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Divorce Dialogues helps people navigate divorce with dignity, clarity, and perspective. Through thoughtful conversations with experts and practitioners, the show explores the emotional, financial, legal, and relational realities of divorce, so listeners can make better decisions, communicate more effectively, and move forward with greater confidence.
Because divorce is more than a legal transaction, it’s a deeply human transition.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (00:00):
If you're waiting for the other parent to change, nothing will ever change. It'll always stay the status quo, and so you're allowing that person to guide your life. You have to be who you know you are. And I tell parents that all the time, you know what's right. I don't have to sit here and tell you what's right. Do what you know is right and do it in the name of your children.
Katherine Miller (00:23):
Welcome to Divorce Dialogues. I'm Katherine Miller. This is where we have honest, thoughtful conversations about divorce, the emotional, financial, legal, and family questions no one prepares you for. From deciding whether to separate, to navigating the process with dignity, to rebuilding what comes next, Divorce Dialogues is here to help you find clarity, perspective, and a better way forward.
(00:54)
When parents divorce, we tell them all the time to put the kids first. And of course that sounds right, but what does it actually mean? Because putting your children first doesn't mean you stop being angry with your former spouse, and it doesn't mean that the hurt disappears. And it certainly doesn't mean that the two of you all of a sudden somehow become good at communicating just because you've decided to divorce and put the children first. In fact, you're being asked to build an entirely new relationship with someone at exactly the same moment that your old relationship is falling apart and possibly at the height of your anger and hurt.
(01:28):
You're no longer spouses or partners, but you're still parents to the same children. And that means that some kind of relationship has to continue. And the question is, what does that relationship need to look like? Does good co-parenting mean you have to get along? How much communication is actually necessary? What happens when one parent wants to cooperate and the other doesn't? And how do you make sure that your children aren't carrying the conflict that still exists between you? Because I think that put the kids first only becomes useful advice when we understand what it actually asks parents to do. And my guest today, Dr. Jann Blackstone, has spent more than 35 years helping families just figure it out. She's a former California Superior Court child custody mediator, co-parenting counselor, founder of Bonus Families, and author of Co-Parenting for Dummies. Jann helps parents move beyond the conflict of their former relationship and build a new one centered on the children.
(02:34):
And today we're talking about what child-centered co-parenting really requires and what you can do even when your co-parent isn't making it easy. Welcome, Jann Blackstone. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (02:48):
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Katherine Miller (02:49):
I talked a lot in the introduction about this idea of putting the kids first and all the time in divorce. And you've worked with families going through divorce for decades. And what do you think that actually means or what does it mean to you? And what do you think that well-intentioned parents get it wrong?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (03:06):
I think well-intentioned parents, after they break up, feel guilty and they allow that to guide them through their decision making. And so using that as the lens, put your children first means check in with them, make sure they're doing what they want you to do. And that's not what it means. You don't stop being a parent when you break up. It means use the children's best interest as a criteria for your decision making, which means you're going to have to talk to your ex. And the thing is that you said in the intro is exactly right. That's exactly the premise is I try to work with parents. Don't think of them as your ex anymore. They're your co-parent. It's a different relationship. It doesn't matter if they betrayed you or you betrayed them, all of that because your children, they're getting older by the minute.
(03:51):
So all of that garbage that's your business, you've got to put it aside and work for the children. However, exactly like what you said, it's pretty hard when you break up and there's all sorts of all that baggage that's left.
Katherine Miller (04:06):
I'm sure that every listener who's going through this right now and struggling with trying to put the kids first, but still dealing with being so pissed off and trying to regulate those emotions at the same time, in the over 35 years that I've been doing this work, parents I think both say they want to do what's best for the children, they just can't agree on what that is. And so there comes a point where stopping fighting about it is more important than the best decision, if that makes sense to you.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (04:39):
Oh, I absolutely agree.
