really
(01:58):
limited with what I could andcouldn't say, right?
You really have to be veryneutral.
And so out of that came mysecond business, which is learn
with a little house.
And that is a coaching businessonly for moms who are moving
past or still in high conflictdivorce, post-separation abuse,
(02:22):
um, managing having their kiddosgo in and out of these really
toxic dynamics.
And so I do a lot of work theretalking with moms about how,
like if I could be a little bugin your ear when a kid comes
back and says something reallyoff the wall to you, that's what
I do in that business.
SPEAKER_01 (02:40):
Okay, perfect.
SPEAKER_03 (02:41):
So it's a very long introduction.
SPEAKER_01 (02:44):
No, but that's exactly what we need here.
So um, okay.
Well, and well, I was looking atyour profile, and then there's
you had a few terms that Iwasn't really sure.
The difference betweenco-parenting, parallel
parenting, and nesting.
SPEAKER_03 (02:55):
Yeah.
I don't know what that is.
Okay, this is great.
So I'm happy to talk about this.
I would say that the goldstandard for kids, what helps
kids a lot post-divorce, is whatwe consider to be collaborative
co-parenting.
So that's kind of the goldstandard.
(03:17):
Basically, you can think of itas kids do worse when there's
more conflict.
Right?
So everybody's kind of trying toget to this really beautiful
co-parenting dynamic, right?
Where, you know, you get along,you can stand by each other at
the soccer game and the policedoesn't get called.
(03:38):
Um, you can generally text eachother, you can talk to each
other, you're not super worriedabout your co-parent, you know,
talking shit about you orsabotaging your relationship,
right?
This is definitely kind of thedynamic, very business-like, is
very collaborative as well.
But I would say even friendly.
(04:00):
Okay.
So that's collaborativeco-parenting.
Anytime you hear somebody talkabout that, they will tell you
that took a lot of work.
That took a lot of time.
We still have our moments,right?
Like if we could parentpeacefully together, we might
still be together, right?
So that's a that's kind of whatpeople are working towards.
And that's what the researchtells us helps kids the most.
(04:22):
On both, you can kind of thinkof that as the middle of the
road.
On both sides of that areparallel and nesting.
Nesting is a term that we usefor folks that you can, it's
comes from bird nesting.
Think of birds, right?
Um, think of birds.
The bird nest is the familyhome, and the kids stay there,
(04:46):
and one parent flies, quoteunquote, in and out of the
house.
So there's usually a separatehouse on the outside, like a
small apartment or something,that the kids really never go
to, but the parents transitionin and out of the house.
It works best when it'stemporary.
So, in in cities and places likewhere we live, in Colorado, I
(05:09):
assume also in Tennessee, housesare really expensive.
The housing market's bananas,even if you had the money to get
a house, would be hard.
And so a lot of families usethis while they're still in tied
up in divorce proceedings,right?
If you're waiting to sell thehouse or you're waiting for, I
(05:29):
don't know, part of your umsettlement to help you purchase
a second home, right?
Like this kind of dynamic.
As you can imagine, thatrequires a very high level of
cooperation, right?
Because if you got salty when hewouldn't unload the dishwasher
before, imagine when you're notthere and you come back from
(05:51):
your apartment and thedishwasher is dirty, right?
So it's it requires a prettyhigh level of cooperation.
Okay.
So that's kind of the nestingidea.
Then at the far end of the otherside of the continuum is what we
call parallel parenting.
Parallel parenting is you wantto think about it a little bit
(06:11):
like um like a divided highway,right?
Like an interstate.
You're going one direction, yourpartner's going the other
direction, you do not cross themedian, right?
What happens in our house is myown rules, my own punishments.
They don't, it's not like if Itake away the iPad at my place,
(06:32):
I can expect the iPad to betaken away at the other house,
right?
Um rules are separate, routinesare separate, there's very
little communication across theinterstate, right?
And typically, parallelparenting, it's very normal for
folks to do parallel parentingbefore they can get to
(06:55):
collaborative.
And that's because there's a lotof healing and hurt, right?
So along the grief process,that's pretty normal.
And then you move towards that.
But we also see it in situationswhere there was abuse, violence,
um, where there'spost-separation abuse, where
there continues to be thisreally high conflict, very
(07:16):
litigious, very intenserelationship.
Then we often recommend parallelparenting for everyone's sake.
It's better for the courts, forthe legal proceedings, and it's
also better for usually theco-parent's own mental health,
right?
