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Bill and Megan are joined by Ginger Gentile, director of “Erasing Family,” a documentary about adults fighting to reunite their broken families. They discuss the doc and how parents and families can work to reunite their own broken families.
Hosted by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA, It’s All Your Fault! High Conflict People explores the five types of people who can ruin your life—people with high conflict personalities and how they weave themselves into our lives in romance, at work, next door, at school, places of worship, and just about everywhere, causing chaos, exhaustion, and dread for everyone else.
They are the most difficult of difficult people — some would say they’re toxic. Without them, tv shows, movies, and the news would be boring, but who wants to live that way in your own life!
Have you ever wanted to know what drives them to act this way?
In the It’s All Your Fault podcast, we’ll take you behind the scenes to understand what’s happening in the brain and illuminates why we pick HCPs as life partners, why we hire them, and how we can handle interactions and relationships with them. We break down everything you ever wanted to know about people with the 5 high conflict personality types: narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, antisocial/sociopath, and paranoid.
And we’ll give you tips on how to spot them and how to deal with them.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to, It's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you understand and increase your effectiveness with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host Bill Eddie, along with our special guest for our ongoing high conflict divorce series, Ginger Gentile, who I'll introduce in a moment. Bill and I are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California at hci. We provide training, consultation, and education programs to clients anywhere in the world. We hope you've enjoyed our high conflict divorce series which it's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? ? I'll put it a little different way. We hope you're learning some helpful tools and skills for your situation if you're not here for divorce and that type of information, like let's say you're in HR or customer service or any industry or just maybe you're interested, this is a fascinating topic that may help inform you about an employee or customer or client you're trying to understand and help or maybe this is happening in your own family or with someone. In this episode, we are joined by Ginger Gen Teal, the director of a powerful, powerful documentary called Erasing Family. It's huge and she'll tell us all about it. But first a couple of notes. If you have a question about high conflict situations, send them to podcast high conflict institute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll find the show notes and links as well. Please give us a rate or a review and tell your friends, colleagues, or family about us, especially if they're dealing with a high conflict situation. We're very grateful.
Speaker 1:
So Ginger and Bill, Hello and Ginger, welcome to Its All Your Fault. We're very pleased to have you with us for this episode and very grateful that you're making time for us, for you listeners out there. By way of introduction, Ginger is the director of the Erasing Family documentary, which tells the story of adult children reuniting with their parents after parental alienation as a child of high conflict divorce. Her mission in life is to reunite families, which she does via television appearances such as on Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith. That's kind of huge. And also working as a coach to help parents and children reunite for her work, reuniting families. She was named an architect of Change by Maria Shriver. Also a big deal and the best news for us here at HCI is that Ginger is our newest coach with our new Ways for Families Coaching program where she has begun coaching parents to learn new conflict and relationship skills that'll help them find the missing piece in their co-parenting relationships. She's a highly trained coach and we'll talk a lot more about that. I'm pretty confident you'll want to find out more about her documentary after hearing about it today. So we'll put the link for erasing family.org in the show notes, and here's the best part. You can watch it for free and explore resources on that site, including a bill of rights for Kids of divorce and also access of Free Text Line. Ginger, welcome.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having me here today, Megan and billing. I'm honored.
Speaker 1:
We're honored as well. So we're going to start just like we do with all of our guests, which is with the fun stuff. We'd like to our listeners to get to know you a little bit better and give them an opportunity to fall in love with you, . So where did you grow up?
Speaker 2:
So I grew up in Long Island, New York, but I grew up in a very particular part of Long Island, which some people might have heard of called the Hamptons, which is one of the wealthiest vacation enclaves probably in the world but my family's lived there year round. So we were the locals, not townies, we were called locals. And it was very interesting to grow up around such a wealth disparity and I think that really impacted me and my view of, I don't know, justice but also in a way I feel comfortable with any situation. So I filmed in shanty towns, I've been around people with very high net worth and wherever I go I feel comfortable. So in that way it was a really interesting upbringing.
Speaker 1:
That is definitely What is your favorite reading or movie genre?
Speaker 2:
You know what? I love a good comedy and I feel like good comedies are hard to come by and I often tell my clients, they're like, What other documentary can I watch? I'm like, Watch a comedy. It'll raise your energy and relax you. And sometimes that's what you need when you're going through a high conflict situation.
Speaker 1:
I think that's good advice. Yeah, I like that. So next question, where do you wish you could live? If you could live anywhere in the world?
Speaker 2:
So I've lived in a lot of places. I think a dream of mine is New York because New York City, cuz it's so expensive.