Katherine Miller (04:41):
Yeah. You've developed this CARE approach, communication, acceptance, respect, and empathy. So talk to us about that. What does that mean? How does it help people and how can they do it?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (04:47):
I'll give you the little history behind it. I write a syndicated column called ex-etiquette, and it's on the premise of the 10 rules of good ex-etiquette, but there's 10 rules and basically it's CARE. And so what I did is I reduced it down to an acronym. So to remind yourself, because so much of this co-parenting business is mindset. It's what you think about before you talk to the person, what you think about when you're not talking to the person. And so CARE kind of asks you to check your mindset. Communication, that's the C in CARE. We spend most of the time in my co-parenting classes on communication because people say, "Well, we just don't communicate." And yeah. So there's definitely different things that you have to do in order to communicate better.
Katherine Miller (05:34):
So just stop for one second though because communicate about what? Because if you have a very difficult co-parent, then I think it's just need to know. You need to communicate homework, deadlines, appointments, timing, but you don't need to communicate your feelings, your justification for your actions.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (05:55):
And that's why people get in trouble because they feel like they have to. And really all you need to do is Bobby has a three o'clock doctor's appointment. If you want to meet us there, that's where we'll be.
Katherine Miller (06:07):
Need to know.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (06:08):
Exactly. Exactly. I'm working with a client right now that if she presents something to her co-parent and he says no, she wants to know why and the reasoning behind it, and it spins every time and I have to work with her and saying, okay, we're going to work on negotiation and compromise and you don't need to know exactly why it won't work because that'll just take you in another direction.
Katherine Miller (06:31):
Well, it just sucks you right back into the conflict, that dynamic of the marriage.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (06:35):
People don't communicate any different when they break up. They have to learn a new way to communicate. They problem solve exactly the way they were when they were together, and it's just an extension of that. So if you didn't get along then, you're not going to get along now unless you do something different.
Katherine Miller (06:53):
It's definitely going to be worse now even.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (06:55):
There's no incentive for when you're together.
Katherine Miller (06:55):
There's no making up.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (06:59):
There you go. That's exactly right. When people communicate and they argue when they're together, there's an incentive to get through it, staying together. But when you've already broken up, there's no incentive. So it's kind of like where the premise of put your children first comes from because now it's not about you. It's not about your ex-partner. It's about co-parenting the children in the present.
Katherine Miller (07:18):
Exactly. So acceptance, is that the next, the A in CARE?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (07:22):
Yeah. The acceptance part is allowing your co-parent to change because a lot of people stay there and they think of them as this awful, terrible person who betrayed them or had a drug problem or they don't do whatever they did and they don't let them improve. And the truth is you've improved, you become a different person. You know what we have to do in order to rise above it, let your co-parent do the same. It also works, I use the same premise in blending families and bonus family life because acceptance of everybody and their individuality is so important. That's what makes a bonus family work. You can't put a square peg in a round hole. You have to allow everybody to be themselves, and that's the same premise for acceptance.
Katherine Miller (08:07):
Yeah. And I wonder as I'm listening to you, Jan, that I think some people feel themselves a better parent because the other parent is a worse parent. Does that make any sense to you?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (08:20):
Sure. And they get their identity from being the best parent. I call it the best parent syndrome in the book that I just wrote and it's because yeah, they pride themselves in being a far better parent when the reality is in court, the parent who's most likely to facilitate a relationship with the other parent is the one that usually gets primary custody.
Katherine Miller (08:17):
Yeah, because it is actually probably in the best interest of the children to have a good relationship with both parents. And to the extent that you can support that as a parent, you are actually enhancing that impeding your parenting ability and actually the way your kids are going to feel about you throughout the process is they think that when parents support each other, their children really appreciate that, whether or not that's explicit or implicit.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (09:08):
I tell people a story all the time about my own dad. They were together, but I remember being in a picnic with my dad and we were sitting at a picnic table when he was watching my mom and he said to me, "Your mom is such a good person," and it made me like my dad more.
Katherine Miller (09:24):
Yeah.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (09:25):
That's what I always tell people. I found myself thinking, "God, my dad is really a nice person because he likes my mom and I really like my mom too." And so all of a sudden I wasn't in the middle choosing which parent I liked better. I was saying, "Oh gosh, I love both of them." So many times people don't know what badmouthing is and we can get into that because it's a real problem.