There's less, there's lesscrossing.
SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
Well, I think, unfortunately, for probably a
lot of the listeners, given thisas a domestic violence podcast,
is that it's probably acombination of parallel parking
or parking, parking, parallelparenting um with the abusive
ex, like playing, crossing thatmedian and playing chicken with
(07:57):
you.
SPEAKER_03 (07:58):
You know, this is not my quote.
I didn't come up with this, butI read somewhere that it's like
co-parenting, quote unquote,whatever you want to call it,
um, is one of the only dynamicswhere you're expected to stay in
contact with your abuser.
You have to.
You have children, right?
And and sometimes that persondisappears, but often the types
(08:24):
of folks that engage in abuse,narcissistic abuse, domestic
violence, that that type ofabuse are really interested in
power and control and havingkids in the dynamic is like, I
don't know, their fuel.
Like they're they're notinterested in what's best for
their kids.
They're interested in power andcontrol over you.
(08:47):
And the way they do that isthrough the kids.
SPEAKER_01 (08:50):
Exactly.
And that I think is wherethere's the potential for so
many, I guess, mistakes that thethe victim parent can run into
because they're trying toadvocate for their child or
children.
They're also trying to navigatethis whole power struggle that's
(09:11):
happening.
And there's this fine linebetween advocating and becoming
too aggressive, to where thecourt system looks at that
parent and thinks they'reactually the controlling one or
they're actually the aggressiveperson.
SPEAKER_03 (09:28):
Yes.
And I think what gets reallytricky too is in cases where
it's it's more of an emotionalor narcissistic abuse, that's
very hard to prove.
Right.
And so, and it's you know, it'snot as clear as something like
(09:51):
physical abuse, where there's aCPS report, there's an injury,
it's not, it's not debatable ifit's happening or not.
And the classic move is to say,uh, well, she's just poisoning
me against the kids when momsare trying to talk about this
kind of concern they have fortheir children's well-being.
SPEAKER_01 (10:14):
Right.
So many thoughts on sure.
And I've had a few people comeon and and talk about this in
you know, different fromdifferent points of view.
But uh like what do you I don'tthink we can hear enough.
(10:36):
Like, what do you do?
You know, how do you how do you,when you're getting your kids
home and you realize that what'shappening, you know, you're
doing that sort of parallelparenting, but what's happening
at that other house is damagingor, you know, not not creating
this stable environment for thekids to where they're
(10:57):
emotionally healthy, they'readjusting well, or you know,
even bad not taking on baddestructive behavior.
How do you counteract, I guess?
SPEAKER_03 (11:08):
Yeah.
Well, and I think this goes backto what you what we were talking
about earlier about why it'simportant to understand what
lane that you're in.
Because if you have acollaborative dynamic, if this
is somebody you even have abusiness-like relationship with,
or you have you're workingreally hard to assume the best
of your co-parent, you're gonnahandle those situations
(11:31):
different, right?
Because you might know your kidis being a kid and trying to
play you guys off of each other.
So your kid might come back andsay something like, Well, dad
says you're really stupid withmoney, right?
If I'm in a collaborativedynamic, I may think to myself,
or even just with my own kids,right?
(11:51):
We're still together, we'repartnered, right?
I know that they wouldn't saythat about me, right?
So it's really easy for me to belike, Well, I wonder what your
dad was thinking when he saidthat.
Or I'm pretty sure your daddoesn't think I'm stupid if he
said that, you know, likewhatever, right?
You might address it.
(12:11):
And then you might go to yourco-parent and say, Hey, look,
uh, they said you said this, andI know you would never say that.
What do you think is going onhere?
Right.
Imagine that with someone toxic.
And I'm using that term toencompass all of what this
podcast kind of talks about.
You you would never, right?
(12:33):
You wouldn't open yourself up tothat.
You to your child might bethinking, well, it's pretty
likely they did hear that, andit's pretty likely they meant
it.
And now I have to offset this,right?
So, how do we manage that?
Well, this is why there's wholeother programs and systems.
It takes a different set ofskills.
(12:54):
It really does.
The first thing that we talkabout all the time is
documenting, having a very goodsystem for how and what you're
documenting.
Because in these post-separationabuse dynamics, you the list of
what you're documenting isendless.
So there's a strategy that Irecommend folks work with their
(13:17):
attorneys on around what is itwe're trying to achieve?
What is it I'm really trying toprove that they are consistently
speaking poorly about me?
