Concepts, Controversies Conundrums of Child … Controversies...2020-05-12 Fidler & Bala, May 12, 2020 AFCC 1 Concepts, Controversies & Conundrums of Parent‐Child Contact Problems

2020-05-12

Fidler & Bala, May 12, 2020 AFCC 1

Concepts, Controversies & Conundrums of Parent‐Child Contact Problems

AFCC Webinar‐May 12, 2020Barbara Jo Fidler, Ph.D.,Nicholas Bala, JD, LLM

Context for Controversy: FCR & Webinars• Long history of controversy going back to Dr. Gardner in 1980’s with

FCR Special issues in 2001 and 2010.

• Some journals have recent special issues critical of use of concept of

“parental alienation” by the courts

‐ Advisor of APSAC, April 2020

‐ Journal of Social Welfare & Family Law, Jan. 2020

• This is 1st of 17 webinars provided by AFCC over the next 3 months

on children resisting contact based on April 2020 FCR on children

resisting contact and controversy over “parental alienation”

• Polarization in professional discourse reflects conflict in families.

• FCR Special Issue: authors with very different perspectives.

• We encouraged engagement and clarity about areas of agreement &

disagreement.

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Controversy among parents & publicIncrease in number of high conflict separations and parents

who are educating themselves and joining advocacy groups

about family courts, parental alienation, equal parenting etc.

Significant Area of Consensus in FCR

• All recognize the complexity & challenge of these cases.

• All agree there are some cases where children may reject a parent, either a mother or father, due in significant measure to the influence of a favored parent.

• All also recognize the need for courts and professionals to understand and respond effectively to cases where violence and abuse are central concerns and that this requires specialized training.

• All agree on need for more research, education & resources.

• All agree on need for respectful professional dialogue.

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But Also Significant Controversy in FCR

• Controversy about the scientific validity of the concept of alienation and its uses as a “label” by judges, lawyers and mental health professionals.

• Controversy about how and when courts should deprive a parent of care of a child because of undermining the child’s relationship with the other parent.

• Controversy about the extent to which courts fail to protect victims of domestic violence and child sexual abuse by giving effect to unfounded claims of rejection due to “parental alienation”.

Challenges & Conundrums: Fidler & Bala• In many cases both parents contribute significantly

• PCCP both reflects and exacerbates parental conflict.

• Need to understand & respond to “family system” and larger systems surrounding family.

• How to promote child focussed change?

• Developmental aspect: as children reach adolescence they become “independent actors”.

• How to link legal and mental health responses?

• How to identify & respond to cases, early enough?

• How to respond to cases if resources are lacking?

• How to respond to the cases where there is greater or lesser certainty about the dynamics of the situation, especially as a case evolves over time?

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Parent‐Child Contact Problems & Covid 19• Covid 19 and "lock down" have increased family tensions

– family stress & domestic violence

– only urgent cases, by telephone/video. Some family cases about dv & possession of home family cases, but more with police with dv.

– most urgent family cases not recent separations, but on‐going parenting disputes. Cases to legitimately withhold in‐person visits with irresponsible parent, but also many of where parent with care is overreacting, instilling fear in children etc.

– in Ontario, "Parenting is an essential service." Emergency Room MD Dad taking all precautions keeps contact with 5 yr old daughter

– but Florida court withholds personal contact with MD Mom

• Covid 19 is effecting PCCP cases, but NOT a feature of webinar or series:

– variation by locale in health & lock down effects

– variation in responses of judges, lawyers, mhps

d i d d & h

Ask Yourself: How Do I Know What I Know?

You know a lot when you know what you don’t know.

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“Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the

same problem that experts fall for.”

Amos Tversky (1937‐1996)

What Lens Are You Using?