Katherine Miller (09:47):
All right, let's finish CARE though. Respect. Is that the next part?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (09:52):
Respect. Respect is treating them the way you want to be treated, the golden rule, understanding that your child has just as much right to have a relationship with their other parent as they do with you. And it's the whole best parent kind of thing. Get past that because your children deserve both of you and that comes from how you treat your other parent and how they treat you.
Katherine Miller (10:15):
Great. And the E is for empathy, is that right?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (10:19):
Put yourself in their shoes. So many times co-parents, because they're so angry, ask the other parent to do something they would never do. If you're not going to drive two hours to go pick up your kid, don't expect them to do it. Put yourself in their shoes. And if you say no because they ask you for an extra day, is that what you would want? Think about that because now that's the parents, but the empathy is also remembering what the children want. Put yourself in their shoes as well. And they may want to spend an extra day. They may want to go to the ball game and it's your day and mom wants to take them or dad wants to take them.
Katherine Miller (10:54):
Jann, we've been talking about co-parenting, but there are these two models of parenting that the professionals talk about, and one is co-parenting and the other is parallel parenting. And I think it would be really helpful for the listeners if you could walk through what the differences are and how parents know what model might be right for their family or at least right now.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (11:17):
Parallel parenting is you are completely autonomous as a parent. When the child is with you, you make the decisions, the parenting decisions for the child. There is no calling each other up and comparing notes. It's completely autonomous and it's designed for people who are very high conflict. And oftentimes what happens as a result of that is the kids end up a go-between. Tell your mother this, tell your mother that. Tell your father this. Oh, I need a check, that kind of thing. That puts the child in the middle and makes them messengers, and I have all sorts of stories for you on inadvertently doing that and not understanding. Co-parenting is calling each other up, discussing things, making a decision, learning how to negotiate so that it's not a problem, and raising your children together even though you're not a couple any longer. I am solely in favor of co-parenting.
(11:17):
I think that when you're parallel parenting, a lot of times you're putting the children in the middle because you're not talking. This is my opinion. I'm sure there are professionals out there and there are people who are so angry at each other or something's happened or trauma and they can't check in with each other. Those are the ones that parallel parent, which means you're completely autonomous. You don't even tell them about doctor's appointments, whatever. The kids are with me here and the kids are with you there. However, there are tons of things that you have to still continue to do. I talk to your other parent about if you're not talking, like I just said, doctor's appointments, little league games. Do you want to raise your child thinking, oh well, it's mom's day and dad can't watch me in little league? I mean, is that what you want to raise your child with?
(12:58):
So there are degrees of co-parenting in my estimation.
Katherine Miller (13:03):
Inadvertently putting the kids in the middle is such an easy thing to do. And since you mentioned it, because I remember my daughter when I divorced her father and I remember just putting something in her backpack and saying, "Would you just ask your dad to sign that?" Now we were not parallel parenting, but it seemed like this backpack was in my house in the morning. It was going to be in his house in the afternoon. This would be such a convenient way to get it there. And she said, "I don't want to be in the middle. I don't want to have to do that." And it was such a... I mean, I really -
Dr. Jann Blackstone (13:37):
It was innocuous.
Katherine Miller (13:38):
It was totally an innocent thing from me, but I could see how her perspective... I could put it in her backpack, but I should say to get it there, but I didn't say to her, "Tell your dad." I would just say to him, "Hey, listen, I'm putting this in Laura's backpack and make sure you get it because it needs to be signed." That made all the difference to her, even though it just seemed like such a small thing. I think it was magnified by the fact that we were divorced and she was very wary of being in the middle there.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (14:08):
Perfect example. I have examples of all sorts of things like that, that inadvertently don't even know. I'll tell you real quick. Father was behind on his child support payments. His car blew up. He needed to buy another car. The mother was furious with him because he was so behind. So when he got this new car, his child that went back and forth was I think eight, nine years old. He said, "Tell your mom, yes, I got a new car, but it was 0% financing and grandpa helped me with the down payment." And the kid's going, "What?" So what he did was he went back to mom's house, didn't say a thing. Mom found out, blew her top, but then he didn't want to go back to dad's anymore because he didn't put the information forward the way dad told him and he thought he'd get in trouble on that side too.