Speaker 1:
Oh
Speaker 2:
Well you can just live in New York. But I think it's one of those places where you wanna live with the resources to do it right. It's a very awful city to be poor in. So that's why I'm calling it a dream of mine. Cause yeah, , I always wanna be back. I'm from there, I'm from there, but it's from there, but it seems like very unattainable at the same time sometimes
Speaker 1:
And probably becoming more so these days. So last question, if you could spend one hour with someone to have a discussion with or ask, just even sit with them, who would that be? Anyone in the world
Speaker 2:
Living or dead? Sure. Well, he's deceased, but I would have to say Carl Sagan, but not to ask him a scientific question. I think we forget how much Carl Sagan changed the way we view the world and the environment. So I don't wanna ask him how he got people to see things in a new way and how he got support for his ideas, which at the time were pretty far out there. So I'd love to learn about more about how he did that. Yeah,
Speaker 1:
Interesting. I
Speaker 2:
Like that.
Speaker 3:
Let me move on to asking you about your documentary Erasing Families. I was honored to be part of your premier of that in San Diego, so appreciate being part of that and being asked to do that. So why don't we start there. Tell us about the film, why you made it, what it's about.
Speaker 2:
So our Racing Family is a film that follows young adults as they reunite with their a parent. It's another term that I use for what is often called an alienated parent, and I wanted to make a film that was from the kids' perspective because I felt that that was really missing. And the kids often have a very different perspective than the parents. Parents know something is wrong right away. Kids grow up and as we know, kids grow up believing whatever they grow up in is normal. So often they don't even know that there's a parent who misses them, who loves them and wants to be with them. And I also wanted to create a story, and this was a little difficult where there was a happy ending that focused on reuniting and about letting go of the hurt and the blame. And I feel that no matter what the issue is in family court, a lot of time the focus can be on assigning blame.
Speaker 2:
I want to create a film about finding solutions. And what I found interesting is all the families who I've talked to who reunited and they're many, many more than what's in the film, all of them mention some way or another that forgiveness and focusing on solutions and learning new skills is really what unites all these families that until they let go of the pain and the hurt, it's very hard to reunite and create new relationships. So I wanted to make a film about that and it was a long process. It took a few years in part because I wanted to find families who wanted to talk about their experiences on camera who also had compelling stories, but as you can imagine, difficult to get people to open up on camera. And I think one thing that surprised me about the film was how much it resonated with young people. And I think also people are surprised when I say that is the intended audience. It's great for parents and professionals, but I really wanted to create a film that gave kids this excuse to go perhaps look for or talk to the parent who they never talked to.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think it's great and it's full length, they forget, is it an hour? How long is
Speaker 2:
It? So it's 90 minutes long. We also have shorted versions on there. And I also wanted to share with you an experience that happened at the film Premier in San Diego, if I can.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:
Surprise, surprise. My family has had a share of conflicts, a child of high conflict divorce . But also about two years before the film was made, I got into a fight with my father, father and my stepmother. It was over the phone. My stepmother was listening in and I ended up insulting her and I kind of made a decision right then and there that I was like, okay, my emotions are valid, but I don't like that this led to an argument. And I really just started to dive into the material from the High Conflict Institute, especially the Biff Method, which is brief and formative friendly firm. And I feel like that really made a difference in my life. And my father and I were not talking, even though I tried to apologize, he said he wanted nothing to do with me. But he lived in San Diego and I lived in San Diego and he decided to come to the premier of the film.
Speaker 2:
So that day was the first time I had seen him in a year and a half. And he was very proud to be the father of the film director. And what's interesting, and I found this out in bits and pieces, is that you were there and you actually gave kind of a masterclass on these techniques, very abbreviated, but a lot of good information there. And after we're done with the talk, my sister comes up to me in tears and she goes during the film and there's a picture where I put, there's a moment where I put the picture of my mom and my dad when they were getting married to show the kind of happier times in the film. And when that picture flashed on screen, my stepmother leaned over to my sister and said, Your mom and your dad were never actually married. It was all fake. And my sister took this very personally and began to cry. So at the end of the film she was in tears and she goes to me, what should we do? And I said, You know what? I feel like our stepmother is trying to get a reaction out of us. What if we just don't respond?
Speaker 2:
And afterwards, I think you were there and we were all kind of talking chitchatting. And then at one point my stepmother goes to my sister and says, You know what? I'm sorry I was wrong. I was thinking about another couple who had a fake marriage, not your mom and your dad.
Speaker 3:
How about that?
Speaker 2:
Oh wow. And then she looks at me and I think you were there but you probably don't remember this. And she looks at me and she goes, Wow, you really incorporated Biff into your life
Speaker 3:
,
Speaker 2:
Because we didn't take the bait. But I think what I got out of this was just even after listening to that talk, she didn't apologize. She didn't say, I learned so much, I'm gonna change. But she acknowledged that me and my sister at least wouldn't respond to this type of comments. And what I really liked is that both people don't have to change that with one person changing. It might not be the ideal relationship, trust me, I wish I had a more loving relationship with my stepmother, but with just that change and response, it's very possible that there isn't a conflict that arises out of it.