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• The multitude of biases impacts our clinical and legal decision making

• Biases are responsible for the development, sustaining and escalation of professional alliances and polarization

• AND impacts our clients ‐ parents, children and adolescents

– particularly relevant for high conflict coparenting where there is a high anxiety, intractable conflict, emotion

– prevalence of personality disorders (e.g., conflict engagers ‐narcissism, histrionic, borderline & anti‐social)

– disruptions in thinking, feeling, interpersonally, behavior

Dunning – Kruger Effect / Mindset / Bias Blind Spot

• Those with low ability have greater confidence; mistakenly assessing their own ability as higher than it is

• Those with more ability have less confidence; underestimating their own competence to be lower than it actually is

• The more you know, the more you don’t know

• Growth vs Fixed Mindset (Carole Dweck) ‐ impacts confidence in one’s own abilities

• “Bias blind spot” (Neal & Brodsky, 2016; Pronin, Lin, & Ross, 2002)

‐ have no difficulty identifying bias in colleagues; fewer reported ever having any concern about their own potential bias

‐ notably, persists even after taught about how bias impacts judgments

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• Recognize the inevitability of your having cognitive biases

• Introspection necessary but not sufficient

• Mitigate biases by being intentional and systematic about your practice process, policies & procedures

• AFCC Webinar: The Blind Men & the Elephant: What We “See” in Professional Literature, Robb ‐ June 30th

Multiples Causes: Spectrum of PCCPs

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." —Albert Einstein

Next AFCC Webinar: Parental Alienation: In Search of Common Ground for a More Differentiated Theory, Sullivan ‐May 14th

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Child’s Response

Intense Marital Conflict Before/After Separation

Divorce Conflict & Litigation

Personality of Rejected Parent

Personality of Aligned Parent

Humiliating Separation

Child’s Vulnerability

Aligned Parent’s Negative Beliefs, Behaviors

Rejected Parent’s Reactions

Sibling Relationships

Factors contributing to & sustaining parent‐child contact problems

Adapted from Kelly & Johnston, 2001

Lack of Functional Coparenting

Extended Families

Aligned Professionals (Education, Health, Legal)

Aligned Parent’s

Parenting

Rejected Parent’s Parenting

Child’s Age, Cognitive Capacity and Temperament

Children Can Resist a Parent for Many Reasons• Affinity: developmentally appropriate due to age, gender preference, similar interests, but not rejecting

• Alignments: taking sides to avoid loyalty conflicts; divorce‐specific reasons (eg., anger at one parent for separating, having new partner, disrupting family life), while maintaining some contact with non‐preferred parent

• Justified Rejection (aka‐realistic estrangement): coping mechanism in response to abuse/trauma; realistic fears or anxiety caused primarily by violence/child abuse/neglect, uninvolved or very poor parenting by rejected parent

• Alienation: unjustified response due primarily to direct & indirect behaviour of favored parent; disproportionate reaction on part of child

• Hybrid/Mixed Cases: elements of both justified rejection and alienation

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Typical Behaviors, Perceptions and Beliefs of Children & Parents in Alienation Cases

• Appendix A (Fidler & Bala, 2020)

• One of many tools

• Updated previous versions (eg., Fidler et al. 2008; Fidler, Bala & Saini, 2013; Fidler &Ward, 2017)

• List derived from review of the social science literature, interview of 37 practitioners around the world

• Behaviors exhibited by:

– Preferred parent

– Rejected parent: causal and reactive

– Child

Paradigm Shift Needed

• Need to go beyond identifying causes ‐ which tends to polarize and engender blame, anger, escalation, intractability

• To move forward and away from blame game

• To help identify and implement goals

• While maintaining focus on every child’s best interests ‐ abused or alienated

• Ultimate Question: Irrespective of the nature/cause of the contact problem, is it in the child’s best interests to have good relationship with both parents, to repair, to improve family functioning, parenting and coparenting?

• Is family preservation a primary objective in our work in the context of child protection? Is this the same goal in families in dispute outside the child protection context? If not, why not?

