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Welcome to the Nimble Youth podcast, where we provide expert insights and valuable resources for parents navigating the complexities of their children's mental health. We empower parents to nurture healthy minds in children, teens, and young adults through real conversations.
Our team of seasoned professionals, including physicians, therapists and educators, delve into pressing topics, share research-based strategies, and offer practical advice for fostering mental and emotional well-being within your family.
Welcome back to Nimble Youth, the podcast where we explore the emotional lives of children and teens and give parents practical tools for helping young people navigate an increasingly complicated world. I'm your host Matt Butterman. Today we're talking about a family transition that millions of children experience: the separation or divorce of their parents. Divorce is, by definition, about the end of one relationship. But when children are involved, another relationship continues.
Matt (host):The relationship between two people as parents. And sometimes that's where things get difficult. Questions about custody, schedules, money, new partners, holidays, schools, and parenting styles can turn an already painful separation into a prolonged conflict. And caught in the middle are children who may love both parents and desperately want permission to continue doing so. My guest today approaches this subject from a perspective we haven't explored before on Nimble Youth.
Matt (host):David Pisarra is a family law attorney with more than twenty five years of experience and the chief executive of Dad's Law School, which provides practical education to fathers navigating family courts. He's also the founder of Union of Dads and host of the Union of Dads podcast. David teaches fathers how to understand the court process, organize evidence, advocate effectively for themselves, and particularly important for our conversation today, develop workable parenting plans. One important reminder, today's conversation is intended for general education and discussion. Family law varies considerably by jurisdiction and circumstance, so listeners facing custody or divorce questions should seek legal advice appropriate to their individual situation.
Matt (host):And of course, when there are concerns involving abuse, neglect, domestic violence, or a child's immediate safety, those circumstances require appropriate professional intervention. David, welcome to Nimble Youth. Thank you, Matthew. Look forward to it.
David Pisarra:Glad to be here.
Matt (host):So you've spent twenty five years watching families go through separation, divorce and custody disputes and the lawyers understandably see these cases through a legal lens but if we turn the camera around and look at the process from the child's perspective, what do you think adults most often fail to understand?
David Pisarra:The loyalty bind that the children have, know, frequently they're caught in the middle and they're trying to express that they love both parents but when the parents are fighting over custody or time for whatever reason you know whether it's out of anger or resentment or you know for the ungodly reason of like just the child support which happens frequently. Sure.
Matt (host):You
David Pisarra:know, mean because that's a real factor. It is. You know, the kids get lost in the mix and everybody likes to talk about the best interest of the children but they never really get heard truthfully and that I think is one of the big failings of family law is that we don't have a good mechanism for the children to actually be heard clearly and we've got the minors council or the guardian ad litem depending on your jurisdiction who's supposed to represent the child's best interest and they're supposed to communicate with the child and then take that information and share it with the court in some fashion. I'm not a big fan. Yeah.
David Pisarra:Generally think that it's a horrible idea, The minors council and guardian ad litems generally are just one more person who can be triangulated in the battle, who has their own agenda. They're not brought in as true champions for the children. They're basically given like free rein, the court appoints them and you know somebody has to pay for them, usually the dad, who's now paying for his ex's lawyer, his own lawyer, the child's lawyer. Maybe there's supervised visitation, anger management, batters intervention classes, supervisor's $50 $100 an hour. I mean it's just, it's one more expense that's designed to basically take dad away from the kids and no one is actually hearing what the kids actually say and we do this because we want to protect the children, which is understandable and laudable.
David Pisarra:But the problem is judges are hearing mom's side, which is definitely slanted, and dad's side, which is definitely slanted. And they're never actually getting to hear from the children. In twenty seven years of practice, I can remember maybe three times where the judge has allowed a child to come into court and be heard from. And what that means really is they'll speak to the child in the judge's chambers with the court reporter and that's it. Three times.
David Pisarra:Twenty seven years. I've helped hundreds, maybe thousands of families go through this stuff that tells you how big a voice the kids really had in all of this.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, I want to make an important distinction. Divorce itself is obviously very disruptive, but isn't the level of conflict surrounding the divorce enormously important to how children experience it?
