How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships | Raising Someone Else's Kids with Tracy Poizner

Tracy Poizner is the "The Essential Stepmom" and shares how we can build relationships of trust and respect with new kids.

Show Notes

This week on the show we welcome Tracy Poizner, parenting strategist who specializes in helping divorced moms and dads navigate new parenting duties and help them raise well-adjusted, fully-parented humans. She teaches us how to move through shallow expectations and work toward forging relationships of trust within a new family, challenging preconceived notions of perfection in favor of respect.

What don't people understand about becoming a step-parent? A lot, according to Poizner. Overcoming expectations and stereotypes is central to avoiding parent alienation. "Your maternal instinct needs to be unplugged," she says. "The best way to build trust is to stay out of the way."

Tracy Poizner is the host of The Essential Stepmom podcast and the Undeletable Dad coaching program. She can be found at Essential Stepmom: The Womanly Art of Raising Someone Else's Kids.

(00:00) - Welcome to How to Split a Toaster
(00:26) - Meet Tracy Poizner
(01:21) - A Voice in Step-Parenting
(05:33) - Having a Gendered Conversation
(12:46) - Boundaries
(17:31) - Things to Try
(22:44) - Introducing the New Partner
(26:57) - Dealing With Dislike
(29:43) - Age of Kids
(31:16) - Minimizing Conflict
(33:33) - Step-Adjacent Issues in Court
(36:10) - Last Advice

Creators & Guests

Host

Pete Wright

Podcaster and co-host, Pete Wright brings years of marriage and a spirit of curiosity to the divorce process. He's spent the last two decades interviewing experts and thinkers in emotional healing and brings that with him to the law, divorce, and saving relationships in the process.

Host

Seth R. Nelson

Seth Nelson is the founding attorney and managing partner at NLG Divorce & Family Law. He is a Tampa-based family lawyer known for devising creative solutions to difficult problems.

Producer

Andy Nelson

Hailing from nearly 25 years in the world of film, television, and commercial production, Andy has always had a passion for storytelling, no matter the size of the package.

What is How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships?

Seth Nelson is a Tampa based family lawyer known for devising creative solutions to difficult problems. In How to Split a Toaster, Nelson and co-host Pete Wright take on the challenge of divorce with a central objective — saving your most important relationships with your family, your former spouse, and yourself.