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Protective / Resiliency Factors• Multiple causes as identified can be viewed through opposite lens ‐ as protective or resiliency factors

• Identified and harnessed for risk mitigation and repair of family dysfunction ‐ PCCP, coparenting, parenting

• To identified points of entry for intervention

• Considering strengths and building on them

• Circle diagram can be used with lawyers,

parents, reports to court in the various

roles professionals may take ‐ evaluators,

therapists clinically assessing for suitable

interventions

Differential Approach For Assessment & Intervention

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• Different types of PCCP

• Each with different levels of severity

– (Appendix B, Fidler & Bala, 2020)

• Child and parent behaviors vary in:

– duration

– frequency

– intensity

– motivation

• Differentiation of nature and severity challenging, though important in order to identify the most appropriate intervention

• Needs systematic approach, semi‐structured interviews

What are some hypotheses to explain PCCPS?

AFCC Webinars:

• Dynamics, Not Diagnosis: Assessment & Responding to the Best Interests of the Polarized Child, Garber ‐May 19th (13 factors)

• Allegations of Child Abuse During Child Custody Disputes, Saini, Platt & Laajasalo ‐ June 9th

• Parental Alienation: False Positives & Real Remedies, Warshak ‐June 11th

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Some Hypotheses in PCCP Cases1. Is one parent exhibiting consistent pattern of parental alienating

behaviors (PABs)?

2. Has the rejected parent (RP) perpetrated coercive/controlling

violence? Or, has RP sexually abused the child? Is the child not

alienated, but justifiably estranged due to parent’s history of

violence, child abuse or deficit parenting?

3. Was there little or no violence between the parents; but one or both

of them engaged in separation‐instigated violence at separation?

4. With PABs by one parent, has the other parent engaged in behavior,

while not abusive, is contributing to child’s resistance?

5. Is the PCCP primarily the result of a mutually escalating dynamic of

fear & anxiety between preferred parent & child ‐ the child’s

anticipatory anxiety feeds parent’s anxiety, concerns & protective

behavior which reinforces the child’s anxiety ‐ the snowball effect?

Explore Hypotheses…6. Is the preferred parent intentionally protective, enmeshed or

dependent and the child’s resistance to other parent is more likely related to this dynamic, including the child’s need care for or befriend the favored parent ‐ Is the child “parentified”?

7. Is the preferred parent intentionally protective though misguided in their concerns as shown by repeated CPS and police investigations and clinical assessments?

8. Is the PCCP primarily the result of disordered thinking, including paranoia or an encapsulated delusional system? Can the preferred parent separate their own thoughts & feelings from child’s? Can they perceive reality accurately?

9. Is the PCCP primarily the result of the intentional malicious fabrication of abuse allegations by the preferred parent knowing full well there is no risk of danger, harm to the child?

10…… Others?

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Role of Lawyers & Courts

AFCC Webinars:

• Parental Alienation in the United States Courts: 1985 ‐2018, Lorandos ‐ June 18th

Judges & Courts• Issue of children resisting contact or parent with care refusing to allow contact may arise immediately at separation, or years after separation as child gets older

• Issues may arise in context of interim hearing, trial, enforcement or variation

• Parental belief there will be effective legal responses to denial of access will often encourage the favored parent to respond.

• Conversely, if parents believe there is no effective legal response to access denial, favored parents may feel encouraged to thwart access, dispiriting the other parent & emotionally harming the children.

• Conflict reduction is likely most effective method to secure enforcement AND is best for children

– conflict reduction is sometimes possible, BUT not always

– role of counseling, mediation

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Role of Lawyers for Parents

• Good family lawyers recognize obligations not only to adult

clients, but also to their children

– American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers

• Need to establish trust and investigate parental claims before

efforts to change parental attitudes, especially if clients are

personality disordered

• Some family lawyers (and mhp’s) make cases worse

• AFCC Webinar: Children Resisting Contact With a Parent: Can A

Proactive Role For Lawyers Contribute To Better Outcomes?

Campbell ‐May 26th

What Judges See At Interim Stages

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Interim Orders• Risk assessment – any credible evidence of serious parenting

concerns that require investigation? Referral to CPS?

• Interim stage can be critical, as valuable to try respond before

attitudes entrenched, but challenge for court of conflicting

narratives.