Matt (host):In other words, should parents worry less about creating a theoretically perfect post divorce family and concern themselves more about reducing the amount of conflict that children are exposed.
David Pisarra:Yes and kind of a yes, I agree. Unqualified, yes. A 100. Yeah. You know, you definitely want them to be focused on the kids and if they were focused on the kids, that would be the best of all possible worlds.
David Pisarra:Now we get into the dispute between what's really the best thing for the kids because mom's gonna say one thing, dad's gonna say another, the judge is coming into it with their own bias, know, mom's and dad's lawyers are probably coming in with their own bias their own agendas, they've got agendas and particularly if we're now gonna bring in a minors counsel or guardian, they've got agendas. Right. Frequently in these high conflict cases you know, we've got to go to reunification therapy where the out parent, usually the dad, now has to go to therapy to try and repair the relationship between him and the children. Generally you've got to wonder like why did it need to be repaired? What caused the damage?
David Pisarra:And frequently what we find is that what's causing the damage is the child is stuck in an environment with the mother who wants that child to testify a certain way. Right. So they may be consciously or unconsciously trying to sway that child's perception which then causes the damage, which then causes the need for the therapist who's got their own agenda trying to figure out like okay now what's in the best interest of the kid?
Matt (host):Yeah, yeah. All of
David Pisarra:this is just like you can see how it just can spin out of control in Sure, no
Matt (host):right, right. It seems kind of like herding cats perhaps you know just so many diversion interests here but one situation seems particularly painful for children, the feeling that loving one parent, by loving one parent you're somehow betraying the other one. So, maybe a child has a wonderful weekend with dad, but senses that mom doesn't really want to hear about it or vice versa. So, how do parents inadvertently create those loyalty conflicts? Well, they do it
David Pisarra:through a lot of different ways. You know, there there's the very subtle like, what what did you eat over at dad's house? Pizza. You only had pizza? Like, why didn't you you didn't have a salad?
David Pisarra:Like, oh, you didn't have any vegetables with that? Right. What did you have for breakfast? French toast? Oh, you didn't have any sausage?
David Pisarra:Like, dad doesn't really, like, cook that much for you. So it was those subtle ways in which the termites of doubt get, like, implanted.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, and obviously you're coming at it from a legal perspective but in your experience, you know, what should maybe a healthy response sound like when the child comes home excited about something that they did with, you know, your former spouse? Is there a good way to approach that?
David Pisarra:I think there's a lot of great ways to approach it. Know, it should be like, tell me more about that. What did you enjoy? What was the benefit for you? How did you experience that?
David Pisarra:What did you share, did you share that with your friends, did you share that with your siblings, did you and dad or maybe dad's new girlfriend get along like, oh I'm so happy that you guys are all creating these new memories.
Matt (host):Right, right and take the sort of competitive element out of it certainly, right?
David Pisarra:100% and that's the part that you know, when people get competitive around the child's love, no one's gonna win. Exactly,
Matt (host):yeah. So, your work focuses specifically on fathers and you have this website, dadslawschool.com, which is a great resource. So, why did you choose to focus on, on fathers after twenty five years of practicing family law? What sort of convinced you that fathers needed something like dad's law school?
David Pisarra:Well what I've seen is over the last twenty five years there's been a real shift in the way that we approach family law. I started it was very much to be rather sort of sexist about it, it was like a gentleman's game. Right. It was like two people who respected each other, gentleman, gentleman, not being sexist but primarily it was men. Right.
David Pisarra:You'd call up the other side and you would say, we're coming in, we need to clean up this divorce. Like, let's get it over with. Right. Let's, you know, do the numbers, do the custody, and it wasn't necessarily ugly. In the twenty five years since I started what's happened is domestic violence has dramatically changed the game.
David Pisarra:It has gone from you know back when OJ and Nicole Brown Simpson had their troubles. Right. And it ended up in Nicole being murdered by Right. That was the kind of one definition of domestic violence on the far end was murder, physical abuse. Right.
