As a divorce coach, I see clients contending with an unfortunate array of disappointments for their children by their co-parents. My clients’ heartache or ire on behalf of their children often has them wrestling with how to move in support of their children. In this piece, I share how they might validate their child’s feelings without criticizing their co-parent.

A thoughtfully designed Parenting Plan can honor each parent’s values and needs while holding space for growing, evolving children to be afforded the benefit of growing, evolving parents.

I was not longing for Helen or the time of my life when she first appeared. I was feeling something about myself now as related to my ideas of her always.

What would it feel like to accept your former partner’s experience of your relationship’s ending? Not to agree that it’s your shared story of that ending, but to accept it as the truth of their experience while remaining certain you had a different experience.

The celebration hopes and expectations of one’s children, the wishes and traditions of extended family on all sides, travel arrangements, co-parents’ new partners, and more promise to test hearts and co-parenting mettle over the next month.

A group support setting offers distinctive benefits that lend themselves especially well to ideas and motivation for more productive day-to-day co-parenting.

Let’s always, and especially now, challenge ourselves to slow down – to heal, foster closeness, and assure our children of our support, and their own resilience, in difficult times.

If you’re raising a camper, you’re giving them a gift that will resonate for a lifetime. Keep the focus on your child’s experience and you’ll all do great.

The idea that Mother’s Day should be reframed to sincerely honor its range of emotional implications isn’t a fight I’ll be taking to retailers, but I do offer the idea to you.

A marriage doesn’t need to last a lifetime to cultivate growth, gratitude and relational rewards that go the distance.

Only recently did I reflect on my life in Venn diagram form. Doing so set the stage to reveal everything that mattered to my pursuit of a joyful and satisfying existence.

As a representative of the “I don’t care about Valentine’s Day” set, am I just working an expectations shell game on myself?

Treacherous as it was, my divorce journey offered me an unparalleled opportunity to recognize and connect to a dynamic, anchoring sense of self.