• Challenging role for lawyers in marshalling & presenting

evidence at interim stage ‐> just retained and want to get

independent evidence

• If credible evidence of abuse or violence, especially if recent,

safety must be first priority priority

• AFCC Webinar: Acting Before It’s Too Late: Prudent Early

Intervention In Resist‐refuse Cases, Greenberg & Schnider ‐

May 29th

Judicial Continuity• Value of single judge case management, short adjournments and

report to court.

• Judge can start to appreciate the dynamics of a case.

• Parents more likely to comply with orders if they know that they are coming back to same judge.

• Role of judge as parenting educator and mediator.

• Encourage preferred parent to demonstrate support for the relationship with the resisted/rejected parent.

• AFCC Webinars:

– Multidisciplinary Programs for Prevention & Responding to Contact Failure: Education, Early Identification and Timely, Effective Judicial Intervention, Marcus ‐May 21st

– Innovative Psychojudicial Responses to Resist‐Refusal Cases, Cry, Poitras & Godbout ‐ June 23rd

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Understanding PCCP• Great variation in judicial expertise and understanding with issues

such as domestic violence, high conflict coparenting, children resisting‐contact and alienation.

• Judges much more likely to give weight to opinion of court‐appointed or neutral evaluator than party retained expert

• Also great variation in skills & knowledge of custody evaluators.

• Many judges may be prepared to take “judicial notice” of concept of alienation, but expert evidence often very helpful

• Some contest use of “alienation” label by courts

• AFCC Webinars:

• Parental Alienation: False Positives & Real Remedies, Warshak ‐ June 11th

– Parental Alienation & Misinformation Proliferation, Bernet ‐ June 25th

– Rhetoric & Reason in Parental Alienation Discourse, Meier, Milchman& Geffner ‐ June 16th

Views of Child

• Important, even (or especially) in alienation case for child to have an opportunity to have views “heard,” and for child to know that judge has heard.

– in some cases child does not to be involved

– possibility of judicial interview

• Voice does not equal choice

• Wishes may reflect:

– influence of an abusive parent: child identifies with aggressor

– influence of depressed, hurt, angry or protective parent: fear of withdrawal of love, need to appease or care for parent

– desire to go where it’s more fun, fewer rules, more “stuff”

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Contempt of Court for Parent

• Contempt is civil process, but burden of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt” of “willful breach” by parent

• Contempt is a “blunt instrument” for promoting better parenting:

– suspend sentencing for compliance

– behavioral conditions rather than fine or jail

– if flagrant & persistent breach, jail is possible

– require court attendance on any Monday if weekend

parenting time does not occur33

Financial Consequences

• These cases are very expensive for legal, expert witness and counselling fees.

• In many jurisdictions possibility of fees to be paid by alienating or abusive parent clearly at fault.

• In some jurisdictions support may be suspended.

• Financial sanctions generally after the fact, and parent‐at‐fault may be bankrupt.

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Police Enforcement ‐ “last resort”

• In theory police obliged to enforce court orders for parenting time and in some jurisdictions court can make specific direction.

• In practice police reluctant to actively enforce:

– such orders are highly intrusive and may frighten children

– an order for police involvement “is an order of last resort”

• Despite concerns, judge may conclude that without threat (or reality) of police enforcement, parenting time will not occur.

• Order should be for the police to require favored parent to comply, not direct enforcement against the adolescent child

– not in child’s best interests to order child into juvenile custody

Court Ordered Interventions

• Judicial order for mental health intervention may have positive effects

– Counselling needs to engage both parents & child

– Reporting to court is often critical

– Need skilled therapist or team

– Expect behavioral change within 6 months

• In severe alienation cases, likelihood of positive outcome for intervention (counselling, therapy etc.) without custody reversal is low

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“Custody Reversal” as Response• Most “drastic” judicial remedy

• Must demonstrate variation is in the child’s best interests (capacity of rejected parent, risks to child?)

– Weigh risks of change in custody vs likely harm if child stays with alienating parent

– Consider parenting capacities, including step‐parent

– Degree of emotional harm resulting from remaining with alienating parent exhibiting emotionally abusive behaviors, including intrusive parenting

• Courts are coming to this more quickly:

– may combine custody change with suspension of contact

– Court may suggest transitional counseling, but court usually does not order; decision of parent assuming care

How Old Is Too Old For A Custody Order?