Speaker 3:
That's a fantastic story and I was glad to be there, although I didn't know that all was happening because we chatted before and after. But congratulations not just on the film, but having your experience and the skills you've learned help your own family. So you're helping so many people and I just think that's fantastic. Now, as you were making the film, actually you and I had some discussions and one thing I said is I hope it isn't about blaming professionals because a lot of people blame lawyers, blame judges, blame professionals for alienating or alienation and not helping or maybe actually even making it worse. So I was hoping it wouldn't be blaming. I was so glad to see the outcome of the video because I think not only is it not blaming, but it's really educating for professionals. And so I wondered what kind of feedback you've gotten, like lawyers, judges, other professionals from seeing the film.
Speaker 2:
There's been a wide variety of feedback. I would say 95% has been positive. And I think from judges what they're most interested in is how harmful it can be to ask kids to choose. Because I think for a lot of judges it seems natural, especially with teenagers to say which parent you wanna live with and to see how judges have found out how that can be a very harmful question to kids. And also as one judge says, you never get a good answer because it can be who's coached more. And I would say 5% mainly lawyers feel a little attacked watching the film because we do say that there are some lawyers out there that do like to prolong this type of conflict and could be high conflict themselves.
Speaker 2:
But I think the overall message of the film is that a trial is really not the ideal place to settle these conflicts in a family. And that the more we talk about mediation, collaborative law, and also other mental health services, the more these cases can stay out of court. And I've also, not just from the film but from talking to people who I work with, the family courts are really overwhelmed right now. They don't have the time to make really good agreements that are often needed in these high conflict situations with a lot of detail. So you get these cookie cutter agreements. And so people I think are moving even from, oh, it's this venue where people can sling mud at each other to you really get five minutes now in court it seems like in some jurisdictions because there's just such a big backlog after Covid. And so I think what I've heard from family law professionals is that they wish there were more alternatives and they often feel stuck sometimes in that their jurisdiction doesn't wanna look for us.
Speaker 3:
And that's part of why we develop new ways for families so people could learn skills and be able to resolve these disputes without having to use the court. And I'm so glad you've come on as a coach now because I think it's what happens early in the case that can really make a difference. So we're so glad you're part of that process.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. So Ginger why don't kids, speaking of all the kids in these cases, why don't they know they're alienated from a parent? It seems kind of strange to ask that type of question, but it must be a reality.
Speaker 2:
It is a reality. So parents know something is wrong because they wanna see their child and can't or it's very painful and difficult when they do, kids believe that whatever is their reality is normal. And if a parent says, Well you don't see your dad because he abandoned, you don't see mom because she's unfit. They just kind of take that at face value. And what I've also seen for kids when they grow older is that they will often own the estrangement. I've seen a lot of examples in pop culture where just TV things have nothing to do with this topic, but people will mention, Oh, I got a call from my dad or I haven't heard from for five years, so I just hung up the phone kind of, it's normal. Or my dad wanted call, so I put my mom on the phone too so she could listen in and then she would text me what to say. And they think of this as a way of protecting themselves. They don't see that this is actually being alienated. So it's important for parents to know as they work through this that the kids will have their own explanation for it. And it's very rarely I'm an alienated child.
Speaker 1:
When a child says to a parent, I don't want to ever see you or talk to you again, what should that parent say or do?
Speaker 2:
So in those types of situations, a child is probably very emotional. And one thing that we learn in the New Ways for family class, it's backed up by a lot of research, is that when people are emotional, you cannot give them new information or attempt to change their mind. So this is a chance for parents to practice acceptance in that moment. Cause often what children are expecting is an argument or a fight. So acceptance, especially with teenagers, of course you don't, but a lot of teenagers don't wanna spend time with their parent, but I'm gonna keep showing up and I'm here for you.
Speaker 1:
So you're doing very much an opposite thing. You have to do the opposite of what you're used to doing or feel like or feel like doing,
Speaker 2:
Which is to start controlling that situation. So for a lot of parents I've worked with, they see it as an opportunity to keep showing up with love. But I think the other extreme, which is to stop showing up can also be harmful. So it's a way to show that you're there and that you are there no matter what. And this is different each situation without saying you have to get in this car right now. So I think for parents, and it's always hard to give blanket advice, but it's to accept it without necessarily saying, Okay, I'll disappear forever then, or insisting. And it really depends on the age of the child, the level of resistance, but to just show that you're there and you're there unconditionally.
Speaker 1:
Right. Okay. Now when a child has refused all contact from a parent can the parent do anything? If so, what would that be? I mean those are tough situations.
