Tag: divorce with dignity

Visits to the Minnesota Children’s Museum, when my kiddos were little tykes, were the inspiration for these articles.  As a recap, the Museum emphasizes the power of play for children, and lists the following as skills children learn from playing:

1. Creative thinking
2. Critical thinking
3. (Self)-Control
4. Confidence
5. Collaboration
6. Communication
7. Coordination

In Part 3, we took a deep dive into the 5^th skill, collaboration.  Now, we are going to illustrate how grown-ups can utilize the collaborative skills they learned as kids, in a Collaborative Divorce.

As previously mentioned, the Children’s Museum has a board on each of the above skills to illustrate what the skills look like and how parents and teachers can encourage children to grow those skills.  Here’s the board for Collaboration:

In Action – Joining forces to pursue a common goal because two heads are better than one:

• Adjusting to others’ ideas
• Showing compassion and sympathy
• Valuing the contributions of others

You enhance this power of play when you:

• Encourage children to take on other roles
• Give them a chance to work through conflict
• Model cooperative behavior

We can think of many examples of kids learning these skills and working together to build a sandcastle, create a dinosaur army, build a structure with blocks, and so forth.  While divorce is more emotional than building a sandcastle, the skill is incredibly useful in the process.

Adjusting to others’ ideas

Often, divorce is about “he said, she said” but it’s really about accepting that the other person has their own ideas about “things.”  Different ideas, however, may actually have commonalities.  Part 3 defined collaboration as engaging with others positively and productively in pursuit of a common goal.  Although discussing goals, especially shared goals during a divorce seems counterintuitive, it shouldn’t be.  In fact, it’s the foundation of the Collaborative Divorce Process.  Divorcing parents have at least one common, shared goal: to ensure that their kids are ok, and this includes older, even adult children, and relationships.  If the divorcing couple doesn’t have children, they often raise the common goal of having financial security after the divorce.  Most couples have several common goals, but these two are almost, if not always, at the top.  Collaboration in a divorce is crucial to the future well-being of everyone in the family and those relationships going forward.  Adjusting to someone else’s ideas will likely lead to cooperating with the other person in the pursuit of the common (shared) goal.

If a divorcing couple’s tantamount goal is to make sure their kids are ok (and clearly define what “ok” looks like), they can (re)learn how to play nice in the divorce sandbox together.  Guided by their Collaborative Divorce team, the couple will figure out which toys or tools to use or play with in the sandbox, what they want to build or do, and go from there.

Showing compassion and sympathy

I would add or perhaps substitute empathy for sympathy.  Everyone wants to feel understood.  It is a basic human need, and divorcing partners can still feel empathy for each other.  If one spouse wants to receive more savings or cash in the divorce settlement, the other spouse might get irritated by such a request.  But looking at the underlying reason (a stay-at-home spouse wants to finish that college degree) the other spouse should at least be able to acknowledge the “why” behind the “want.”  They don’t need to agree to it right away, but it’s important they put themselves in the shoes of the other to understand what’s behind the goal (being self-sufficient).  Once the couple identifies their common goals, they will quickly figure out that if they cooperate and work together, they can accomplish their common goals.

Valuing the contributions of others

In a Collaborative Divorce, the foundation and anchors of the divorce are created with goal setting and brainstorming.  Final outcomes and decisions are based on underlying interests and values, rather than positions.  Each person’s goals and objectives are illustrated during the first meeting and any of the participants (spouses, attorneys, or neutrals) can ask pointed questions to really get at what is important to each person.

Active listening and thoughtful inquiries are ways to show that the contributions of the other person are valued.  This validation can help the divorcing couple connect in ways that will help them problem solve and move forward with the process.

Now, the magic can happen, and the team can enhance this process by doing any of all of the following: encouraging certain behavior, working through conflict, and modeling cooperation.

Encourage (people) to take on other roles

In a traditional marriage of kids and a stay-at-home and a breadwinner spouse, each spouse needs to rescind some of their historical tasks to fit in some of the other tasks.  For example, if the wife was out of the workforce and at-home with kids, she may not only want to go back to college to finish her degree (or get an advanced degree), but she may need to in order to support herself.  This is a new role for her.  Since she is working through her new role to support herself financially, the breadwinner parent will need to try out his new role by stepping up and taking on more of the tasks related to the children’s needs.  Skilled professionals can help the couple prepare for this new reality, and these new roles.