• Depends on age, degree of alienation, risk of self‐harm,

resources and other factors.

• Some judicial decisions suggest that because of concerns

about children “voting with their feet,” judges should be

reluctant to make custody orders and even order

counselling if child more than 13 years old.

• But orders have been made for youth 16 and 17 years old.

• Resistant adolescents can be very difficult to live with.

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When To Stop Trying To Enforce

• Difficult decision for lawyers, court and rejected parent

“Courts cannot fix every problem”

• AM v CH, 2019 ONCA 49

• Stress to child of enforcement in high conflict cases on child and rejected parent

• Trying to enforce may not be in the best interests of the child

• Challenge of enforcement, especially if older child

• Consider resources and capacity of rejected parent

• Financial, social & emotional with determined adolescent

Keeping The Door Open

• Need to emphasize to child giving up legal enforcement,

but “leaving the door open for the child”

– establish mode for continuing communication

– consider possibility of “final” contact, facilitated by

professional

– while there may be “reunions” in late adolescent and

early adulthood, we don’t know how frequently these

occur or how well or poorly they go

– Need more research

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Continuum of Interventions:Overview

Identifying Appropriate Interventions

• Careful screening, forensic or clinical assessment

• Safety first ‐ risk of harm to self or others, CCV, untreated mental illness, substance misuse/disorder, active child protection agency investigation etc.

• Rules outs, contraindications (Fidler & Ward, 2017, Chapter 2; Garber, 2020 on the 13 factors/hypotheses)

– AFCC Webinar: Parental Alienation: False Positives & Real Remedies, Warshak ‐ June 11th

• Intervention will depend on:

– nature/cause of parent‐child contact problem

– intensity, frequency & duration of the parental conduct (mild, moderate, severe) & the effect on the particular child

– nature of intentionality, motivations to prevent relationship with other parent

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Identifying Appropriate Interventions (2)– parents’ agreement with goals i.e. ‐ Does parent understand difference between assessment to determine BIC VS stipulation it is in BIC to have good relationship with both parents, repair with RP and have parenting time with that parent?

– presence of interim or final parenting time schedule order (to be implemented in therapy) or dispute resolution mechanism for that ‐ therapist cannot determine parenting time

– ability to exercise parental authority to require child to attend therapy

– willingness to accept guidance and demonstrated ability to change behavior, stop parental alienating behaviors

– compliance with service agreements and court orders

– success or failure of previous therapy/interventions

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Continuum of Interventions For PCCP Cases

For mild & somemoderate cases of alienation, justified

rejection OR hybrid cases ‐ ALL PCCP cases

1.Parent education: individually, conjointly, group, on‐

line

2. Systems‐based Family Therapy (aka Reunification

therapy‐RT, Multi‐Faceted Family Therapy, Multi‐

Modal Family Intervention‐MMFI, Conjoint Child

Centered Therapy‐CCCT)

3.Multi‐Day Family Intervention (for one family) ‐

“intensives”, retreat style

Family systems‐based therapy and psycho‐education for the less severe cases

• Common features:

– goals go beyond repairing child’s relationship with resisted parent and include better individual and family functioning – parenting, coparenting and child’s relationship with both parents

– ALL family members participate in various combinations

– varied use of educational, therapeutic tools, modalities (CBT, systematic desensitization, narrative, solution focused, motivational interviewing, experiential, mindfulness)

– two‐person (or more) models (with another therapist, PC)

– coordinated services with other involved professionals imperative

– court monitoring and oversight

– reporting to court to various degrees permissible ‐ accountability

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Need for Detailed Court Orders & Service Agreements

Name the therapist

Identify by name all family members required to participate

Time lines on completion of intake materials, contacting therapist

Goals be spelled out clearly

Parenting time to be implemented e.g., step up parenting time schedule or current court order