Speaker 2:
They are tough situations. So first of all, for the parents to realize that there is hope that I have seen worked with and talked to families who reunite after a year of no contact, five years, 10 years. So just to maintain that there is hope. And right now social media can be a sword or tool. And I've seen wonderful results of parents who really redo their whole social media. I'll give you one example. There was a mom whose Instagram profile name was Parental Alienation as child abuse. And I worked with her and she changed it to her name, just her name and her photo. And she just started posting photos about her life, her farm, what she was doing, her friends. And two months later, both of her adult daughters reached out to her.
Speaker 1:
She put the sword down just by changing the name.
Speaker 2:
And I think being aware that your kids definitely follow you. And it's not to say talk about this, but to talk more about the life you have, what you love about your kids, how proud you are of them, and that your kids are always watching. And I think parents don't think the kids are because they are blocked by their kids or they can't find their social media accounts. Kids create fake accounts very easily and they're, I would say 99.9% of the time following you. So there's a lot of work that can be done with social media creating blogs and websites, but it has to be done with a loving message. And if parents want to spread awareness or and be activists in this, to not do that in an attempt to talk to your children to keep it very separate. And because otherwise it can seem like you're trying to convince your kids or argue with them. So
Speaker 1:
Bill, do you have other thoughts on that? Other ideas?
Speaker 3:
Well actually let me just add a thought, kind of a plug for new ways for families here because we've had some reconciliations between a teenager and a parent after they've gone through new Ways for families, learn some skills and learn to talk. You're suggesting to the child and have empathy for the child instead of anger and say, I know this is a hard position, it's a hard situation. And one other thing I always suggest is that people send notes, send birthday cards stuff and just say what they're doing in their life. Because I think you're absolutely right, kids, kids are curious even if they can't admit it. And usually the parent who's saying negative things and the favored parent often has turned a switch, turned the child off to the other parent, and that the child vaguely knows and is curious. And if they turn that switch on, now you can have a relationship which we teach in new ways. Suddenly they're very interested. So knowing that there's the parents making efforts is a good one.
Speaker 2:
One thing I will say with the New Ways class, my clients who have taken it have said that they just feel a lot more calm. And when you're calm going into a situation, you're able to see more opportunities. And this whole idea of presenting proposals they love because instead of getting upset if the child says, No, I don't wanna see you, they can propose, Well what if we saw each other? I have one parent right now who said, Well, what if we went met in an arcade, I'll give you some money and then it's up to you if you talk to me or not. The child accepted that. The teenager accepted that. And I think also what I would say too is that a lot of kids, if they're being influenced or coached to reject, to find a way where they can reach out without having to admit that they want to see you. So that thing about, okay, well meet in Arcade and I totally understand you don't wanna see me and you don't have to, but it gives the kid the opening of saying, Okay, we're going along with the order that the court gave, but I'm not admitting I want to see you. Because for some kids they really can't say because their texts are being monitored, I wanna see you. So giving them a way to reach out without admitting that it's a desire is also very powerful.
Speaker 3:
Excellent, excellent. So what are some of the top mistakes a parent might make when reuniting?
Speaker 2:
I would say the top mistake parents make when reuniting is thinking that it will be one meeting where they'll run to each other, they'll hug and everything will be okay. And I wanna draw upon an experience from the erasing family film the characters that people really love. It's a dad who, he rides a motorcycle and people may think certain things of him. He turns, he turns out to be very sensitive, loving parent. And he has two daughters and his younger daughter, Ashlyn in the film when the moment she turns 18, she finds him and they reunite and they have that movie reunification, She goes to live with him and everything's okay. But there's another daughter, the older daughter who in the film, I interview her and trust me, I tried everything to get them together. Free trip to Disneyland. And she says, My dad is just blood and dna.
Speaker 1:
Oh
Speaker 2:
And she says this on camera. And Disney said to me after the film, it was so bittersweet because he gets his story out there. He has his daughter Ashlyn, but he doesn't have his other daughter. So a bit of a spoiler alert, but I did do another video about this that's on our website. About five years after the film came out, Dizzy was able to reunite with his other daughter.