Give them a chance to work through conflict

Yes, conflict exists even in a Collaborative setting.  In fact, extremely high conflict situations can still utilize Collaboration.  And even if the case is low-conflict, let conflict happen.  The elephant in the room needs to be addressed, and as uncomfortable as it might seem at the time, once the conflict is out there, it usually isn’t as bad as people thought it would be.  Addressing it gets it out there, and often, it will hang in the room for a moment, and then pass through.

Model cooperative behavior

The professional team’s engagement with each other and the divorcing couple is respectful, curious, and helpful.  We are truly rooting for this couple to get to the finish line together, and as unscathed as possible.  Divorce can be viewed as a problem to be solved, rather than a battle to be fought.  All the participants in the case are asked to bring their “higher” selves to the meetings.  Attorneys ask follow up questions to not only their respective clients, but to the “opposing” party.  People can rest assured that the “other” attorney won’t interrogate them – they won’t feel like they are being cross-examined.  No one is deposed, and there are no “gotcha!” questions, just clarifying and follow up questions so the professionals can help the couple navigate and reach post-divorce goals.

If children can collaborate, so can adults

Cooperation, respect, compassion, and empathy all have a space at the Collaborative Divorce table.  It is absolutely a better process for divorcing couples.  It isn’t easy, but divorce in and of itself isn’t easy.  The assumptions going into the process are that people are generally good, want to do right by their kids and have a cordial co-parenting relationship, and move on with their lives.  So instead of paying attorneys to fight in court, divorcing couples work with each other and their legal team to create an outcome that helps the couple move on as individuals, while strengthening family relationships going forward.

About the Author
Audra practices exclusively in the area of conflict resolution, with an emphasis on Collaboration.  She believes Collaboration works best for families with children to help them move forward and thrive.  She helps her clients reframe and change their mindset about the divorce itself, so they can see it as a new beginning.  When she’s not Zooming with colleagues and clients, you’ll likely find Audra cheering on her kids at a various sporting events.

Audra Holbeck, Attorney, Mediator
Holbeck Law
Ph: 651-379-0330
Holbecklaw.com

In Part 1, we discussed how children seem to know how to play, yet they develop important skills through play.  In Part 2, we identified and explored the seven skills children develop through play.  As a refresher, those skills are:

1. Creative thinking – to consider and experiment with alternatives freely and without fear in any situation.
2. Critical thinking – to discern knowledge, information, and interest in order to solve a problem, prove a point, or decide what to believe.
3. (Self)-Control – to interface with and within a bustling society with the ability to manage one’s own attention, emotions, and behaviors.
4. Confidence– to genuinely believe in one’s own abilities to experience success and satisfaction in not only what one can do, but also what one is willing to try.
5. Collaboration – to engage with others positively and productively in pursuit of a common goal.
6. Communication – to take language and literacy (the tools of communication) and use them to exchange information with power and precision.
7. Coordination – to recognize, use, and appreciate the physical marvels of the human body.

Now, we are going to dive a bit deeper into the 5^th skill mentioned above: Collaboration.  Since we are talking about Collaborative Divorce, let’s see how this important skill can positively impact the divorce process.

Webster’s Dictionary defines the verb “collaborate” as follows:

1. To work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor;
2. To cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one’s country and especially an occupying force;
3. To cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected.

Work together, assist, and cooperate are the common threads.

Collaboration, as a noun, is defined by Webster’s as “the act of collaborating, especially with an enemy or an opposed group rather than struggling or resisting.”

Finally, what does it mean to be collaborative?  Webster’s defines collaborative, an adjective, as “involving or done by two or more people or groups working together: marked or produced by collaboration.”

Now that we have the definition of the various forms, let’s break collaboration down as a verb and look at the definition as it relates to divorce. 