David Pisarra:And over the twenty five years since that murder we've really seen mission creep to eradicate domestic violence and domestic abuse but in doing that what we've done is we've expanded the definition to the point that honestly almost anything is abuse in today's world where you want it to be and what that's done is it's really changed the way that the game of divorce and child custody cases is played because now what we're seeing is primarily one party goes to, and usually it's the woman, global thermonuclear war from the get go. It's the domestic violence restraining order that says, I'm a victim, he's abusive, I want the kids, the house, the dog, the cars, all the money and I don't want him anywhere near the kids, I want him to have supervised visitation if even that. And what that's doing is it's putting men in a very untenable position and so what I've seen is men are going into court not really prepared, really being cut off at knees and they don't know what to do and a lot of times they can't afford representation because now with that domestic violence restraining order they're paying the mortgage on the house that she's living in, he's been kicked out so he's gotta go get his own apartment, now he's paying two utility bills, two cable bills, two cell phone bills, he's paying for her car and his car, he's paying for her lawyer, the court's telling him he's gotta go to batters intervention classes, anger management classes, supervised visitation at 50 to $100 per hour for two hours on a Saturday to see his kid, he's probably got his own lawyer that he's gotta pay for somewhere between 300 to $1,000 an hour.
David Pisarra:Right. And he's like, I don't know what to do, I can't afford my own lawyer because I gotta pay for all this other stuff, goes into court and wants to plead his case and says, Your Honor, I'm a great dad, I love my kids, I just want 50% custody because he thinks if he's just fair, the judge will be fair with him, but that's not the way this game is played anymore. It used to be, but it's not anymore.
Matt (host):Yeah, so given what you just explained there, it seems like some fathers, perhaps legitimately so, they enter the custody proceedings assuming that the system is, you know, kind of stacked against them, And if that's the case, how much of your job is separating legitimate
David Pisarra:concerns about the process from assumptions that, you know, may actually hurt their case? The biggest problem I have is getting them to understand what the reality is of how badly they are positioned. Like when you are already on the receiving end of a domestic violence restraining order you are not behind the eight ball. That would be a good position. Yeah, yeah.
David Pisarra:Properly drafted you are already done. You are not going to overcome it because the standard of proof is so low. Mean there's a preponderance of evidence it's just 50.1, It's just the judge looks at you and her and it's like who do they believe just a little bit more. And if you think about it, you're a judge and you want to make sure that you get to stay a judge. What's the safe thing to do with a domestic violence case?
David Pisarra:You grant the restraining order. Because obviously there's enough conflict between these two people, let's keep them apart. Sure. That's the safe thing to do because if something goes south, if one of them attacks or hurts the other one, well my hands are clean, I said don't talk to each other. Right, right.
David Pisarra:Yeah, yeah. And that's a big factor in this these days.
Matt (host):Right, right. So, obviously the father has to go into the family court with a strategy and a game plan. So, along with that, there's an interesting distinction between wanting custody actually being prepared for the everyday work of parenting. So, if a father tells you, I want fiftyfifty custody, what question should he also be asking itself with the ultimate goal of explaining his position effectively to the judge.
David Pisarra:Sure. The problem that most dads have is they walk in a court and they say, I'm a great dad. And that's not telling the judge anything. Yeah. That is a completely meaningless phrase to a judge.
David Pisarra:And that's really exactly why I wrote this book, Dads Shall Custy Action Plan because it's designed to say, here's why I'm a great dad. Here's 43 reasons that'll give you your honor of what I know about my kid that prove I'm a great dad. Here's how I discipline them, here's what I know about their medical condition, their friends, their schooling, this is what I know so that he can go into court and make that argument so the judge can look at him and say, Oh you know what, you are actually a really engaged father, you do love your kids, you really are a great dad. So when mom comes in and says, well he doesn't know anything about the kids' schooling, he doesn't know anything about their medical care, he doesn't even know their shoe size, well if you're going into court with an action plan and a declaration that shows the judge that you know all this stuff, now what have you done? A you've proven your case that you are a great dad and B you've attacked her credibility without calling her a liar.