Speaker 1:
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2:
But it took a few years and it went very slow with text messages first, then phone calls, then finally a meeting. So with one daughter it was one minute and with one daughter it was a few years. So for parents to understand that this can take time and there might be false starts or might be going back and skills and forgiveness is so important. Learning something like new ways. So I think that's the biggest mistake I've seen. And then the other is unfortunately maybe they've been in family court too long, this trial mentality of I have to prove what happened. And a lot of times the kids don't care about the past, they just care about the love they can get. And it's good to, if questions are an asked to answer them truthfully, but wait for the kids to bring them up and some kids will never bring them up and that's okay. They could still have a relationship with you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, those are great. I was thinking about the length of time that so many parents, I know I would imagine if you are estranged from your child, it just has to be terrifying and heartbreaking. And to imagine that there'll be that one magic word or that magic moment that oh, it'll just be all okay. But the reality for a lot, even though that may be the reality for others, it's very different. And I think of people I know who won in Europe whose who what he felt was a bad court decision and just thought of the realities of what this would look like in the future. So he just left , it came to the States and it took literally 50 years to reunite. And it's just very recent that that's happened. And now the grandchildren get access to their grandfather who's nearly 80 at the States.
Speaker 1:
So it can take a long, long time. And others I've seen 15, 16 years before the door starts to crack open. And interestingly I've seen a couple of instances where someone that was close to the child, even as an adult child someone they've kind of considered a replacement parent close relationship, when that person passes, it sort of opens the door to come back into their other parent's life, the alienated parent. So kind of fascinating, there's a lot of different pathways. So speaking of stories, what are some stories you've heard or been involved with that give you hope in these cases?
Speaker 2:
What a parent has really given up hope, but then something happens. So I worked with one man who when he finds his daughter on Facebook, a friend found a photo. She goes, Is this your daughter? He said, I honestly don't know cause I haven't seen her since she was five months old. And at the time of the photo she was about 18. And knowing them both, if you saw both of them next together, they do not look like father and daughter. They are, but she's blonde and petite, he's darker and a very big guy. So there's a lot of faith on his part. When he reached out and they had a dinner together and she's now living with him, and I asked her why and she goes, It was the first time in my life I felt unconditional love. Excellent. And he also still had a desire to tell her about all the awful things he went through. And she's just like, I don't care. And she had no desire. So I think that was just very powerful about how she just responded to this love and was willing to take a risk and develop a relationship with someone who she really had no contact with her whole life.
Speaker 2:
And then another story that is just kind of very interesting is I talk with a man who he reunited after 30 years of no contact with his mother and he was in his late forties and he happened to run into her at a bus stop. Oh wow. And I always tell parents, you never know. And it seems because people have all these schemes and plans about how this can happen and sometimes it happens totally randomly, this was at a bus stop. But are you prepared to run into someone at a bus stop? I've heard of supermarkets, funerals, birthday parties, and people sometimes are, they get so concerned about how they're gonna engineer this, that they don't have a plan for when it happens and learning those skills. So it's so important to learn skills, take the new ways for family course read books, you relax because you made me walking down the street and run into your child. And how you react in that moment can pull that child in or push them away, well put. So I think those are some of the stories that give me hope. Well put.
Speaker 1:
So now we have a question from one of our listeners. And so my ex-husband, the father of my two children has begun a campaign to alienate me from my 12 year old son after a guardian ad litem investigation that found my ex to be engaging in parental alienation. I have successfully petitioned the court to remove his unsupervised parenting time, but he refuses to acknowledge the damage he has done to our children and continues to tell them that all of this is my fault. I don't want them to lose their dad, but I don't know how to protect them without separating them. I just wish there was some way I could get through to him to help him understand how damaging his behavior is to our children. So I guess this parent is asking for the thoughts from both Ginger and Bill.
Speaker 2:
Sure. Yeah. So Ginger,
Speaker 1:
Why don't you go ahead and then Bill you can follow
Speaker 2:
Up. I mean part of this is a legal issue because now the courts are involved and she's talking about removing even unsupervised time. So I guess my understanding would be that he's telling the children this during phone calls or supervised time. Unfortunately there might not be a way to change his beliefs. So the focus should be on how she responds to this, how she answers her children's questions in an age appropriate way. And also I guess looking for if there is court involvement on what sort of coaching he can get to understand this process. And I remember, Bill, if you wanna take it away from here there was a great talk about how to work with people who maybe are not just high conflict but have a personality disorder and how coaching not therapy is so important. These cases.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, my thoughts reinforce this. What Ginger's saying is I think for each of them it's a little different. Of course I think the court should order both of them to take new ways for families because that'll teach the four big skills to each of them and then they can teach their kids cuz that's really help their kids. But keep in mind, if you're dealing with someone with a high conflict personality, it's part of who they are and you're not gonna change who they are, you're not gonna change their personality. So getting him to understand how damaging his behavior is may never come and yet he may be able to change some of his behavior. So in new ways for families teaching the four big skills, flexible thinking, managed its demo emotions moderate behavior and checking yourself gets away from the all or nothing. So that could help mom understand the acceptance and acceptance is a big thing you've been saying ginger. And I think that's important, but it also may help dad become a little bit more flexible in how he deals with the kids. But most of all is really focus on the future, don't focus on what's been done in the past because people rarely agree on that. So I think for mom is accepting and for dad is learning some skills,
Speaker 1:
It's so hard for people to come around to dropping the past. I think we experience this every day with people we talk to. It's just like, well I really need this person to understand what they did was wrong or how damaging they are. What I just need to acknowledge that or admit it and
Speaker 3:
It's just coming so you gotta ain't
Speaker 1:
Coming and
Speaker 3:
You can move forward without that think forward. That's the key I think for most of these families.
