Coparenting Tips For Happy Healthy Kids

Welcome to the D shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get the shift started. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the D Shift pod class. And today, we're going to do something completely different like we do every week. Anyhow, we are talking to Braden Ricketts and Braden, first of all was my podcast coach, host coach. So I want to toss that out there that if you ever think of starting a podcast, you really need to reach out and talk to Greg. But the other thing that Brittany has done is he has really with his partner has really successfully navigated the co parenting challenges. And so we're bringing Braden on and putting him on the spot to talk about all things co parenting, during your before, during and after the divorce, because there may be times where you're co parenting before you've got anything officially in place. So, Braden, thank you so much for being here,

Mardi, it's an honor, it was so much fun putting your podcast together with you. I am quite honored to be invited to be on as a guest. Well, thank

you. And like I say, I'm excited to talk to you too. So because co parenting is not an easy task. So tell us a little bit if you don't mind, tell us a little bit about the story about maybe some areas that you see that you feel are really critical for parents to focus on, particularly in the early stages of co parenting.

Absolutely. Starting with easy questions I see. So give me a little bit of background, I was together in a relationship with my partner for 10 years, at the age of 25. Four years into our relationship, sorry, apologies. But five or six years into our relationship, we had our son. And by the time he was four, and just before I was turning 30, we decided that our relationship was done, and that we were going to live separately. It was absolutely a difficult decision and a difficult time. I'm sure your audience members know how difficult this time can be for for everyone involved. My advice comes as hindsight. In the moment you're making emotional decisions you are trying to do what feels right. And you're you're aiming without a lot of direction unless somebody has a support to somebody like you already. So my hindsight, I realized that when you are divorcing, your relationship is not over, especially when you have children, your relationship is transitioning. So learning that you are now going to relate to this individual in a different new capacity. And that's a relationship like any other you have to foster. And you have to develop that relationship so that it works the way that benefits everybody who's involved. So for me, the most important advice is learning how to transition from one relationship to the other. Same things remain important communication is going to be a really key piece of that new relationship, being able to communicate with somebody else. When you are living in separate homes, scheduling is one of the biggest challenges you have. So being able to communicate with the other person, the needs, the timing, the plans, that's all things that you're gonna have to keep considering and remain in contact with that individual. You don't get to walk away from these relationships anymore, you have to be able to communicate.

Yes. And you know what that is one of the big messages, I think that people with children have to understand is, you know, divorce is not the end, it is only a beginning a transition. That's, that's I love that idea of the transition from one relationship to another. So, in your experience, what do you think is the biggest obstacle that parents face in making that transition? Like,

for me, I think the biggest obstacle is trying to be fair. I think when we want, we go through divorce, we're looking at what we're losing. And we're worried about it not being fair, between what I get what they get who's time that time. And often the parents will forget that the most important piece is that child in their experience throughout the entire process. There was a moment in time where I realized that when my ex wife is happy, my son is happy. So my my interactions with her are to ensure that she's feeling good, and she's in the best position to be the best mother that she can be to my son. The question that you asked, I'm going back to you, because I forgot exactly the phrasing. And I want to make sure that I answered that fully for you. Can you rephrase that question for me or repeat it?

No. I think I said what do you think it's the most difficult part of that transition? And I think maybe you you hit on it. It's just maintaining that that communication, and that sense of it. supporting the other parent, right? Because you you said when you're when you're, when your partner is happy when your child's other parent is happy, your child is happy. And that way you can be happy as well.

Yep. And I talked about fairness and, you know, winning, whatever that might look like. Ultimately, there's, there's times where you have to concede there's times where you have to make concessions. You have to negotiate and you have to, you have to be willing to give up some of your time and space to make this a smooth and easy transition for the children, because they're the ones whose emotional experience of the interactions between you and the mother are going to have long term effects on their well being their health, and how they look for love from other people. So your role modeling relationships, even as a divorced parent, you're role modeling what healthy relationship looks like,

right? And you're also I, you know, I hate and I hate to say this to parents, because but it is kind of the truth. The divorce rate is holding pretty steady at right around 50%. In Canada, the United States, and I know you're in Canada, and I'm from Canada, but working in the United States. So there's not a whole lot of difference. Other countries there, there is like a larger divorce. difference, because some places it's not legal, some places, it's very difficult to get a divorce. So there's all different kinds of things going on. But when your kids see how mom and dad handled the divorce, and are able to let go of that sense of loss or that sense of like you say winning, they have a better perspective of maybe how to deal like I love that thought that you gave about how to deal with with relationships that aren't going to work in their life, because whether they have a marriage or whether they just break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, every one of us goes through those kinds of situations in life. So you know, making it not the War of the Roses. I don't know you You're probably too young to remember that movie. Did you ever see it?