Or I'm really trying to approvethat they trying to prove, not
approve, trying to prove thatthey're inching closer and
closer with transitions.
They're getting earlier andearlier and earlier, right?
(13:40):
Or I'm seeing a pattern of everytime kiddo comes back from a
long visit, we have fall apartfor two days.
Whatever it might be, you'reyou're strategically documenting
that because otherwise you getsuper overwhelmed documenting
everything.
Okay.
So there's that piece.
And then there is support andcoaching around what to say and
(14:03):
what not to say to kids, right?
Sometimes I work mostly withmoms.
Um, sometimes moms have read orkind of been, it's been drilled
into them to not say anythingpoorly or or bad about their ex,
right?
And over time, the way that getstranslated is I just won't say
(14:27):
anything.
The kid comes back and they saythat dad said I was stupid.
I'm not supposed to say anythingbad, so I don't say what I want
to say, which is no, he'sstupid, and he's stupid for
telling you that.
Which of course you might thinkbut not say, right?
And so you end up sayingnothing.
You say something like, oh,okay, and then move on, right?
(14:53):
But when kids' mental health isat play and when it really is
like turning against you, youneed to go a step beyond that.
And you need to say somethinglike, I really appreciate you
telling me that.
What did that make you feel likewhen he was talking about me
like that?
Or, gosh, you know, we don'tcall people stupid.
(15:17):
What is that's kind of a hurtfulthing to say to someone.
You see how that's not talkingbadly about him at all.
It isn't.
I'm not saying he shouldn't besaying that to you.
I'm saying, what did that feellike to hear that?
And thanks for telling me.
So it's that type of skill thatwe teach.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Okay, and that's also putting it on the kid to
recognize their feelings and tounderstand that their feelings
are validated and okay to feel.
SPEAKER_03 (15:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Because you also have to imaginein that dynamic, it's probably
not safe for that kid todisagree with that toxic person.
SPEAKER_00 (15:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (15:57):
Uh, and and that could be actual physical safety,
but it could also be emotionalsafety.
This is someone that will shameme or call me stupid or make my
life hell if I say, like, hey, Idon't think mom's stupid.
Right.
And it also speaks to yourrelationship with your child
that they're coming back andsharing what they saw and felt.
SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, our goal is alwaysthe we want our kids to be well
adjusted and stable.
So other than that, are thereany other things that parents
can do to make sure that theyare helping their children
develop to become emotionallysecure, and especially in these
(16:43):
like really diverse chaoticenvironments?
There's so much.
SPEAKER_03 (16:48):
I mean, there's so much you can do.
We have a whole like program onthis, right?
Because it's many, many smallthings.
So part of it is teaching kidshow to test reality themselves,
right?
How to look around and sort ofdiscern.
(17:09):
And this takes a lot of time.
Younger kids kind of justbelieve what their parents say,
right?
It's very threatening to notbelieve that.
But if you continue to helpteach them how to discern and
question and observe, over timethey do start to see things for
(17:30):
what they are, right?
So if you're doing that in anon-judgmental way that doesn't
put them in the middle, thatreally helps.
The best things mom can moms cando has to do with, and this is a
way oversimplified way ofthinking of it, but controlling
what they can control, right?
(17:52):
So if you want to raise kidsthat speak their mind and share
with you and think feelings areokay, then you are really
encouraging those things in yourown time, in your own lane of
the highway, right?
And you're continuing to try tosupport that with the other
lane, but knowing that youcan't, right?
(18:14):
Right.
unknown (18:15):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (18:15):
You can't text him and be like, listen, when she
starts crying, you better say,It's okay to cry.
It's not gonna probably do theexact opposite.
Exactly, exactly.
But you can, when she comes backand she says, I started crying
and I got in trouble for it, youcan say things like, Well,
that's not okay.
(18:36):
Sorry that happened to you.
Yeah, it's always okay to cry.
unknown (18:40):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (18:40):
Right?
So you're reinforcing yourvalues whenever you can.
SPEAKER_01 (18:44):
So I can do thinking.
I know.
And then remember, I was sayingit's swirly.
SPEAKER_03 (18:54):
So it's I have to like well, and it is an
oversimplified way.
I mean, we're trying to distilllike what I teach in six months,
right?
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Well, okay, so let's say parents are are doing all of
you know these techniques, theseum techniques.