Speaker 2:
I'd also add for the mom, if she's gonna react, it should be a positive reaction when he does something correct and arguing when people have high conflict personalities, they really enjoy it when you argue back and get upset
Speaker 2:
. And part of the reality about these people not always being able to change so much is that if you take away the oxygen, it doesn't mean that they're changing but they will maybe stop having the conflict with you. They might still have this personality but they might find somewhere else or they might. I just remember talking to my stepmom, we don't longer have a high conflict relationship, but she just moved and she was complaining about how awful the new city she moved to was. So there's always gonna be some conflict. But now the conflict is with her city and not her stepchildren.
Speaker 1:
And because you've learned these skills and used these skills in your own life, the conflict, it just takes the wind out of the conflict sales.
Speaker 2:
One person. Exactly. One person can take the wind out one person .
Speaker 1:
Yep. I love that. And I've written that down by the way, , ginger, that's, you said this earlier, both people don't have to change just one. It's a great marketing deal. So starting this work over a decade ago or so what are some of the biggest changes you've seen in this area? So
Speaker 2:
Erasing family is my second film on this topic. So I started my first film actually in Argentina called Erasing Dad. And it came out in 2014 and it really focused on dads because in Argentina before the film came out, custody automatically went to mothers and the film actually changed that and they now allow for joint custody. It wasn't even an option before the film came out. And when I started this there was a lot of belief just by some professionals but also in culture in general that what kids need is one good parent. And now there's been a lot of research and also just a lot of children talking about the need for both of their identities. Sometimes it comes in knowing where I came from, my family's story and my heritage, but how important that is for children to know where they came from, have contacts with both sides of the family and also acknowledgement that mom and dad's parent differently and that's okay.
Speaker 2:
So I remember a lot of times dad's gonna ask in court will name the pediatrician and the dad wouldn't know and that would be proof that he wasn't a good dad. And there's been a lot of research that dads may not know the name of the pediatrician but they provide other skills and other experiences for kids. So I think there's been a big shift in saying instead of kids need one parent that they need as many parents and as much love as they can get. And the other thing I've seen is that a lot of professionals when I started this, they didn't either know about parental alienation or were skeptical. And now what I'm seeing is that it's very rare to run into a professional or a judge even who doesn't know about this or doesn't think it's a really big deal. And I've seen a lot of judges saying it's one of the worst things that can happen to a child, but a lot of professionals don't know what to do but sometimes they will withdraw from a case or in their mind parental alien's, really, really extreme behavior like kidnapping, stuff like that.
Speaker 2:
So I think the education that needs to have with professionals is getting them more involved with new ways for families, teaching them skills, teaching them practical things and also knowing that it's not about convincing the child to say I want to have a relationship with the alienated parent, but about giving the kid the safe space to be able to do that. Cause I, I've seen that some professionals who keep on insisting until the child says I wanna have a relationship, there's nothing we can do. And some children will never admit that because they feel like they're betraying the one of their parents. So I think there's been a lot of progress that's been made. Therapy is great, what a lot of these family needs are coaching and skills. So instead of just saying let's order therapy ordering the new ways class, ordering, ordering, coaching and skills building for these families is really the way to go because the emotions are so kind of unattached to reality that doing a deep emotional work, which is therapy and don't get me wrong, I think therapy is wonderful, it won't solve these issues. So being more specific in what they recommend to families,
Speaker 3:
I think for professionals over the years that they're starting to get more awareness but that unless you really understand family dynamics around alienation, that it's so easy for professionals to make mistakes. And I think the education you're doing, Ginger, I think the education we're doing is incremental progress. But I also wanna mention at the same time I think we're seeing more and more of alienation and so until people really get the big picture and judges and lawyers and therapists and mediators cuz all of those professions can tilt things towards what makes sense or away from what makes sense. I think we're gonna keep seeing this problem and so much of it is all or nothing thinking. And that's really where I think you're right with coaching, with counseling, with professional, just saying we've gotta get beyond the all or nothing solutions. And the other is the unmanaged emotions because professionals become really outraged in these cases and that doesn't help .
