AFCC REGIONAL TRAINING CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 2007

1. AFCC REGIONAL TRAINING CONFERENCESEPTEMBER 2007 INSTITUTE: THE PARENTING COORDINATION PROCESS FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCE(Module 2)Christine Coates, J.D. Matthew Sullivan, Ph.D.

2. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCECONFLICT AFTER SEPARATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR PARENTING COORDINATION • Conflict expected in first 2-3 years (see Ahrons, Maccoby & Mnookin, Wallerstein & Kelly, Hetherington, et. al. Wallerstein et.al) • High conflict: Estimates from 10 - 25 % • Long standing and enduring pattern of behavior/conflict

3. Prevalence Divorce/ Separation Low Conflict Acute Reaction Period 0-4 Years Conflict Stabilizers High Conflict Perpetuators

4. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCECONFLICT POST-SEPARATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR PC • Other processes have failed to resolve issues • Exhausted resources: Have had numerous lawyers, multiple agencies, therapists (“shopping” for the right one) • Prone to litigation, numerous attendances at court, aka “frequent flyers” • Can have one enraged, one disengaged

6. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEASSESSMENT OF CONFLICT • Need to consider degree and nature of conflict • Need to consider/assess the impasse; where it comes from; degree and type of conflict • Garrity and Baris (1994); clinical tool • Trend to develop tools so as to better identify best intervention based on level of conflict

7. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCESources of Impasse: Johnston & Campbell, ‘88 Three Levels of Impasse • Concentric Circle depiction • Three levels impasse: • External • Interactional • Intrapsychic

9. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCESources of Impasse: Johnston & Campbell, ‘88 EXTERNAL-SOCIAL • Tribal warfare (friends, neighbors, family, new partners) • Role of mental health, professionals, lawyers, educators • Multiple allegations to CPS, police • Role of court/judge; litigation

10. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCESources of Impasse: Johnston & Campbell, ‘88 INTERACTIONAL • Legacy of a destructive marriage • Ambivalent separation – shattered dreams • Traumatic separation – negative reconstruction

11. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCESources of Impasse: Johnston & Campbell, ‘88 INTRAPSYCHIC • Vulnerability to loss • Prior traumatic loss • Separation-individuation conflicts (diffuse, counter- and oscillating dependency) • Vulnerability to humiliation/shame • Mild – specific acknowledgment • Moderate – projects total blame • Severe – paranoia

12. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEHIGH CONFLICT: PERSONALITY DISORDERS • Dispute/conflict stress exacerbates existing characteristics, personality structure, defense/coping mechanisms • May function adequately in other areas in life • 60% of high conflict parents have personality disorders • Most common traits/disorders: Narcissistic, Histrionic, Borderline, Paranoid, Anti-social

13. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEHIGH CONFLICT: PERSONALITY DISORDERS THREE DIMENSIONS • Thinking: perceiving, interpreting selves, others, events • Feeling/ Impulse Control (Modulation of Affect): -ability to manage, restrain impulses - range, intensity, stability, modulation, appropriateness • Interpersonal Functioning & Parenting: • style and nature of relationships

14. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEHIGH CONFLICT: PERSONALITY DISORDERS Thinking: • Idealization – devaluation • Rigid VS Flexible • Inability to take another’s perspective • Externalize blame, deny responsibility, complaints • Distort reality, suspicious, even paranoid

15. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEHIGH CONFLICT: PERSONALITY DISORDERS Feeling • Exaggerations, drama • Childlike, charming, seductive • Fluctuating moods; unpredictable • Poor impulse control; outbursts • Critical, hostile, disparaging, attacking

16. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEHIGH CONFLICT: PERSONALITY DISORDERS Interpersonal: • Needy, demanding, high expectations • Strong sense of entitlement, grandiosity • Intimacy limited, shallow • Projection • Oppositional, power/control struggles • High defensive, easily offended • Little insight into own part, role in conflict

17. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEHIGH CONFLICT: PERSONALITY DISORDERS Parenting: • Emotionally and developmentally similar to children • Unable to separate their needs/feelings, experiences from child’s • Over identify with child, enmeshment • May depend over rely on child, parentified child

18. Coparenting and The PC Process

19. Structural Transition From Nuclear To Binuclear • Adequate functioning in each subsystem • Adequate functioning between subsystem • A set timeshare schedule

20. Coparenting After Divorce

21. Parallel Parenting Low conflict/low communication • Emotional disengagement • Kelly and Emery (2003) - children’s adjustment similar to cooperative if respective households adequate • PC as “interface” • Change versus management

22. The tragic legacy of the Litigation Context • Litigants don’t make good coparents • Representation - advocacy • Distrust • Sabotage • Win/lose • Chaos • Unilateral action • In the name of the child • Focus on the problem being the other parent -advesaries • Depleted resources - financial,emotional

23. Coparent training in the PC Process • Clear demarcation of new ADR process • Let go of the legal/adversarial process • The rules are changing • You don’t have to work with the other parent, just with the PC and the rules • Disengagement with the coparent, moving towards functional engagement • Manageability, protection

24. Boundaries • Two ways to get into trouble with boundaries: • Faulty Rules • Failure to maintain Boundaries

25. Faulty Rules • Explicit, detailed policies and procedures as a tool for setting appropriate boundaries. The rules of the relationship. • Slippage do to your stuff and/or the client’s stuff becomes evident when you rules are violated