When when uh is there any likewarning signs or like red alert
sign, or you don't want to getto a red alert, but any signs
where you're thinking, I mightneed to actually have my child
(19:24):
go seek um, you know,communication with somebody, not
seek help or that there'ssomething wrong with them, but
finding a a third party for themto talk to.
SPEAKER_03 (19:34):
Yeah, and we'll talk about some of the difficulties
with that as well.
Um the classics, so the firstsign that I always talk to moms
about is trusting yourintuition.
There really isn't anything morepowerful.
You know your kid best.
If you're starting to be like,wow, we are way sadder for way
(19:56):
longer, right?
Or this now feels bigger thansomething I can manage myself.
It's becoming less of a they'remildly distressed and more like
we're anxious all the time,right?
Or we're getting depressed.
With littler kids, we see reallybig behaviors.
(20:18):
A very common one is separationanxiety that is not really
developmentally appropriate.
There's periods when that'spretty typical, um, and lengths
of time that it's prettytypical, right?
So you're starting a newclassroom and you're four.
It's pretty normal for that totake a couple weeks for you to
adjust.
(20:38):
But if we're now three months inand they're still pulling your
screaming child off of you andthey're saying, gosh, you know,
it takes her an hour to calmdown.
That's we're edging out of whatI would consider pretty typical
behavior, right?
So you're watching for thoseoutliers, right?
(21:00):
Behaviors that are either moreintense than they were, or more
frequent than they were, right?
So maybe occasionally we had ahard time with transitions.
That feels pretty typical.
Now it's every time.
Now it's even a transition from,you know, I don't know, like
(21:21):
inside to outside.
We're gonna go play inside, andthat transition now melts us
down.
Okay.
That's the kind of stuff you'rewatching for.
The other big thing with kids isregressions.
So it's just a fancy way ofsaying we had a skill and now we
don't.
So we were talking, now we'renot.
We were totally polytrained, nowwe're having accidents every
(21:42):
night.
Um we, I don't know.
Well, I guess physicalregressions, like we could ride
a bike or we could walk, and nowwe can't.
That probably is more like aphysical therapy kind of thing,
but you're looking at like weused to be able to cope with
things pretty well, and nowwe're really struggling.
That's when you want to bringsomeone in.
SPEAKER_01 (22:04):
Yeah.
And what what does one look forwhen they're looking for
somebody for your their kids totalk to?
SPEAKER_03 (22:11):
Yeah.
So here's here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
Let me tell you, let me tellyou.
Um you want somebody that iswilling and has experience with
divorce, and in particular withhigh conflict divorce.
They, those kinds of folks canbe a little like unicorns.
(22:33):
They're very hard to find.
It tends, speaking as a mentalhealth professional, it's very,
very litigious and very, verystressful to be involved in a
case like that.
And for those reasons, manymental health professionals will
say no.
Okay.
It's very hard to find atherapist for your child in
(22:54):
these situations.
And that's even if you can getyour co-parent to agree to it,
which lots of times that's awhole other court involvement.
Um, so it can be really tricky.
You do want someone withexperience because you need them
to know when someone is puttingon a show for them, when a
(23:20):
parent is trying to manipulate achild or gaslight a child.
You need them to be able to seethat.
Okay.
And to not be easily influencedby the competing narratives.
It's very speaking as someonewho does this work, it is very
hard to stay neutral andrequires a lot of consultation
(23:42):
and support from the mentalhealth professional.
And it's really tricky to findthose folks.
So that's what you're lookingfor.
It's hard to find.
SPEAKER_01 (23:53):
Well, and how do you how do you do that?
Because I feel like if there'ssay you're interviewing
different um people and you'reyou're saying, hey, I want you
to be able to tell if you knowmy ex is gaslighting my children
or if they're manipulating.
I guess that's kind of the samething.
But you know, how do you know ifthey're gonna, oh yeah, yeah, I
(24:14):
know how to do that.
Is there anything to reallyunderstand if they they truly
know what they're talkingthey're talking about?
SPEAKER_03 (24:23):
And their abilities to to disclose that information,
right?
So the things you want to listenfor is experience, right?
So you want to ask, like, haveyou worked with cases like this
before?
What are your standardprotocols?
Like, how do you managecommunicating with both of us?
How do you manage, you know,even just down to the intake
(24:46):
process, right?
If if a therapist doesn't haveboth parents sign consents,
that's concerning, right?
If they're requesting that youdo an intake together and you're
like, well, look, we don't,that's not the kind of things we
do, you might have to pay extrafor that, and that'd be well
within, you know, you're usingsomeone's time.