That's my first time hearing that those words together.

You the word roses, you have gotten to watch it. It's Danny. Danny DeVito is the attorney and Michael Douglas is the is the husband. And is it Kathleen Turner, I think is the wife. Anyhow, it's this horrific divorce like attacks on pets dividing the house with mask and they end up in the I won't say what they end up in the head. But it's it's a funny comedy, but it's it's got a serious message to it. So

definitely go check that out. Yeah,

you got to take a look. Take a look at how not to model your divorce. So great. What about the day to day stuff? Like you you kind of touched on that you've set talked about the importance of communication? Um, what are some tips or strategies or ideas that maybe you've seen that work or maybe some that don't work so well,

early on, I'm decided that I we took us a long time to figure out our rotation of our child's time back and forth between the houses. Of course, the challenge was a week, on an a week off felt like a really long time without your child's presence in your home in your life, we we decided to come up with some strategies to counteract them. When we agreed that we would go week on week off, we implemented a date night. So in the middle of the week, when the child was at the other person's house, they would come over to our house for dinner and a catch up and a check in and just to see how they're doing and a touch point. Right. That progressed into text messages and communication with my son's mum throughout the week. I would I would start or I would initiate with today my son had a really good day he had great breakfast, this is what they learned in class. He's feeling good. Hope you're having a good day. pass that off to to my son's mom. What has happened now is because of that consistency of sharing little pieces of information about how my son is doing when he's not at her house. I get that in return when he's at her house. And now I feel like I'm a part of his world. We made a conscious choice that just because he's at my house and it's my week with him. I'm not the only one responsible for him. We're still both as responsible when they're at each other's houses. So when my son would have sports events, I would attend those either practice or games. I would use that as an excuse to have time with him. So even on mom's weeks, he was at a hockey game, I would show up to the rink I would watch the hockey game. And throughout the years, it I got closer and closer to his mum where I was standing and sitting to the point where we ended up having conversations and about our son and how he's doing it was great opportunity for us to connect and talk about parenting while we're supporting him and his extracurricular activities. And

think of how positive that is for the child. Looking up in the audience. There's the tube or looking up in the stands the bleachers at the hockey arena, freezing to death with your cups of hot chocolates sitting there. The kids are looking up in the you know the child looks up and goes, there's the two people I love most in the world sitting there smiling, laughing, having a great conversation and supporting me, how much more positive can that get for that child to see that, you know, as opposed to parents that are glaring at each other, or, you know, heaven forbid, cause a public kerfuffle in the audience and I've been at football games where that has happened. It's so it's we had,

we had children in the locker room with those hockey games, saying that they had two sets of gear, one at mom's house, one at dad's house, because the parents couldn't pass the gear from one car to the other car without getting in a fight.

Right. And so I want to I want to throw out there that for some parents, like, you seem like you and your partner were very in line, and you had had the same future goals for working towards the well being of your child, some couples aren't there. Some couples are maybe one person is the other person isn't. So it may be at the beginning, especially initially, you may have to start out with that kind of more parallel, as opposed to collaborative stuff. But the goal is always that this relationship can keep evolving. And you guys have worked on this, like, it's not like it started out perfect. Day one after you know, the separation, right? It's, it sounds like this has been something you've really focused in on.