David Pisarra:And that's the goal because you want to attack somebody's credibility but not be aggressive about it. Because if you want, if a man walks into court and says she's lying, game over, he's lost. Because he's coming off as the angry man that she said he was. He's not proving anything. He's just making a bald faced assertion And a judge is now going to look at that and say, well, so you are angry and she says you're angry.
David Pisarra:So now not only are you proving her right, but now I also believe her even more. Her credibility has just gone up.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. So, want to talk a little bit about winning a custody battle. Your students from dad's law school, they're understandably trying to achieve favorable outcomes in family court. But to challenge the language a little bit, when children are involved, what does that actually mean to, you know, win a custody case?
Matt (host):Can a parent win legally, but still lose something enormously important in the family dynamic?
David Pisarra:Absolutely, and what winning means is depending on which side you're on because when a man wins 50 custody, a woman has lost primary custody. Right. Right. And that is where a lot of times the dynamic goes from, okay, so long as she's in charge, she's willing to negotiate. The minute she's lost, now it's a whole other level of anger and frustration and battle.
David Pisarra:Yeah. And that's where that family dynamic can get really ugly. That's where, even where you may have an order for 50% custody, well mom doesn't enforce it. Mom doesn't let the kids go, mom doesn't let dad have the custody that he was awarded by the court, the police officers aren't going to enforce it, they're going to say that's a civil matter, you got to go back to the judge, the judge is going to say I've already made my rulings, why aren't you guys living by them? And if dad doesn't do anything and really try and push mom to be put in contempt or have the judge change orders because mom's not abiding by the court orders, nothing's going to change and mom's going to continue to win.
David Pisarra:Right,
Matt (host):Right. So, one of the practical skills that you teach is creating workable parenting plans. So, what makes a parenting plan workable and how perhaps should that plan change depending on whether we're talking about say a five year old, a 12 year old or a 17 year old because those are very different stages of life and you know, the whole dynamic of the plan I'm sure changes, right?
David Pisarra:Absolutely and what I talk about in the action plan is you have to start with what's age appropriate. I've had men come into my office and say she just gave birth last month, I want fiftyfifty custody and I just very calmly look at them and say that's probably not going to happen because the baby is still being breastfed and baby is newborn, probably not gonna happen like no I have never in my life seen a judge give fiftyfifty custody of a newborn. Yeah. It's not logical Right. Right.
David Pisarra:And frequently when men are asking for that it tells me a great deal about where their mind is at.
Matt (host):Yeah. So I have to kind
David Pisarra:of ease them into a listen you got to come back to reality dude. Exactly. Let's talk about like okay what are the next six months gonna look like right and then the six months after that and then the six months after that and do a step up plan to get you what you want but you're not getting that right off the bat. So when we're dealing with really really young children that's what we're looking at Right. And when we're looking at as they get older, as they get closer to school age, now maybe we can do a three, four, four, three schedule.
David Pisarra:If they've been involved all along and dad's been getting more and more time and we've been balancing things out, Once we get into maybe middle school, you know sixth, seventh, eighth grade, child could easily go week on week off at that point, one week with dad, one week with mom. That's a very common thing to have happen but it's age appropriate and then when it comes to teenagers and this is where I'm gonna be a little bit funny, I'm a big believer in military boarding school. Yeah. Get them off.
Matt (host):Right, right. Let them be somebody else's problem. On that note though, so teenagers, you know, they may have school, sports, you know, activities, extracurricular activities, a job even, friends, dating, and an increasingly independent life. Is there input into the arrangement, the custody plan helpful or is it in some cases counterproductive?
David Pisarra:A lot of times it depends on the child, it depends on what the relationship has been with the child and the parents. There are 16 year olds who are completely essentially independent. They're probably what a junior or maybe a sophomore in high school, they probably got a job, they have their own car, they're working their own schedule, they're gonna do what they want. We've had other kids who are 17, still in high school and they're very, very needy. Require a great deal of support so it very much depends on who you're dealing with because we come back to really what does this particular child need and that's one of things I talk about in my book is you've got to take a look at what the child's needs are.
David Pisarra:There's a whole section on special needs kids, you know we have a large population of special needs kids these days that they have to be addressed in a very different attitude than a child who is not special needs.
