Host: Tom Davis, Certified Professional Divorce Mediator in Denver, Colorado
Summary:
In this episode, Tom continues the discussion on key concerns when developing parenting plans during divorce mediation. He emphasizes understanding your parenting style, the significance of the Parenting After Divorce class, and practical strategies for creating a parenting plan that truly serves your children’s needs.
Key Topics:
- The Parenting After Divorce Class:
- Purpose and benefits of the class in Colorado.
- How it helps protect children from negative impacts of divorce.
- The gap between class concepts and applying them to parenting plans.
- Parenting Styles:
- Collaborative/Cooperative Parenting: Parents work together seamlessly.
- Conflictive Parenting: Frequent disagreements impact children negatively.
- Parallel Parenting: Minimizing direct contact to reduce conflict.
- Decision-Making Strategies:
- Differentiating between day-to-day and major decisions.
- Refining guidelines with specific conditions and time frames.
- Examples of handling medical decisions, discipline, and extracurricular activities.
- Schedules and Exchanges:
- Importance of aligning parenting time with each parent’s availability.
- Minimizing exchanges to reduce stress on children.
- Logistics of exchanges: school drop-offs, neutral locations, or at-home transitions.
- Holidays and Special Occasions:
- Determining which holidays are significant to your family.
- Children’s perspectives on holiday celebrations.
- Flexibility and creativity in scheduling holiday time.
- Child Development Considerations:
- Adapting parenting plans to suit different developmental stages.
- Importance of kinetic bonding with infants and young children.
- Adjusting parenting time as children grow.
- Emotional Preparedness:
- Assessing your emotional state before mediation.
- Recognizing and managing grief stages.
- Consulting with a mediator for pre-mediation coaching.
- Preparing for Mediation:
- Avoiding over-preparation to stay flexible.
- Importance of mutual agreement rather than imposing a pre-defined plan.
- Strategies for productive negotiation.
Quotes:
- “Your ultimate objective as a parent is to produce a well-adjusted, independent little human being.”
- “It’s not about the overnights you have; it’s about how you use the overnights you have.”
Duration: 1:03:29
Size:122.4MB
Season: 2024
Episode:11
Series: Pro Se Mediation Boot Camp
Now What?
- Learn More about Family Synergy Mediation here: https://myfamilymediation.com
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- Explore more episodes here: https://myfamilymediation.com/podcasts/pro-se-divorce-podcast/
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