(14:55):
So then you hear, well, the child doesn't want to come back and see you and that parent who the child's with automatically thinks something's happening over at that house when it could be the dynamic of the two parents and they just don't want to deal with it like your daughter.
Katherine Miller (15:09):
Yeah. And there are a lot of other ways, Jann, that we can put our kids in the middle. You want to give us some other examples?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (15:16):
All sorts of things like that. If you badmouth, you're putting them in the middle. Some people don't even understand what badmouthing is. They'll think badmouthing is calling them bad names and referring to them as swear words. Badmouthing can be something like your mother is so lazy and your father's so late all the time and it drives me crazy and the kid's in the backseat going like this and that puts them right in the middle. Whenever your child knows something more than the other parent, you're buying a new house, you're dating somebody and you didn't tell anybody. All of those things put the child in the middle because if they have more information than their other parent, they have to make the decision whether, should I tell dad? Should I tell mom? Am I going to get in trouble? Is mom or dad going to get in trouble?
(16:01):
So they're always processing this stuff and you have to be forthcoming and deal with it. If the other parent gets mad, oh well, you guys are grownups.
Katherine Miller (16:09):
Divorce Dialogues is brought to you by Miller Law Group. We believe divorce isn't just a legal process, it's a human transition. At Miller Law Group, we help people navigate divorce with dignity, clarity, and respect, focusing on conversations that lead to better outcomes for families. Learn more at miller-law.com. All right, so I know that there are listeners out there thinking, "Well, I would love to co-parent well, but my ex just won't do it." What advice do you have? I have some thoughts too, but I'd love to hear what you have to say about that.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (16:45):
If you're waiting for the other parent to change, nothing will ever change. It'll always stay the status quo, and so you're allowing that person to guide your life. You have to be who you know you are. I tell parents that all the time, "You know what's right. I don't have to sit here and tell you what's right. Do what you know is right and do it in the name of your children."
Katherine Miller (17:08):
So let's flesh that out a little bit. I think you're saying that I'm going to be like this, but the other person isn't going to be like this, so I'm not going to badmouth, but I know they're going to badmouth. So how is that right? I'm not going to put the kids in the middle, but I know they're going to put the kids in the middle. And I think what you're saying, because this is what I say to people too, is so what? You still do the thing that you would do on your half and you're not going to change them by telling them, but maybe over time they're going to see the impact and if you're not creating the same dynamic that was always there, that kind of competitive dynamic, then there's a good chance they're going to ease up on it too.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (17:46):
The other thing I always tell them, there is language that you can use to counteract it. If the child comes home and says something like, "Daddy's dating Julie and mommy told the child that daddy and I would be back together if it wasn't for Julie," that type of thing. So she goes back and tells daddy that. If it was an affair, then you've got another story that you've got to talk about. But if it wasn't, it was just that the mom is jealous or angry or whatever, you say, "Honey, mommy is mistaken. She doesn't have all the information, and I'll be careful to give her all the information." Mistaken is the key word, but I met Julie six months after mommy and I decided to break up. So you should understand that it's just mistaken and the world is mistaken because it's not saying mommy's lying, it's saying mommy doesn't have all the information.
(18:35):
And I love that word because you're not bad mouthing, you're telling the truth.
Katherine Miller (18:40):
So long as it's the truth, because I don't think you're suggesting that if Julie was…
Dr. Jann Blackstone (18:44):
Oh no, that’s not what I was saying. Now you got... Depending on how old the child is, how much information you give them. I'm not in favor of volunteering all sorts of information.