(25:07):
But you want someone that islike, well, how comfortable are
you guys?
Like, do you want to do ittogether or do you want to do it
separate, right?
Um, so you're looking forexperience, you're looking for
their processes that are alreadyin place, and then you're
listening for strong boundaries.
So if they can hold boundarieswith people, that means they
likely can also holdprofessional boundaries, right?
(25:29):
Okay.
And so oftentimes, like when Itake a case like this, I will
tell families, like, listen, Ican't make custody
recommendations in the role of apsychologist for your child.
That's not my role.
So don't be playing that gamewith me, basically, is how I say
it.
You know, you don't need toconvince me that she should
(25:49):
never see her mom or she shouldnever see her dad, because it's
not appropriate for me to saythat.
My job is to help her go backand forth between your two
homes, not to judge your twohomes, right?
Right.
There, there are otherpsychologists that do that.
Like that is their job.
It's not my job.
Right.
So you want to hear things likethat.
(26:10):
So you can be like, okay, if achild senses that in therapy
they're being pulled to saysomething, they're being pulled
to say who they like more, whothey want to live with, you've
destroyed the therapeuticrelationship.
It's no longer a safe place.
Right.
How abuse works, hownarcissistic abuse works, how
(26:33):
children in these stressfulenvironments get get kind of
move through it.
Maybe that's the way to say it,is they do have their their
loyalties bounce, right?
They still love someone that hashurt them.
That's very common for children.
You need someone thatunderstands that, right?
(26:57):
So they need to have a strongtrauma background as well.
As I'm talking, I'm thinkingabout that too.
SPEAKER_01 (27:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think with all the playersin that whole process,
attorneys, everybody, you wantsomebody that is trauma
informed, that is going toreally understand the situation
you're in.
I have, I'm totally gonna putyou on the spot here.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
Uh so I can cut it out if it'sterrible.
(27:23):
So that's true.
That is true.
Um, if if you if you hear alittle pause here and it goes to
something else, it's because Ianswered poorly.
Or you might have said, like, Iam not answering that question.
Yeah.
Um, so I have a friend whosechildren were court mandated to
go to a therapist.
And sometimes I think the courtspotentially will give an option.
(27:47):
A lot of times these parents aregoing into the situation and
they don't know who to look foror what to look for, and they're
given a name by the court.
Hey, this is somebody that we'veused.
SPEAKER_03 (27:56):
Yeah, the attorneys know.
Yeah.
Which a lot of times those aregood referrals because the
attorney knows, like, thisperson is great.
SPEAKER_01 (28:03):
Yes.
I feel like this case probablywas not because I feel like this
specific therapist wasunfortunately manipulated by the
abusive parent.
And decisions that have beenmade since have directly
impacted the kids.
So, what do you do in asituation like that where you
(28:28):
can visibly see this is a verynegative effect on my children?
I mean, this got to a very bigextreme that I don't, I would I
can give you details later.
I don't want to give thempublicly because I think it
would be able to be able tonarrow it down to who it is.
But um, what do you do if you'rein a situation where it is a
court mandate, mandatedtherapist and you are seeing
(28:52):
that this interaction is very,very unhealthy for your
children?
Are there any actions like canyou petition for a second
opinion?
Or how does that work?
SPEAKER_03 (29:03):
Yeah, so I think there's a couple things to think
about here.
I think the first is that you dowant to check yourself, right?
So it's really easy for folks inthese cases to be like, well,
that psychologist was a quack,or you know, like this person is
just clearly unethical becauseyou don't agree with what they
(29:25):
said, right?
So you do want to run it throughthat filter first, right?
Is it just like, I don't likethis, I don't like what they're
saying.
Um, it doesn't sound like thatwas the case here, but that is
always a good thing to thinkabout and to process with your
own therapist, too, of like, amI just getting triggered by my
(29:47):
own trauma and my fears aroundwhat's going to happen to my
kids is is seeping into this.
And yet there's a subjectiveperson telling me, like, no,
there, you know, that isn'thappening, right?
SPEAKER_00 (29:59):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03 (30:00):
Um, so that's important to differentiate.
In a situation like this, I'mgonna this is kind of a half
answer.
And I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01 (30:09):
But the truth is I was expecting no answer.
SPEAKER_03 (30:12):
Yeah, no, the truth is this is a this is an attorney
question.
This is something to ask yourattorney.