You're absolutely right. And that's the point that I think is important to recognize is relationships ending are easiest, when they just end and you never see the person again, sure. Unfortunately, we all have share friend groups, and we use social media, you're gonna get glimpses of them, and you're gonna have reactions, in our situation, because of the sports. And because of, we actually shared a car for the first year of our divorce. I didn't want to keep the car, but it was in my name. So we decided the car was our son's, whoever had our son at their house also had the car. Well, there you go. Yeah, maybe not the best choice. But what it did between that and the sports is it almost forced us to sit down and talk because we had to continue making plans, we had to continue making arrangements. And we ended up at the same sporting events next to each other. It was not easy. There was a lot of emotion, there was a lot of disappointment, there was some lack of trust, there was some some hurt feelings. But I feel that the exposure to each other on such a regular and consistent basis for the first two to three years of our divorce really put us in a great position to where we are now. Because we've worked through all of that. We're no longer at home, feeling anger and resentment. We're sitting next to each other having a conversation about what our son needs and how we can best support him. Yeah, so it certainly progressed over a long period of time. And I think the having to be in each other's presence, and communicating. It was originally forcing ourselves to do that. And then it's now a joy, we enjoy those opportunities. Yeah,

that's really that's so positive. And, and I really liked that message that it doesn't have to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect, but it's going to be something that if you both want to work on, there's a lot of opportunities. And I actually have a client who has been divorced a couple of times, and she still goes on vacations with her kids and her first spouse, and they have a great real I mean, they don't stay, you know, they stay in like a resort and she's in one condo thing, and he did use it another and the kids go back and forth. But I just think that, you know, you can create the co parenting arrangement you want to create, it doesn't have to be adversarial. It doesn't have to be, you know, we only follow the the co parenting agreement. That's something I did want to talk to you about because you're in Canada. So but it's similar. I'm fairly familiar with, you know, you should do some work up there with with CO parents. So you have a written co parenting agreement. Is that, is that accurate? Do you have that?

Yes. Yes. And

in how how do you navigate with life happens, right, the CO parent degree and then first, third, fifth weekends, every other Wednesday, two weeks in summer, like whatever the agreement is, you get Mother's Day you get your birthdays, you know, whatever. What happens when life happens in and that can't, that can't work anymore. Or, you know, you develop a co parenting plan when your child is two, they're now 12 And the kids don't want to spend weekends with either mom or dad. They want to go to their friend's house and whatever. How do you see as an effective way to navigate that kind of monkey wrench in the works?

Goodness Yeah, the the agreements are created at such an early stage, especially when the emotions are heightened that I actually think it helps because you're you're creating boundaries. And then once you have those boundaries, you know how to operate within those. And there's a framework for how you're going to relate to each other and what your child's time is going to look like. I believe that the so our process was, rather than going to lawyers, we went to a mediator. And the mediator helped us prepare a Separation Agreement. This was so that the court systems could keep divorces out of the courts, right? If they were uncontested. If they're mutually agreed upon, we could simply do a mediated agreement that was signed, and then the divorce was official. That agreement, we tried to keep as generic as possible. We said time would be shared 5050, we said holidays would be alternated. So Christmas, one year at Mom's Christmas next year at dads. That was sort of the extent of the guidelines and framework of our agreement. Outside of that, it was things like, you know, we will not move to live more than 50 miles away from each other. So at least we can get to our son within the same day. Right? things of those nature of that nature. As we've progressed, as our son gets older, how do we mitigate? Or how do we might? How do we manage the changing needs and negotiating those? Well, ultimately, we put the frame on that what is best for our son's personal development, his growth, and his well being is going to be at the forefront. We back to my point before about how just because he's at a different house doesn't mean it's a different life or a different experience. We've shared his time back and forth between each other's family gatherings. So you know, last weekend, we had Thanksgiving here in Canada, and our son was at five different dinners, one or two in my house, three at mom's house. Because there's family on both sides that want his time and presence. Sharing his time isn't about us, it's about him having an opportunity to see those family members he may not have seen for a while otherwise, going to birthday parties with friends from school, even though it's mom's week. And she might, she actually has a younger son that has another activity going on. I will go to her house, I'll pick my son up and I'll take him to his friend's birthday party, even on her weeks, because it's his experience. I don't want him to miss out on that opportunity to build those friendships. I hope that answered your question.