Katherine Miller (18:54):
Well, that's the worst, because if you lie to a kid and then they later find out that they were lied to,
Dr. Jann Blackstone (18:58):
Now you go, "Oh yeah, no, I don't suggest that at all." Well, it's just classic examples. Well, we're going to definitely go someplace else on this one, but when somebody is pregnant when they meet somebody and they don't tell them that that's not their biological father and they find out when they're 25. Something like that. I'm sure you've run into that. I run into it all the time. You've got to treat it like an adoption. You tell the child as soon as they're old enough to understand, otherwise they're going to have a problem. So just to piggyback on what you're saying about don't lie.
Katherine Miller (19:31):
Yeah. It doesn't mean they need to know every last gory detail. It's finding an age appropriate way to tell them.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (19:37):
And they won't understand. There's grown up emotions. I mean, kids can't put the same names and labels on them. They don't know to attach them. They're learning what anger is. They don't know what attraction is and things like that until they get older in high school, and then it's another story all together.
Katherine Miller (19:55):
Jann, you used the term bonus family, and I know that that's a term that you've coined and it comes out of your own experience. So can you tell us what it means and how you came to it?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (20:05):
I'm married to somebody that had two children, and I had one daughter, and then we had another child. The kids' biological mother, not me, but their biological mother is a very hands-on mom and took us years, but we had to really talk to each other, and we were the primary caregivers, and it got to the point where I was the primary caregiver. Another word to present a family that's blended, that's not based on step, because you have to be married if you're a stepfamily, because that's based on marriage and most people don't get married anymore. So we needed another word for there, but my kids at the time were all into Disney princesses and things like that, and they couldn't understand the whole wicked concept, and I didn't like it either. I thought of them as not my biological children. I would never take that away from their mother or their father.
(20:56):
However, we needed to find a more positive word that indicated what we were, and bonus came up because it's reward for a job well done. There's a whole story behind it that's on my website. It was a cute story that came up with it. Their mom and I sat around, threw the name back and forth, whitening, brightening version, came up with the bonus, but it works out. It worked out because of the definition. It's a reward. If you're in sales and you reach quota, you get a bonus. So it's just reflective of hard work.
Katherine Miller (21:28):
My husband and I each got married with a son and a daughter and a dog, and we have a child together.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (21:34):
Yeah, I'm a bonus dog.
Katherine Miller (21:35):
Right. No, and she's 24 now, so it's been a few minutes since this has been going on, and I think it is a very complicated process of coming to something that works and working at the kinks with it. So I appreciate the term bonus family a lot better than step and a lot better than sort of a dividing line between us and them.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (21:57):
And people who can't co-parent, I think it can. It's a degree of co-parenting that I'd like to talk to them about, but you want to make the transitions from house to house as seamless as possible. Think about it. If you have a completely different and don't talk, you're asking your children to be two different people, and that's not good psychologically. Yeah, but there's no way that if you're not comparing notes in some way, for them to be able to assimilate into a... It's very difficult for them. That's why I really advocate talking to each other, doing the best you can, and never badmouth the other parent in front of the child.
Katherine Miller (22:36):
Well, that's kind of a good segue to my next question, which is when people divorce when their children are young, my kids were three and six when I divorced their father, obviously the needs of a three-year-old and a six-year-old are really different than the needs of a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old. While this was something that was able to work out with their dad, sometimes my clients have this, I don't know, sort of ongoing competition. The needs of the children change, the needs of the parents change, their jobs change, they move, they re-partner, whatever, or it would be suited to have them adjust the plan, but sometimes one parent just holds on to like, "Nope, I'm going to enforce this plan that we had when the kid was three." And so talk about that a little.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (23:23):
If you get a divorce when the child's zero, you're going to probably go through three or four parenting plans. You start out with hours. My least favorite parenting plan is a 2-2-3 because kids never know where they are. It's good for toddlers. They're not away from their primary caregiver for too long. 2-2-5 works when they get a little bit older and can be away from either parent for five days. And then when they get to be older, high school, later junior high, then week on, week off, if indeed now we're talking about equal custody, there are plenty of times when you can't have equal custody far away from each other and your jobs, your place. There's all sorts of different reasons. I don't know how do I get off on that?