SPEAKER_01 (30:17):
That's a good point.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (30:18):
To really and you may even just say and have your
documentation in line, these aremy concerns.
This is my concern with what thetherapist is saying.
This is where it doesn't matchup for me.
Are there ways we can petitionto have an evaluator come in or
(30:40):
to have another therapist put onthe case that we both agree
with?
I would also say that the wayinformed consent works is that
at least here in Colorado, if aparent, we call it polling
consent, but you know, you signall the forms, you do informed
consent.
If if one parent in a case whereI have two parents, if one
(31:02):
parent says no, I stoptreatment.
SPEAKER_01 (31:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (31:06):
I mean, legally, that's your right.
That's what informed consent is,as the consenting adult.
And so if a parent, if it'sstarting to go, you can always,
and you can do this veryrespectfully.
This person could just say,like, listen, I have concerns.
I want to just put a pin in thisfor a minute, and then on the
back end, you're talking to yourattorney about your concerns and
(31:29):
what you can do.
You may lose that case, right?
You may the child may return tothat therapist and continue
work.
But that is your right as aparent.
That's what informed consent is,right?
SPEAKER_01 (31:42):
Okay.
Does that make sense?
It does make sense.
And actually, it's like verygood advice to go to your
attorney because the last thingyou want to do is start creating
these waves, especially ifyou're in an ongoing, which in
this case they they are in anongoing custody dispute.
So you don't want to, you don'twant to piss off anybody that is
(32:02):
potentially making decisions foryou.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (32:05):
You also do not, courts do not look kindly on
parents in these reallylitigious high conflict
situations standing in the wayof therapy.
Right.
Because courts are rightfully soworried about how the kid is
doing.
They're like, oh my God, theseparents, right?
Like, how's this poor kidhandling it?
(32:26):
Or they know the kid'sstruggling.
SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (32:28):
And so to be the parent that's like, I'm gonna
pause therapy, it's not a goodlook, right?
It's not a good look unless youreally have, you know, you need
to have uh good reason for thatand definitely be speaking to
your attorney before you dothat, do something like that.
SPEAKER_01 (32:47):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (32:47):
But yeah, just because just because a court
orders therapy does not meanusually, sometimes it does, but
you can have court-mandatedtherapy.
In this case, it sounds like thejudge was saying, this kid needs
therapy, let's get him insomething.
Yeah, you know, yeah, I thinkthat's how it's making that
happen.
SPEAKER_01 (33:06):
Yeah, I think that's how it started.
And I don't know if they said ithas to be this therapist.
SPEAKER_03 (33:11):
Exactly.
We don't know that part of theright.
It is often the case that bothparents will submit a couple
names and and it's sort of likepick from one of these three,
because they're keeping in mindthat you know a therapist might
be full, the hours might notwork, the location might not
work, and the likelihood thatthese parents are gonna agree on
(33:33):
one person is low.
So they usually give a coupleoptions, but you don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (33:37):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (33:38):
You know, we don't know with this case.
SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
Um and then, okay, so a less less heavy question.
Yeah.
So if you have multiplechildren, do you recommend if
they are to go see a therapist,psychologist, um, do you think
they go together or should it beindividualized, or do you just
cater to the situation and thekids?
SPEAKER_03 (34:02):
Oh, that's a great question.
Uh, and like all greatpsychologists, I will respond
with it depends.
Um the classic response.
I generally opt for differenttherapists.
And I think that is becausethey're different people,
different experiences.
Sometimes with a sibling setthat is really tight or really
(34:27):
close, or maybe I have an olderchild that's really parentified
and supporting the younger one,um, or a younger child that
wouldn't engage in therapyunless the older sibling was
there, then we might getcreative.
Um, but typically a lot of timesI like them to see therapists in
(34:48):
the same practice, or sometimeseven the same therapist, if
ethically they can do that, um,because they know the family.
And so there's lessopportunities to be swayed.
Okay.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (35:05):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (35:10):
Is because I was getting a lot of parents calling
me asking for therapy for theirkids because not always
necessarily that they knew youknow, kid was showing anxiety or
some other big issue.
Um, but because they were like,we're in a high conflict
situation, as much as I hate it,we are, and I can't find anybody
(35:31):
to take them, and I can't, andmy ex won't agree.
So how do I help my kid if Ican't get them in therapy?
SPEAKER_00 (35:39):
Yeah, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (35:40):
And so that's where the coaching piece comes in.