Matt (host):Yeah, for sure. For sure. And kind of on that note, when a child is struggling, perhaps academically or in other aspects of life, this is kind of where your work connects to youth mental health very directly. What warning signs have you seen in children who maybe aren't coping well with a separation or custody conflict? It might be manifested in things like declining grades, anxiety, anger, withdrawal, sleep problems, other physical ailments, or maybe even refusing to go to one parent's home.
Matt (host):When should parents stop saying, Well, they're just adjusting to this upheaval in family situation and consider maybe bringing in a mental health profession?
David Pisarra:I would say that in general, you know, it's about a six month window, you know, to adjust. And if after six months you're seeing your youth is still having either eating issues too much or too little, gaming issues too much or too little, sleeping issues too much or too little, now it's time to bring in some professional help. Now it's time like, okay, what's really the underlying cause here because honestly after six months of a new schedule, of a new routine, they should pretty much have been adjusted at that point. And so what's going to come up frequently in those situations is one parent is sabotaging the normal, one parent is deliberately causing some problem, know I refer to them as the termites because they're generally very small issues, very quiet, they're in the walls, but it's eating at the foundation of what's really going on.
Matt (host):Yeah, yeah, so that sort of sets up my next question well, I would tackle a difficult situation where a teenager suddenly says, you know, I don't want to go to dad's house, or I don't want to go see mom, and, you know, reasons can matter enormously here, I suppose. You know, it could be just ordinary adolescent conflict. It could it could reflect influence from the other parents, or in some cases, there could be a legitimate safety or relationship concern. So, how should a parent respond to that reticence to see the other parent without immediately jumping to conclusions?
David Pisarra:Well if you're the receiving parent, it's appropriate to kind of try and do some exploration to find out like what is going on here, am I doing something that's making you uncomfortable, Is the environment not welcoming enough for you? Is there something that I'm not aware of that's happening? And it could be maybe there's a new partner involved and all of a sudden there's a conflict there. I had a case a couple years ago, the 16 year old son was very, very upset with dad just tremendously angry with dad because dad had a new girlfriend and he felt that dad was paying more attention to the new girlfriend than to him. Not upset at the divorce like he totally understood the divorce because they were two people who it was nasty and ugly for the years that they were living together, but it was the fact that he felt he wasn't being valued, that he wasn't being treasured.
David Pisarra:Right. And once that was actually uncovered then dad could address it and be like, okay, now I understand. We were able to resolve it. Other times you've got issues like the kid's just really busy. Know kids these days have very busy lives, lots of after school activities and particularly if they're trying to get into some of the better colleges and they're looking to really build out their resume, moving every week or every three days house to house, it's uncomfortable.
David Pisarra:Yeah, yeah. I mean if you've ever been on a road trip and you've been working and you're working and you're living in a new hotel every three days, it's exhausting. Just the traveling is exhausting let alone others. Right. So and I get that that upheaval can be very stressful for some people.
David Pisarra:So that may be the issue. The child may be like, you know, I just it's too much. Can we go to a week on week off or two weeks on or two weeks off? Maybe that's something that needs to be surfaced and discussed. You really have to dig in and try and understand what's really going on.
David Pisarra:Right. The other thing to remember is this, know, yeah, I've got this case right now where mom says I can't make the 12 year old go see her father when she doesn't want to. Well that's a really interesting situation to be in. How do you handle it when she's 12 and doesn't want to go to school? Yeah.
David Pisarra:You make her? So you are able to make her do things, you're just selectively enforcing what she's going to do.
Matt (host):Yeah, yeah that's an important point.
David Pisarra:And that becomes also sometimes like in that case becomes an issue for the judge to decide. Because if it's very clear that mom is selectively enforcing what she's going make this child do, now we've got grounds to change custody.
Matt (host):Doctor. Yeah. So, one of the things you teach fathers to do is to gather and present evidence effectively in court. So, I want to approach that from the opposite direction for a moment. What should parents never do with their children while gathering evidence?
Matt (host):You know, should children ever be asked to document what happens at the other parent's house or you know, be the messenger kind of carrying messages back and forth between them, report on a parent's behavior or otherwise become, you know, unwitting participants in the legal case.