Katherine Miller (24:06):
Well, I was talking about the shift in the parenting plan that you need to make. You
Dr. Jann Blackstone (24:08):
Got to stay flexible and make the decisions for the children. I get very frustrated when I say we're sticking to the custody order, and I'll say, why? If you can make a change, I don't know about in your state, but in California, there is a stipulation that if the parents agree to something else, they can. You just write yourself out. The custody order, the parenting plan is a default. If you can't do it, then you have to do that. That's to keep you out of court. If you can at all make an adjustment, go for a week here instead, trade weekends, do all that, you can do that.
Katherine Miller (24:42):
Yeah. And if you can't agree on that, you can go back to court and the court can order a new custody order that more fits the children under the current circumstances.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (24:51):
But I hope that parents can discuss it.
Katherine Miller (24:54):
I think they usually can.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (24:55):
But sometimes it's there. People parent the way they were parented. So if your parents were divorced, it's pretty hard to not parent that way. And if they co-parented, then it's easier. But if they were really angry at each other, then you think of terms of breaking up the same way. And this is all education. Co-parenting is all education. It's not therapy. I don't approach it. It's all education.
Katherine Miller (25:20):
What's the shift in thinking that you wish that parents could make from, how do I deal with my ex, to how do we parent our children?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (25:27):
That's the shift. We're there. It's all about mindset.
Katherine Miller (25:30):
What do you think changes when they start looking at it that way?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (25:33):
Everything. I tell people all the time because I have clients who they come to me to mediate a parenting plan and they don't want to go to court. And I'll say, "If you guys start to get along and start to compare notes and not take things so personal and really truly put the children first, you will adjust your parenting plan naturally. You won't say no all the time. If you want to do something special with the child, you understand. The kid's not gonna go, “Remember five years ago when I went on a baseball game and it wasn't on say, what they will remember is that you worked together, that my parents were kind to each other in front of me.”
Katherine Miller (26:10):
I'm wondering, if you could give parents at the beginning of separation, one piece of advice that could protect their children and their future relationship as co-parents, what would that one piece of advice be?
Dr. Jann Blackstone (26:29):
Oh gosh, I don't mean to be crass, but get over yourself. It's about the kids. They didn't ask for this. I mean, how many children have you worked with that want their parents to reconcile and they don't know the specifics behind the breakup? So it's really the parents. Put your children first, and I know we explained that at the beginning, but it's really making it about them and not you.
Katherine Miller (26:21):
I think though that if somebody is not the person who chose the divorce and can often weaponize those words, I don't think you mean that. And so I want to just tease that out a little bit in terms of the difference in that, well, if you had put our kids first, then you wouldn't have had this affair or you wouldn't have left our family or you wouldn't have chosen to divorce me because it just wasn't that bad as opposed, so therefore whatever they want.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (26:51):
It's all your fault. We're in this.
Katherine Miller (26:53):
Exactly. It's all your fault, so you don't deserve this and you don't deserve that, and why should my life change at all? And so I think what you're saying is quite the opposite of that, even though the words could sound the same.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (27:34):
Well, the reality is now, you deal with now. If you go to co-parenting counseling, oftentimes they want to go back and see what happened, kind of like marriage counseling. What happened? How could we heal that before we go forward? And then you guys won't be mad at each other. Meanwhile, the kids are getting angry, I mean, growing up by the minute. It could take you years to approach it that way. So that's what I try to do is just we're in the now.
Katherine Miller (27:28):
Well, I think that circles us back to get over yourself. If you're angry, so what? Deal with it in therapy and do the right thing by your kids.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (27:36):
I tell people all the time individual therapy is great, but this isn't therapy. This is co-parenting classes. I take it a little bit different than a lot of people. Give me a situation and I will talk to you about how to handle it by putting your children first. It's not a big psychological approach at all. It's education.
Katherine Miller (27:54):
All right, Jann Blackstone. Thank you so much for being my guest.
Dr. Jann Blackstone (27:57):
My pleasure. I could do this all the time.
Katherine Miller (27:59):
If this conversation was helpful, share it with someone who might need it. And if you're navigating divorce yourself, you'll find more resources and episodes at miller-law.com. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.