Is because then I can be like,say this, do this, respond this
way, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
Yeah, so let's talk more about your coaching.
Like how how does it work?
How do they get in touch withyou?
What happens once they do get intouch with you?
SPEAKER_03 (35:55):
Yeah, yeah.
So learn with little house is isa whole thing right now.
We have a podcast, we have amasterclass people can take
anytime.
And then I also do like specialtopic masterclasses once a
month.
That typically is how peoplefind me and sort of get a taste
of what how I talk and how Iswear and what I talk about and
(36:19):
that kind of thing.
You are from Wisconsin afterall.
SPEAKER_01 (36:21):
I sure am, girl.
SPEAKER_03 (36:22):
I sure am.
Um, you can't really take it outof me as as much as we try.
Um, I don't know that I wouldwant that, but still.
I so they come in that way.
And then there's a couple wayspeople can work and learn the
skills.
So we have some some lower pricepoint products where like a high
(36:43):
conflict communication bootcamp.
I'm working on like a techbundle for FaceTime calls and
all that business.
Um, there's a gaslighting class.
So people can take things likethat, which are more like
passive.
You watch the class, you get aworkbook, you work through
things, and then all the way upto our most our signature
(37:06):
program, which is the kids'first co-parenting system.
That's an intensive.
So it's six months.
Moms get it's only for moms.
You get uh over a hundredlessons that are taught by me on
really common topics, right?
So transitions and not puttingkids in the middle and how to
(37:27):
talk to them when they come homeand say something about you.
Um, and then there's weeklycalls with the moms in the group
and myself.
And so you get that livecoaching.
SPEAKER_01 (37:37):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (37:38):
Um, those are Wednesdays.
I'll do that later today afterwe get off the phone.
And that is what moms love.
SPEAKER_01 (37:46):
I think the call is like the real sauce of then they
can come with a specific, like,this is exactly what's
happening.
What do I do?
SPEAKER_03 (37:54):
Yeah.
I mean, that's literally what wedo.
Like, what the CFI asked me thisquestion.
What do you think?
You know, we reviewed a CFIreport recently.
We've also talked about like,how do I manage when FaceTime
calls are being recorded?
Or these texts are comingthrough our family wizard, and
(38:15):
like I don't know what to dowith it.
Talking parents, and um, all theway down to like the lovey that
won't come back from dad'shouse.
And what do we do about that?
So we talk about kind ofeverything, anything people
need, I guess.
SPEAKER_01 (38:31):
And a huge age span, too, it sounds like, right?
SPEAKER_03 (38:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So my specialty is youngchildren.
That's what I work withclinically most often.
I am finding that there's awhole lot of concerns and and
problems with young kidspost-divorce separation, and
then it sort of ramps up againwhen they get to be teenagers
and they start to get veryindependent and feisty.
SPEAKER_01 (38:59):
Well, I think at that, it's because well, I don't
know exactly why, because, but Ithink part of it is because you
know, they the kids start to getold enough to where they can
start recognizing what's goingon.
And they may not say it outloud, but just little comments
here and there, you're thinking,oh, he or she gets it.
Um, but then when they get thatteenage, I I have a brand new
(39:21):
teenager, he just turned 13.
They get it.
They get it.
Yeah, and and and but then theyalso have that teenage um, I
know everything already.
SPEAKER_03 (39:32):
So yeah, or I get to know all the adult details.
And you're like, no, you don't.
Yeah.
unknown (39:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (39:40):
Like we still don't get to know.
SPEAKER_01 (39:42):
He's wanting, he oh gosh, he loves like Halloween
and scary stuff.
So he's already asking, can Idownload these podcasts?
And I'm like, no, no, I'm 13.
I'm 13, I can't.
I'm like, no, you cannot.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (39:57):
That's literally like tomorrow.
I'm doing a masterclass on techdevice and like tech usage and
just how you handle when likethen he goes to his your
co-parents' house and they say,sure, download it.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Let's watch them together.
Don't tell your mom.
unknown (40:16):
I know.
SPEAKER_03 (40:17):
I mean, this is like, this is my world.
This is the stuff that I'm butthen in this scenario, you knew
you would be like, what do I sayto that?
Well, how do I handle that?
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (40:27):
I mean, when you're when you're together and it's
like, don't tell your mom, or ifit's, you know, grandparent,
like, don't tell your mom I gaveyou the all this candy.
You know, those are harmlesssituations, but yeah, it's a bit
different when you get into thehigh conflict.