David Pisarra:Absolutely, and the kids should never be interrogated, the kids should never be messengers. Right, And it does happen and it's horrible. Sure. I see it happen in cases all the time and the damage that it's doing to the child is it's not only damaging the relationship with the parent that they're supposed to rat out a report on because now they're like what can I say, what can't I say, how do I phrase it, But it's also damaging the relationship with the interrogator because now it's like okay this isn't a loving environment? Right.
David Pisarra:It's gonna it's gonna color their view of people going forward in their own dating life usually. What are the what's gonna be a normal relationship? What's to be expected? And then how am I supposed to handle my behavior going forward knowing that somebody may be interrogating someone about my behavior. So now I'm learning to keep secrets.
Matt (host):Yeah, yeah. And we
David Pisarra:know that that's not healthy for relationships ever.
Matt (host):Sure, sure. And along those lines, something we hear a lot is, for couples in conflict is just communicate better and that's an easy prescription when two people are getting along, But when there's and it's never easy, suppose. But what about the parent whose former spouse is being genuinely difficult, hostile, or provocative? So, what what does productive communication look like when sort of warm co parenting isn't a realistic possibility?
David Pisarra:You really have to go to the written word. This is where tools like Our Family Wizard or TalkingParents really become very beneficial because you can put everything in writing, you can then easily run it through like whether it's a chat GPT or Our Family Wizard actually has it built in as a tone meter where okay you can go on and you can be like, you lying sack of weasel droppings, I can't stand, can't believe you didn't, like you can just vent all of that.
Matt (host):Right, right, right.
David Pisarra:When you click the button and it says, Dear X, your behavior is infecting me in this way, I would appreciate if you wouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah. Right? Right. And that's one of the ways we use technology these days to increase communication skills.
David Pisarra:We actually teach people through that what they're saying and then what actually needs to be said and a lot of guys, like I've got guys in my VIP program where we teach dads, it's the vitally important parent program, we teach them how to represent themselves in family court and they're using tools like Our Family Wizard, ChatGPT, Perplexity and they're putting things through there and then they're saying gray rock or yellow rock this, which is take the emotion out of it. Make it objectively just valid and what it's doing is less and less work over time because they're learning how to actually communicate without the emotion. They see what they wrote, they see it corrected, and then the next time they go and they get closer to the corrected version, the more and more they do it.
Matt (host):Right. And parents have to be very careful with their digital behavior during a custody dispute, right? I mean, are flared emotions and sometimes we vent those through texts, you know, but one thing that, you know, a good rule should simply be, you know, don't write anything that you wouldn't be comfortable having a judge read aloud in court, right? Because it will be. Exactly, exactly.
David Pisarra:Guaranteed, it's gonna be Right,
Matt (host):exactly, exactly. So, something that you touched upon earlier, eventually many divorced parents began dating, in some cases they remarried, so for adults a new relationship can represent moving forward, but for a child it's much more complicated and the same sentiment felt by the parents in a new relationship is not the same sentiment felt by a child, almost never anyway. So, what mistakes do parents make when introducing new partners?
David Pisarra:They do it too soon, that's one of the biggest problems, is they do it too soon and that's one of the reasons why the child feels they're being replaced, that new family is coming along and they're being replaced by it. Particularly if you're dating someone who has children themselves, now it's going to just increase that anxiety. And one of the things that I tell the guys I work with is go slow because your new love has to also negotiate their relationship with the kids and that needs to be a slow boil. You can't just jump in and suddenly all of a sudden they're like, oh there's your new mom, like no, don't be doing that, this is my friend and let it be your friend for six months or eight months, let the kids warm up slowly, let them see the evolution of a relationship that goes from you know that hot and heavy early part into like oh we're actually just stable friends and communicating, but then see things actually develop so they can develop their own sense of security with that person.
Matt (host):Right, Right. So, in the case where one parent or in in some cases both parents actually remarry, how did how did the parents give children permission to to develop or maybe not immediately develop a relationship with a steptarent without making them feel disloyal to their biological parent.
David Pisarra:That is so difficult to do.