To Collaborate:

1. To work jointly with others, especially in an intellectual endeavor. Collaborative Divorce requires working with your spouse and your spouse’s attorney, which is an intellectual endeavor, to be sure.  If human beings begin to learn this skill in early childhood (a child trade’s a toy truck for a motorcycle) then adults can surely negotiate the exchange of more cash for less retirement, for example. 
2. To cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one’s country and especially an occupying force. Yes, a traditional, contentious, winner-takes-all divorce would pit the soon-to-be divorced couple squarely in opposite corners of the ring.  The marital partnership quickly devolves to enemies in mortal combat.  Nonetheless, if the marital “enemies” can reframe their thinking and work together, they can create an outcome better than any court imposed solution.  This paradigm shift would allow the soon-to-be former spouses to work together for their own benefit, i.e., I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine.  Or in divorce terms, “You can have the Waterford crystal since your family is from Ireland, and I’d like the Wedgewood dinnerware since I have family in England.”
3. To cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected. The emotional bond of marriage no longer exists, and while the couple is still married, the disconnection from a legal perspective is imminent.  While the couple may think they have no reason to continue their relationship, their cooperation during the process sets the tone for the first step in their “new life.”  Collaborating rather than litigating and fighting is crucial to moving forward, particularly if they have children.

While the idea of learning how to and implementing collaborative skills as a child to get a certain toy seems counterintuitive, and downright outlandish in divorce, deep down we know it makes sense.  How often did you hear growing up, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”  Divorce (and society in general) is drenched in vinegar.  It’s time for honey (or sugar).  There’s nothing wrong with being nice.  We teach young children to play nice, and we want them to be nice.  Let’s also set that standard for adults. 

In Collaborative Divorce, not only do the spouses work together, but the entire team, including the attorneys, works together.  We are all…nice.  (Pass the honey, please.)  It really does work.  When the focus is on accomplishing a common goal and everyone brings their best self and creative energy to the room, great things emerge.  Settlements not only happen, but they are created in a healthier, calmer space.

Collaborating in divorce is a paradigm shift, no doubt.  Our society loves a good legal drama and War of the Roses is no exception.  However, if young children understand the importance of cooperation and collaboration even when they don’t agree, grown-ups surely can muster the wherewithal to be respectful to their spouse in the process.  The partners can choose to reframe the divorce so that common interests and goals can be achieved by both partners in divorce.

Part 4 will take a deeper dive into the above, as it relates to the mindset of collaborating during divorce.

About the Author
Audra practices exclusively in the area of conflict resolution, with an emphasis on Collaboration.  She believes Collaboration works best for families with children to help them move forward and thrive.  She helps her clients reframe and change their mindset about the divorce itself, so they can see it as a new beginning.  When she’s not Zooming with colleagues and clients, you’ll likely find Audra cheering on her kids at a various sporting events.

Audra Holbeck, Attorney, Mediator
Holbeck Law
E: aholbeck@holbecklaw.com
Ph: 651-379-0330
Holbecklaw.com

In Part 1, we talked about how kids just seem to know how to play, and consequently, they develop important skills through play.  As previously mentioned, the Minnesota Children’s Museum in St. Paul has an exhibit, “Seven Powers of Play” where kids create, tinker, and discover, and acquire those skills.  As we become adults, work replaces play, and perhaps some of those skills we learn as children fall to the bottom of our toolbox.  Life happens, but in a divorce, those skills can be THE tools needed for changing your mindset and creating not only a healthy divorce process but a rewarding life post-divorce. 

Those skills are:

1. Creative thinking
2. Critical thinking
3. (Self)-Control
4. Confidence
5. Collaboration
6. Communication
7. Coordination

Let’s identify them, dig them out, and polish them up.

Creative thinking – to consider and experiment with alternatives freely and without fear in any situation.

This is the paradigm shift and brainstorming phase of the Collaborative Process.  The couple can (literally) shout out their goals and ideas for how they’d like the divorce to move forward and their family life to flow as they uncouple.  For example, what do they want co-parenting to look like both short-term and long-term?  Do parents really need to stay in their on-duty parenting lane, or could they celebrate holidays together?  Contrary to the “typical” divorce and cultural expectations, perhaps they gather for family meals (yes, even after they are divorced!) weekly or monthly.  They stretch their creativity to what they need and want without fear of what society expects of them during and after their divorce. 

Critical thinking – to discern knowledge, information, and interest in order to solve a problem, prove a point, or decide what to believe. 