Speaker 2:
Yes
Speaker 3:
They really have to problem solve. True. So it's an ongoing dilemma and I think education is the key but hopefully many people will hear this and check out more things. Like you said, reading and having courts order skills cuz skills is what it's about. It's not about good and bad people, it's about skills.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. So we're getting close to the end of the time and I wanna get one last listener question in, but before we do that 30 seconds Ginger, how can a parent communicate with a child if there is no contact?
Speaker 2:
So I think really using social media building a website and a blog doing video messages. But if they can work with a coach to make sure that these messages will land correctly, that's very valuable cuz often they're about how much I've suffered, how big of a problem this is, I need you to acknowledge this. So to really focus on showing love and showing the wonderful life you've created and I've seen it work. And also I will add too, if they do it in the proper way, getting more involved in the schools. So it's not going to schools to say, look, I've alienated help me. It's just getting involved. And a lot of parents, they won't even go to a school event or show up at the schools and that can be a wonderful avenue if done with, I'm here to help the school and my kid and not here's a book on narcissistic post foundry .
Speaker 1:
So common. It just seems like such a good idea to folks to do it that way. But what you said is spot on. You have to get good coaching because it's going to seem like a good idea to you, but a coach is going to be able to tell you whether it really is or not. Now why is self care for a parent so important in these cases?
Speaker 2:
I will tell a very quick story about a woman who's now an advocate about parental alienation and she's in her sixties, she was alienated from her mom. She went to find her mom when she was 16 and she told me that she found her mom so broken from the alienation that while she loves her mom, she doesn't to this day have a relationship with her because she's like, my mom is so broken she can't counteract the strength that my controlling manipulative father has. So self care so that you are strong and happy in need of a wonderful life is vital. It's not an option. Kids are attracted back to people who are happy and healthy and you have the right to be happy and healthy regardless of what a, what's going on with your kids. And sometimes people forget that. So I think it's very important for self care.
Speaker 1:
Okay. Yeah, I mean these are the most difficult situations people go through really truly in life. It's really, really hard. So we'll end with another lister question and it's a little bit long but we'll try to break it down a little bit. So this is a person whose husband may be she's as she puts at the victim of parental alienation from a very high conflict divorce of what have been going on 10 plus years or so. A lot of high conflict traits in the family of the five things that indicate alienation, my husband's situation definitely has four of the five. We have no way to know for sure if it's due to things his ex is doing and saying to the kids. We do suspect that also two of his kids, of the two kids, one is technically an adult and the other almost is. And what can he do at this point to try to counteract the alienation? Are there certain steps he can follow?
Speaker 2:
So I would say because they're almost adults and one is an adult, the focus shouldn't be on how can I attract my kids back into my life as opposed to convincing them or using the courts. So it really is, as we talked about before, using social media, learning the new skills when there is an opportunity to take it. And I recently worked with a dad who it was pretty amazing. He had the contact he had with his adults done was all very high conflict, Why aren't you calling me? I'm your dad, this is an ipo. He would over text and after working together he just sent a text like, Hey how's Colorado?
Speaker 2:
And his son responded and now they have, they're texting, but this went from the last text they had was a fight over text and he just showed up. I asked him, but not saying I'm your dad, I deserve an answer. Why? So that's something that skills can help with. So focus on the skills, focus on creating a life they wanna be a part of reminding them that you wanna be there but in a way that isn't nagging and it has to come from them too. So reminding them, being present, showing up with love but not insisting.
Speaker 1:
Great. Another complication is that his oldest has now started to exhibit high conflict traits similar to their mother and we think this is contributing to the alienation of the younger one. He has also recruiting other family members into his high conflict accusations. Is there any way to counteract someone that has been pulled into the conflict this way? Bill, this one's to you.
Speaker 3:
Well I think again, if you can get into any kind of coaching to learn about what, what's good to try, what's good to say. I think two things Ginger was saying to really emphasize. One is make your life a good life so that they're attracted to you. And do things that let them know that you're there, that you're having a good life and here's what I did today. But also focusing on the child and the child's experience rather than the parent's experience so that you can empathize with them. If there's any contact, make that contact positive and empathetic towards the child. Certainly not about how upset the parent is if there's no contact. Then occasional notes. Here's something I learned today, I thought you might find it interesting or How's Colorado like ginger shed said. So it's kind of an approach and when you get an approach that helps you be calm, you can really help your child even in little tiny ways to reach out with notes or to publicize what you're doing. Someone once said the best revenge is to lead a good life . And so
Speaker 1:
True.