Matt (host):Yeah, it is.
David Pisarra:Because there's so many emotions wrapped up in that and yet I have seen it happen time and time again where people have navigated these sometimes rocky waters but the way in which they do it is they recognize that a child can be loved by more than one person and it doesn't lessen my love for them or their love for me. And that's the big lesson that I think a lot of people need to remember that okay your ex has a new partner, That partner is gonna play a role in your child's life. It could be a good relationship, it could be a bad relationship, and you're gonna have a big role in deciding that. Right, right. Yeah.
David Pisarra:And if you help that person develop a stable connection with your kids and they love your child that much more, who's benefiting? The kid. Does he take anything away from you? No,
Matt (host):Right, doesn't have right. So, along the lines of communication, suppose two parents have just decided they're separating, You know, the D word may have been broached, but it's not right now they're just separating. So, have, say, a 10 year old and a 14 year old sitting at the kitchen table. It's a traumatic experience for children. So, what do those children most need to hear?
David Pisarra:They need to know that they're going to still be involved with both parents' lives. That they're both, that they're still loved by both parents. That a change in the structure of a family doesn't change the existence of a family. The fact that we're now going to have two homes, you're gonna have two TVs and two computers and two wardrobes doesn't mean that you're not loved. If anything it means you're loved even more because now you have two places to resort to.
Matt (host):Right, yeah. So your work primarily serves fathers through dad's law school. Here at Nimble Youth, we have parents of every kind listening. So, I'd like you to put aside which side of the courtroom someone happens to be sitting on. But after twenty five years of watching families go through this, if you could make both parents understand one thing before beginning a custody dispute, what might it be?
David Pisarra:That's a really difficult question to answer because there's so many things I want to answer. Right. But I think the one
Matt (host):It doesn't have to be one thing. It could be a handful of things but- Doctor.
David Pisarra:Sure. The one thing is that if you hold your children's lives with an open hand and allow your partner to hold them with an open hand, what you will get is a child that is actually ready to fly. You'll have a child who is able to navigate life's rough waters and the rough air of life and it comes from demonstrating for those children that things can change, you can have conflict with somebody and not hate them. It is possible to reconfigure a relationship and still maintain the relationship at its core. If you are both parents of a child, you're not going away.
David Pisarra:The core role there is parent. Now you can renegotiate it and reformulate it so that everybody can benefit.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. So David there's something from this conversation that I think is worth emphasizing. A divorce may end a marriage but it doesn't doesn't end a family. It changes the architecture of that family.
Matt (host):But for the child, mom is still mom and dad is still dad, those relationships remain part of that child's identity. So, parents may have legitimate disagreements, there may be circumstances where firm legal boundaries are absolutely necessary, and of course, as mentioned before, you know, when abuse or safety concerns are present, protecting the child has to come first. But in the ordinary, painful, messy circumstances of any divorce, perhaps one of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is permission. Permission to love both parents, permission to enjoy time in both homes, and then permission not to take sides, and permission to remain a kid rather than becoming another participant in the divorce. So David, before we close, is there one final piece of advice you'd like to give a parent who's just beginning this process?
David Pisarra:Love your children more than you resent your partner. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. That's the one thing that if they could just do that, it will make such a difference in the overall experience of all of it, of the divorce, of the breakup, of the negotiations and it will dramatically improve your child's life going forward.
Matt (host):Right, absolutely. My guest today has been David Bazarrett, family law attorney, chief executive of Dads Law School, founder of Union of Dads, and host of the Union of Dads podcast. David's work helps families, fathers better understand family court, prepare and organize evidence, advocate effectively for themselves, and create workable parenting plans. So we'll include links to David's work and the resources in the episode notes. If you know a parent going through separation or divorce who could benefit from this conversation, please do share this episode with them.
Matt (host):And if you enjoy Nimble Youth, please follow the podcast and leave us a rating or review. It helps other families find these conversations. Until next time, remember when a relationship between adults ends, protecting the relationship a child has with the people who love them may be some of the most important work that comes next. I'm Matt Butterman. This is Nimble Youth.
Matt (host):We'll see you next time.