Oh, no, that is that is a fantastic answer. And I think it all boils down to Mum and Dad continuing to, like you've said focus on what is in the best interests of their kids. But also, I'm gonna throw this out there or you haven't used these specific words, but I'm hearing it in your voice when you talk about the mother of your son. Mutual respect, right for each other and your role as a parent.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I would go as far as to say, love and appreciation for what she brought into my world. Having having my son there, and knowing that she's a valuable presence in his life was a great turning point for me. And as far as our relationship,

that that is so nice of you to say that I hope she listens. I hope your son hears this. I hope everybody listens and hears that. What do you think? Um, what do you think? Or do you think there's a difference in how, like, you're, you're, you're younger than me. Right? And let's just face it. Do you see it? Do you see it more of a generational thing? Like, do you think maybe parents that that are in their 20s and 30s now that are divorcing? are approaching it more effectively than say people that were in you know that were divorcing? 20 or 30 years ago, where it was more adversarial? Or? Or do you think there's a difference?

You know, perception wise, I would say growing up, the divorces you heard about were contentious. They were blow ups. They were big problems. And the children were very negatively impacted. We were told as a society about the negative impacts of divorce on children. I feel that as we've gotten our as I've gotten older, the story is evolving. And there's more conscious uncoupling, or, you know, decisions to no longer be married, or coming from a place of empowerment, rather than a place of fear and not for everybody. We all have our own different reasons. But I feel like there is a little more first of all cultural acceptance that not all relationships last. Right, which is, you know, something that has been an interesting learning point is how to end relationships. Right? So, I think that we are becoming more culturally accepting of divorce, and have single parents and I mean, I have a woman on my baseball team who's chosen to be a single parent. These are things that people are seeing as options versus results of decision poor decisions. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah,

yeah. And And I, the reason I was asking that is because I mean, I work with women of all different ages. And it just seems like there is that there's a slight different perception as to how to approach the divorce. And I think, you know, and I know in Canada, too, it's been like this for a while, but most states have, you know, basically no fault divorces. So it doesn't really matter what, what the reason is for the divorce, it just has to be irreconcilable differences kind of thing to get the divorce. Whereas I think, you know, in the 50s and 60s, where you had to prove the spouse was an unworthy to be in a relationship or had violated your trust or something that just created conflict, right from the get go, because you're trying to catch somebody doing something wrong, or you got to go to court and prove that they're a bad person. So Exactly,

yeah. To prove fault, rather than just agreeing. It doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. That's a nice big change, isn't it?

Yes. And so we kind of got off the co parenting got onto the philosophy of divorce her stuff, but we're in this has been, I think this has been really fantastic. And I, you know, I talk to my people all the time. And I say this is possible, you can you can create a co parenting arrangement that works for you, that works for your kids. And that's the beauty of the negotiation or the mediated settlement, where you're not, you know, it's not some standard court order template that you're going to get, you can really create what that's going to look like. And I really thank you for coming on here and sharing what some of the challenges but also some of the possibilities in creating these really positive and effective co parenting relationships. So thank you so much, Braden.

Mardi, it's a pleasure. I'm honored to be here. Thanks,

Braden, tell I'm going to put you on the spot. Again, tell me a little bit about if there was one thing you wanted people to walk away from this conversation with and kind of keep it the top of their mind, or when they hear the name Braden Ricketts, they're gonna remember that's the nugget of wisdom I got from that gentleman when he was speaking,

no pressure. So my advice is, as you are entering a divorce, or co parenting relationship, often the thoughts and the concerns are around everybody else involved, how they're feeling what they're thinking. But when it comes down to it, the happiest healthiest child, you will see is one of a happy, healthy parent. And if you can focus on the things that make you happy, the things that fuel you and your passions. You take care of yourself, so that you can be a model of happy and healthy for yourself, your children will see that as well. And it'll it'll seep into your relationships, including relationships with those people that you also parent with. I love that what a positive

message. Braden, if people want to reach out to you for any any of the many things that you provide people, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Yeah, because I do provide so many things. I don't have a specific offer other than time with me, I have a free 30 minutes and my calendar for anybody that's interested in exploring have any way that I could possibly be of support. That's at Braden ricketts.com, where you can book through 30 minutes with me.