Parents to cooperate per direction of therapist

Return to court dates, or protocol for how to return to court

Duration of services, or how services can be terminated

Clarify limits of confidentiality within process, between participants

Ability to share information with other professionals

“Open” process typical ‐ reporting to court permissible

Fees: proportion each parent pays

Therapy: Considerations & Caveats• Not a quick fix

• Considerable cost ‐ compare with lawyers and litigation

• Therapy failures not uncommon

• Careful screening, clinical intake process before accepting into therapy necessary unsuitable referrals ‐ PCCP too severe

– implementing the wrong type of therapy ‐ e.g. for child only or RP and child ‐may be necessary, but is not sufficient

– therapist lacking specialized skills and training

– lack of coordinated services

– may be in child protection context or domestic context or both at same time

– therapist accepts (dual) role of recommending or deciding parenting time

• Ongoing assessment/screening needed to ensure continued safety and suitability

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For cases of severe justified rejection

(abuse/neglect/deficit parenting)

• Individual work/rehabilitation with

parent/perpetrator of abuse

• Child has trauma therapy (for PTSD or other trauma

reactions)

• Depending on child’s readiness and once parent

demonstrates they are rehabilitated, it may be

appropriate to attempt to reunify child with parent,

or alternatively to help child and parent to adjust to

outcome of no parent‐child contact


For the more severe cases of alienation or hybrid cases

1. Legal custody with RP, interim period of no contact with

favored parent (30‐90 days), detailed order, without

intervention

2. As above WITH psycho‐educational intervention for child

and rejected parent

3. Blended Sequential Intervention ‐ as above with intention

to reintegrate favored parent once child reconciled with

rejected parent AND FP has participated and “passed” own

intervention

4. Rejected parent to say: “Goodbye for now.”

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Step‐Wise Sequential Delivery of Services

• For severe cases ‐ cases involving justified rejection AND

alienation

• Ultimate goal wherever possible is to prevent “parentectomy”

be it the favored parent or the rejected parent

• Both types of cases require careful monitoring by court and

other sevice providers to ensure child is protected from further

risk associated with abusive parenting by either parent

• Mandatory reporting requirement

• Interim supervision may be required with favored parent

• AFCC Webinar: Responding to Severe Parent‐Child Reject Cases

Without a Parentectomy, Polak & Popielarczyk‐ July 7th

Interventions: Changes & Trends During the Last Ten Years

Two significant developments:

Trauma/Toxic Stress Informed Sensitivity

Intervention Outcome Accountability

AFCC Webinars:

• Polyvagal Theory in the Courtroom & Beyond, Bailey ‐ June 2nd

• Trauma‐informed Interventions in Parent‐Child Contact Cases, Deutsch, Drozd & Ajoku ‐ June 4th

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Nadine Burke: Ted Talk

Trauma/Toxic Stress Informed Approaches

• Sensitivity to and screening for risk factors including IPV, abuse, trauma, ACES, toxic stress, intractable conflict, mental illness is imperative

• Recognizing the complexity and nuance in PCCP cases

• The experiences of all of the family members as children, adolescents, young adults, in their marriages and during the separation process

• To the extent this complexity and nuance are ignored including focus on a single cause, change will be limited

• How do the family members each cope: fight, flight, freeze

• Ensuring safety

• Prioritize needs

• Developing interventions that build in mechanisms for instilling hope and building resilience, harnessing resources ‐ FLOCK

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Resources

• Harvard Center for the Developing Child

– [email protected]

– many short video clips and handouts on toxic stress, resiliency, parenting, COVID‐19

– can be used, selectively, with parents, children & adolescents

– Podcast: The Brain Architects

• SAMHSA ‐ www.samhsa.gov

– numerous resources/tools on trauma, visuals to show parents

Interventions: Are They Working? • Accountability imperative

• Growing efforts to undertake program evaluation and outcome research (e.g. Saini & Deutsch, 2017; Saini, 2019; Warshak, 2019, 2020)

• One example: Changes in Resist/Refuse Dynamics Checklist (CRDC) ‐ first published in Deutsch, Drozd & Ajoku, FCR, 2020