After brainstorming, those critical thinking skills are put to the test.  Divorce is a set of issues to be addressed and solved, not a war to be fought and won (or lost).  After all the information is gathered and various options created, the couple analyzes and discerns the best outcome and option for their family unit going forward.  It’s not about who is getting more of the pie; rather, it’s looking at the various parts of the pie and determining which part is preferred.  (I’ll take a buttery graham cracker crust over the Frech silk/chocolate mousse filling anytime.)   

Self-control – to interface with and within a bustling society with the ability to manage one’s own attention, emotions, and behaviors. 

We know what it looks like for a toddler to throw a tantrum, and it takes years of patience (and not giving in to that tantrum) for a child to self-regulate.  During a divorce, it’s not at all unusual for adults to completely lose their cool.  Divorce is emotional, frustrating, and it feels devastating.  We are human and it’s ok to be angry during this time.  Adults, however, need to muster their will to utilize the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, and respond, rather than react, to the situation.  Collaborative professionals can help create a safe space for the couple, and a trained divorce coach can help them regulate their emotions and get them back on track. 

Confidence – to genuinely believe in one’s own abilities to experience success and satisfaction in not only what one can do, but also what one is willing to try.

Often, the Collaborative Process helps the couple parent their kids better.  When parents focus on the future and how a structured, yet flexible parenting plan can work for everyone, their ability to co-parent not only increases their confidence for their future but helps them improve their overall self-esteem.  When they feel like they are “doing good” by their kids, everyone wins, and confidence improves.  Clients have reached out to me a year or more after the divorce to tell me their co-parenting relationship is better than they ever imagined it could be.     

Collaboration – to engage with others positively and productively in pursuit of a common goal.

Believe it or not, a divorcing couple has at least one common goal: to ensure that their kids are ok.  Most couples have several common goals, but the foregoing is always at the top.  Even if they have adult children, divorcing couples want to at least be comfortable seeing their former spouse at a family event, like a graduation or wedding.  Collaboration in a divorce is crucial to the future well-being of everyone in the family.  We will dive deeper into this skill in Part 3. 

Communication – to take language and literacy (the tools of communication) and use them to exchange information with power and precision. 

Shifting communication and using “I” statements is a simple, yet powerful tool for everyone to utilize.  We all need to take ownership of what we say.  If something comes out sideways, common sense dictates clarifying and apologizing.  Nothing can change the energy in a room like a sincere apology.  While that communication style, which might have been lost during the marriage, can be (re)learned, the professionals on the case open the meeting with expectations for everyone.  The goal is that the couple will learn more productive ways of communicating in the future.

Coordination – to recognize, use, and appreciate the physical marvels of the human body.

I view coordination as a child’s ability to learn and use both large muscle and fine motor skills. Picture the early walker looking like Frankenstein Baby with arms held out and an awkward gait, but wearing the biggest, proudest grin on that precious face.  Or a child learning to skip or ride a bike: they try, fall down, and get back up and do it again.  Eventually, they ride without falling down, and skip with smooth strides.  For adults, this can mean recognizing when they are going to “lose it” and taking a few deep breaths to slow their breathing and heartrate.  This deeper dive into learning about the sympathetic nervous system and the fight, flight, or freeze response, which relates to the ability to self-regulate, as noted above, can be critical during times of stress.  It’s amazing what the human body can achieve.

While it might come as a surprise that the above skills are learned through play during childhood, it shouldn’t be a surprise these skills are vital for healthy adulthood.  Sometimes a marriage doesn’t work.  But that doesn’t mean the people in that marriage don’t work or are somehow broken.  Is it possible the above skills were lost or forgotten?  Yes.  But now is the time to find them, brush up on those skills, and perhaps relearn how to use them. 

About the Author
Audra practices exclusively in the area of conflict resolution, with an emphasis on Collaboration.  She believes Collaboration works best for families with children to help them move forward and thrive.  She helps her clients reframe and change their mindset about the divorce itself, so they can see it as a new beginning.  When she’s not Zooming with colleagues and clients, you’ll likely find Audra cheering on her kids at a various sporting events.

Audra Holbeck, Attorney, Mediator
Holbeck Law
E: aholbeck@holbecklaw.com
Ph: 651-379-0330
Holbecklaw.com