Um, I had a question and itpopped right out of my head.
Um we're never short on thingsto talk about.
(40:48):
No, I know.
Oh, um, do you have like aschedule of like if people want
to look at and say, like, oh,that's a master class I want to
take?
That's a great, that's a goodquestion.
SPEAKER_03 (40:58):
The the best way to be in touch is I'm very active
on Instagram, a little lessactive, but still active on
Facebook, and then my website,learnwithlittlehouse.com.
I update it all the time withkind of what's coming on.
And after folks uh enroll or optinto something, then you're on
my email list and I send stuffout every week.
(41:21):
Like this is what's coming up.
And the other thing is I reallylove to hear from the community.
So often my podcast or theclasses are directly from the
women in my Facebook group orthe women in the program are
like, we're really strugglingwith this.
And I'm like, okay, I'll dothat.
I'll do a masterclass on that,or I'll do an episode on that.
(41:42):
Um to try to make it as usefulas I can for the folks that are
using it, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (41:48):
Right.
So what are the what are thehandles?
I'll include all those in theshow notes too.
SPEAKER_03 (41:53):
But yeah, it's it's learn with little house.
That's everything.
That's the website, all the wayacross Facebook, YouTube, and
then the podcast is called theKids First Co-Parenting Podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (42:04):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
Yeah.
Okay.
And I'll have all those links.
So um thank you.
Thanks for sharing those.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (42:11):
Well, I I appreciate you coming on and sharing all of
this wisdom.
This was such a deepconversation.
I know.
Sorry.
I love it.
SPEAKER_03 (42:20):
I'm way, I'm like so into it.
Usually it's like, how do weprotect kids through divorce?
Which is so important.
But my mom's and I think thepeople listening to your podcast
are it's just it's more intensethan that.
SPEAKER_01 (42:34):
It is.
It's it's very, very intense.
Um, do you think is thereanything we missed?
I think we covered a lot.
You and I could talk for hours.
I know.
Truly.
I know.
Seriously.
SPEAKER_03 (42:46):
But so yeah, I think there's probably a lot we miss,
but nothing that we need toinclude right now.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (42:52):
Okay.
So so wrapping up.
Wrapping up.
Wrapping up.
Um, I think every voice hasstrength.
So is there a specific strengthor message that you would love
for listeners to like thelasting message for them to be
left with?
SPEAKER_03 (43:09):
Hmm.
Yeah.
You know, I really believe thatit takes one person, right?
We know kids who are horriblyabused, horribly neglected,
really, really awful situations.
(43:30):
And it takes one person toreally see you and value you to
build resiliency, right?
And for them to be okay.
And so I really want moms inthese tough dynamics to know
that like, don't underestimatethe power you have as your
(43:52):
child's mother, but also just asthat calm, steady, like attuned
person that is saying, you know,I may not be able to change all
this crazy around you, but I canlook you in the eyes and I can
hold you emotionally andphysically, right?
And we're gonna be okay.
We're gonna figure it out,right?
SPEAKER_01 (44:14):
I love that.
I think so many people probablyneeded to hear that.
SPEAKER_03 (44:18):
Yes.
You can just picture mewhispering it in your ear all
the time.
Yes, on repeat.
SPEAKER_01 (44:23):
It's gonna be okay.
It's gonna be okay.
Okay, well, Dr.
Royster, thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02 (44:30):
This is delightful.
SPEAKER_01 (44:31):
It was.
SPEAKER_02 (44:32):
I'm gonna have you on Kids First very soon.
SPEAKER_01 (44:34):
Yes, I am excited.
I will definitely do that.
SPEAKER_02 (44:37):
Yeah, I'm gonna schedule you like right after
this.
unknown (44:40):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (44:42):
All right, my friend.
We'll talk soon.
Okay, yes, absolutely.
All right, take care.
SPEAKER_01 (44:47):
Thank you again, Dr.
Royster, for joining me today,and thank you, Warriors, for
listening.
I've included the links Dr.
Royster was referring to as wellas her one in three profile in
the show notes.
I will be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong.
And wherever you are in yourjourney, always remember you are
(45:08):
not alone.
Find more information, registeras a guest, or leave a review by
going to the website one inthreepodcast.com.
That's the number one the numberthree podcast.com.
Follow one in three onInstagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at one and three podcast.
(45:28):
To help me out, please rememberto rate review and subscribe.
One in three is a.5 Panoiproduction.
Music written and performed byTim Crow.
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