• Early iterations developed Drozd, Saini, Walters, Fidler, & Deutsch 2020

• Likert rating scale intended to identify cognitive, emotional and behavioral indices of change in child, each parent and parent‐child dyads

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CRDC

• Can be used to identify goals at the

outset, during and at conclusion of

intervention ‐ “pre and post test”

– as a clinical tool with children and parents

– may be useful part of reporting to court on extent of intervention progress

• Can be adapted as self report for parents

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Stay Informed• Stay current on literature and other

professional development (conferences, trainings, list serves)

• Know how to critically appraise and use research

• AFCC Guidelines For the Use of Social Science Research in Family Law (2018)‐ 16 Guidelines

• All research has limitations

– perfection cannot be standard to assess utility and reliability or research

– distinguish minor from major flaws

– assess relative strengths and challenges

There has been a lot of research about your condition lately. Now I am sorry I didn't read any of it.

Need More & Better Research

• Despite increase in publications on all aspects of PCCP’s there few empirical studies (Saini et al., 2013, 2016)

• Significant fiscal, practical and ethical challenges in doing valid research

• Growing body of research examining how the courts are responding to cases (Meier, Lorandos)

• Conclusive findings unlikely

• Legal and mental health professionals cannot wait for science to catch up to their ongoing cases ‐ recommendations and decisions still need to be made

• Not intervening, taking no action needs to be researched and justified as well

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• It is far easier to slide into certainty than accepting uncertainty ‐applies to all of us, professionals & the parents, children and adolescents we work with

• Extremely difficult to hold 2 competing ideas well together ‐ to hold two truths at the same time, or more than two truths

• To cope with the anxiety/uncertainty we are inclined to let one go of the idea that gets in our way and align with the other

Where Do We Go From Here?

• Extremely challenging and high risk work

• Knowing what we don’t know is imperative but easier said than done

• Practice curiosity

• Explore the alternative hypothesis, perspective

• Learn how to be comfortable with uncertainty; see it as an opportunity

• “When we lose our capacity for complexity and nuance we lose the capacity to change.” (Brene Brown, Unlocking Us, Podcast, March 23, 2020)

• Embrace change

• Remain willing to engage, play in the same sandbox, especially those with whom we may disagree

• Attend cross disciplinary trainings

• Shared experiences increases empathy, breaks down barriers and mitigates polarization…..AND……

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Last but not least….remember to take care of yourself

Thank You!

Dr. Barbara Fidler: [email protected]

Prof. Nicholas Bala: [email protected]

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Selected References

• Fidler, B., & Bala, N. (2010). Children resisting post‐ separation contact with a parent: Concepts, controversies & conundrums. Family Court Review, 48(1), 10‐47.

• Fidler, Bala & Saini (2013). Children who resist postseparation parental contact: A differential approach for legal & mental health professionals. American Psychology‐Law Book Series, Oxford University Press.

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• Richard Warshak– www.warshak.com

• Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad‐mouthing and Brainwashing

• Welcome Back, Pluto a DVD for children, teens, and parents www.plutocenter.org

• Bill Eddy– www.highconflictinstitute.com

– Don't Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient

Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce

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Practical Must‐Get Tools for Working with Parents and Coparents

Overcoming the Coparenting Trap (Moran, Sullivan & Sullivan, 2014)

Overcoming the Alienation Crisis:

33 Coparenting Solutions

(Moran, McCall & Sullivan, in press)

http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Plan-Evaluations-Applied-Research/dp/ 0199396582/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qi d=1455689105&sr=1-2&keywords= parenting+plan+evaluations+applied+research+for+the+family+court

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Selected References• Fidler, Bala, & Hurwitz, (2013) Best practice guide: Responding to emotional harm of children in high conflict separation. TO: HCF.

• Harman, Kruk, & Hines, (2018). Parental alienating behaviors: An unacknowledged form of family violence. Psychological Bulletin, 144(12), 1275‐1299.

• Kahenman, (2011). Thinking fast & slow. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

• Lewis (2017). The undoing project: A friendship that changed our minds. NY: Norton Books.

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