Speaker 3:
That's the way to deal with this. Sharing your anger, your frustration, your hurt, your sadness, all of that is really not helpful. It's too much and the child feels burdened and wants to stay away. So be someone that's appealing to the child be matter of fact,
Speaker 1:
It's so opposite of what I think maybe is a natural inclination for many, which is just that it's a fight. And I think our systems and just the way divorce is done and child custody is done in most countries, it it's all about the fight. And I think the first thought is to go to court make, get the court to make this other parent do this or that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's all, it's really counterintuitive. The whole thing about alienation is counterintuitive because where it comes from is the negative behaviors about the negative behaviors and it often starts and grows with divorce because of how divorce is such an adversarial process. So don't approach your child in an adversarial way. Be the person that understands they're in a hard spot and that'll help them.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, tough spot. So continuing with the reader, listener question. A lot of this started with me setting boundaries with my husband's ex somewhere in the middle of our marriage. I am sure I made mistakes in the way I communicated my boundaries. However it feels like they created an extreme backlash from his ex at first. All of this hate was directed toward me. She accused me of many things that weren't true, told her kids I was abusive and even tried to get me fired from work. This has the results for me of placing even stronger boundaries and I no longer have communication with her since even Biff did not work well with her. when she lost me as a target of blame, she moved to my husband and has done it on a much less public scale, but it has still resulted in his kids no longer wishing to have anything to do with him. My question is this, due to what I have gone through with this entire family, I want to make sure I have appropriate boundaries with them. As my husband tries to navigate his way back into a relationship with them, is it okay to not want to have contact with any of them for a while until I have healed and I have some seen and have seen some change on their part. Wow, this one's really loaded, Bill. This is a good one.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot in there. The first thing about setting boundaries is the way you set boundaries makes a huge difference. So a lot of people feel offended or hurt when people are abrupt in setting boundaries. So we always encourage set boundaries with empathy, attention and respect is let people know right now is not really a good time for us to work on this or right now I need some space or right now and I statements make it about about you cuz you statements tend to be blaming. So I think that's one part of this. Another is high conflict. People often have this all or nothing thinking and unmanaged emotions and so they are going to be difficult. And so I think learning to not expect them to really be different, but to manage the relationship in little ways. So if you want to, certainly it's fine if you don't want to engage with them, but try to, when you're setting your limits, be gentle about it so it doesn't escalate things being calm and setting your limits, all of that. And think of a lot of this as just an ongoing process and there's a lot you can do for yourself rather than trying to make it all different for them. But you can support your husband in what he's going through and his efforts and hold back yourself. Okay? Just try not to think of it as an adversarial situation. Think of it more as a problem to solve.
Speaker 1:
And the final piece of the listener's question is Bill, you stated in the first episode of this series that there are two reasons a child would reject a parent alienation and estrangement. Is it also possible an adult child or older child could start rejecting a parent? Not because they have been alienated or estranged, but because the parent has become that child's target of blame
Speaker 3:
That happens and it's sad if the child target of blame is a concept that goes with high conflict personalities because most people understand that, that people are a mix of strengths and weaknesses, good and bad traits and all of that target of blame comes from all or nothing thinking it's all this other person's fault. And so that adult child has for some reason or other started to have that approach to life. And it may be they learned it cuz of being around it and some people are born with a tendency towards high conflict and so it's hard to know what it is. But yeah, that could be because it's not caused by the a parent alienating the child is not caused by a parent causing estrangement through abuse or some other negative behavior. This sounds like it's really coming from inside the child and wherever it came from.
Speaker 3:
The way to deal with this is to really try to not overreact and not accept being a target of blame. And I've coached and consulted with several people who say, my adult child wants me to admit I did everything wrong while they were growing up and I didn't wanna admit that. But they say they can't have a relationship unless I admit that. And I'll say, Well, don't admit something that's not true. But also tell them, you know, understand this is frustrating for them. You know, make mistakes, all people make mistakes and you're willing to focus on the future. You're willing to move forward and you hope they'll consider that cuz it's healthier for both of you to focus on the future rather than the past and then accept whatever comes out of that.
Speaker 1:
Okay. Well I hope that's been helpful whoever this listener was that asked, and I'm sure it's helpful to a lot of you who are listening, so I'm so grateful and I know Bill is too, to have Ginger with us on this episode. And so Ginger, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for the really important work you do and for picking up the banner truly in a big way to make a change in the world. Well, thank you so much. We're extraordinarily happy to have you working with us at HCI, Helping parents sort of one at a time.
Speaker 1:
And listeners, you'll find a link in the show notes to the Erasing Family documentary where you can watch it for free and get lots of other resources. We've also put a link to the New Ways for Families course and Ginger's coaching profile in case you'd like to contact her for some coaching and take the course. And we also have links to the Donate the Kids' book that bill wrote and Biff for co-parent communication. Those links will be in there also. But you can get those books anywhere books are sold. So send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast and tell all your friends about us and we'd be very grateful if you'd leave a review wherever you listen to our podcast. Until next time, have a great week and keep learning skills to address high conflict behavior so you can be part of helping everyone find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Z Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts@truestory.fm for high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.