26. Failure to Maintain boundaries • Challenges come in two ways • Pulls - idealization, need, money, celebrity • More seductive, gratifying • Pushes - devaluation, Demand, threat, criticism, questioning • Hard to stand up to

27. Limit setting, training the clients • What behavioral theory tells us • Clearly defined expectations of behavior • Consistent response • Timely response • Compassionate firmness • Depersonalize • Consequence fits the violation

28. Disengagement: Structuring Coparenting in H-C situations • The PC is the interface between the parents - • Titrating the communication/contact so that it is functional and manageable • Face to face meetings - structure • Telephone conference calls • Email - timely, can control receipt, response, documented • Fax, letter • No contact, except through PC

30. Functions Of The PC Role • Alternative court-sanctioned dispute resolution • Timely • Proactive • Without judgment • Establishing protocols, reciprocity

31. Case Management • Structure the coparenting process • Specifying, interpreting and modifying the parenting plan • Reduce the need for information sharing and decision making • Coordinate professional interventions • Collaborative teams • Documentation

32. Monitoring And Limit setting • Behavioral models • Objective, Immediate feedback, consistent response, criteria for consequences • Sanctions • Use of the Court

33. Coparent Work • “Therapeutic” case management • Diagnose the impasse • The context surrounding the coparents • Spousal relationship vs. parental relationship • Reconstructing images of each other • Selfish altruism

34. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCE CHILDREN’S ADJUSTMENT TO SEPARATION & DIVORCE

35. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment DEBATE • Discrepancies in literature and research data re: divorce adjustment • Debate: Wallerstein VS most others (e.g., Hetherington, Kelly, Fabricus, Braver, Emery) • Substantial risk VS overwhelming resilience?

36. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment Discrepancies Reconciled? (Emery, Amato) • Divorce associated with greater risk AND • Most children are resilient AND • Many report substantial and continuing pain • Can be both PAIN AND RESILIENCE

37. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment OVERVIEW: 5 KEY CONCLUSIONS FROM RESEARCH • Divorce creates a number of stressors for children and families, AND • Divorce is a risk factor for psychological problems among children, BUT • Resilience is the normative outcome of divorce for children, STILL

38. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: 5 Key Conclusions • There are important “costs of coping” – painful feelings, memories, events AND 5. Individual differences in children’s divorce outcome are influenced by qualities of post-divorce family life, family process variables, especially:

39. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Process Variables • quality of child’s relationship with both parents; • mental health and adjustment of the parents; • parenting competence of both parents • degree of parental conflict and how the children are involved in it e. family’s economic standing

40. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Stressors #1. Stressors: • Economic Hardship • Physical Changes: • relocation to another jurisdiction common • residential move, sometimes multiple moves • school changes

41. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Stressors • Loss of important relationships: • peer relationship changes • loss of contact with both parents; often abrupt • 18-25% have no contact with fathers 2-3 yrs after divorce • mother often returns to work; mother’s overwhelmed, less time for children • explanation for separation • Remarriage and repartnering:

42. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Process Variables #5. Key Conclusions: Family Process Variables: • Parents’ Conflict: before, during and after separation • Parents’ Psychological Adjustment • Parenting Competence • Authoritative VS Authoritarian VS Permissive

43. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Process Variables • Mothers: poorer parenting (less warm, more rejecting, harsher punishment) • Fathers: withdraw from kids, more intrusive interactions with kids • Parent-Child Relationships • impact of conflict • impact of parenting • relates to loss, absence, contact

44. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Father Loss, Absence & Contact - father absence literature • negative impact growing up without fathers • father’s can parent as well as mothers; parent differently • generally positive impact of NCP on child adjustment when NCP remains involved, provides guidance, discipline, supervision, involvement in school (meta-analyses)

45. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Father Loss, Absence, & Contact • active, competent and involved Dad -> ++ adjustment • good Father/child relationship related to positive outcomes • good Dad/Child relationship buffers compromised Mom/Child relationship • involvement in variety of activities across domains • frequency of time with NRP NOT best predictor • quality of time is better predictor

46. FAMILY DYNAMICS IN SEPARATION AND DIVORCEChildren’s Adjustment: Father Loss, Absence, & Contact • Retrospective Studies (Emery, Fabricus, Laumann-Billings, Parkinson et. al.) • Frequency of Father-child Contact & Adjustment • Divorced & non-divorced do better having warm and positive relationships with two involved parents • Negative effects of divorce mitigated by good relationships with two involved parents • Less robust differences for depression, anxiety and self esteem

47. Parenting Timeshare Plans • General considerations for timeshare • AFCC “Shared Parenting” booklet/AAML Model • For younger children, short separations from both parents • Regular interactions in diverse contexts • Overnights (controversy) • Equal time not necessary - roughly 30+% is fine, if distributed well

48. General Considerations • Continuity with both parents is extremely important • Psychological relationships with both • Psychosocial development and development of other relationships • Routines are very important for younger children

49. High Conflict Considerations For Transitions • Transitions at day care • Use of babysitter or extended family • Parent counselor or mediator • Highly structured parenting plan • Use of daily journals/email

50. Understanding The Child • Developmental concerns • See AFCC booklet • Attachment concerns • Secure/insecure • gatekeeping • Conflict related concerns • Temperament concerns • Continuum from vulnerable to resilient