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Divorce Rich with Jacki Roessler, CDFA
Welcome to the Divorce Rich Podcast! Join your host, highly sought-after speaker and experienced Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, Jacki Roessler, CDFA in this engaging and down to earth show. Along with her guests, Jacki offers clear and detailed advice to improve your financial decisions before, during and after divorce so you can survive divorce rich! New episodes are posted every Thursday! You can reach Jacki through her Michigan-based firm, Roessler Divorce Consulting, located at 600 S. Adams, Suite 300, Birmingham, MI 48009 or by email at jacqueline@roesslerdivorce.com.
Divorce Rich with Jacki Roessler, CDFA
Co-Parenting or Coercing? Recognizing the Difference with AJ Gajjar
Ever had your child return from their other parent's house acting like a completely different person? The tears, the aggression, the withdrawal – these aren't just normal post-visitation blues. They might be signs of something more concerning: coercive parenting control.
Child development specialist AJ Gajar joins us to shine a light on this often-misunderstood dynamic that leaves many co-parents feeling helpless and confused. She explains how "strict parenting" can sometimes mask controlling behaviors that profoundly impact children's emotional and psychological development. Drawing from her background in developmental psychology and her own personal experience with divorce, AJ offers practical strategies to support children caught between healthy and unhealthy parenting approaches.
AJ Gajjar is a mom, Parenting and Trauma Consultant, child development specialist, and children’s advocate. She supports parents facing the challenges of post-separation abuse and helps children heal from harmful or coercive parenting.
With 18 years of experience in early childhood development and children’s mental health, AJ understands both the science and the heart of parenting through trauma. As an international best-selling co-author and creator of Trauma Healing Parenting, she offers parents a clear path to protect, nurture, and strengthen their children—even in the midst of ongoing relational harm.
Links:
Website: The Trauma Healing Parent
Visit us at https://www.roesslerdivorce.com/ to learn more about Jacki's practice and to find valuable resources for your case.
The Divorce Rich podcast is proudly sponsored by Center for Financial Planning: Striving to Improve Lives through Financial Planning Done Right! https://www.centerfinplan.com/
Welcome to the Divorce Rich Podcast. I'm your host, jackie Ressler. I've been a certified divorce financial analyst for 28 years, helping clients and their attorneys navigate the often complex and confusing financial issues in divorce. If you're in the process of, or considering, divorce, now is the time for you to take a deep breath and give yourself permission to find clarity on the financial issues you're facing. Rich means many things to many people. I believe the best definition of being rich is someone who has access to many resources. Along with my guests on this podcast, I will be bringing you a wide variety of information so that you can make sound and informed financial decisions for your financial future.
Speaker 2:Hey, if you're recently divorced or still in the middle of it, you already know that life can feel like it's been turned upside down and, let's be honest, the financial part it's overwhelming, confusing and often the last thing you want to deal with. That's why I want to tell you about the Independent Wealth Management Team at Center for Financial Planning. Their team of certified you want to deal with. That's why I want to tell you about the independent wealth management team at Center for Financial Planning. Their team of certified financial planners specializes in helping people just like you navigate life changes with confidence. Whether it's assessing your new financial circumstances, creating or updating your retirement plan or helping you adjust to the new normal, they'll work with you to get a clear, customized plan to feel in control and move forward with confidence. So if you're interested in working with a financial planner who you can trust to have your best interests in mind and you're ready to take the next step, visit centerfinplancom that's centerfinplancom and schedule a conversation. Center for Financial Planning live your plan.
Speaker 1:Disclosure Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services Inc. Member FINRA, sipc. Investment advisory services offered through Center for Financial Planning Inc. Center for Financial Planning Inc. Is not a registered broker-dealer and is independent of Raymond James Financial Services. Center for Financial Planning was a sponsor of the Divorce Rich Podcast. The Center for Financial Planning and Raymond James are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Divorce Rich Podcast.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to the Divorce Rich Podcast, a podcast about building a fuller, more meaningful life after divorce emotionally, mentally and as a parent. I'm your host, jackie Ressler, and today we're diving into a co-parenting issue that many face but few fully understand coercive parenting control. Maybe you've heard terms like parental alienation, or maybe you just feel like something's not right in your co-parenting dynamic. If you're navigating constant tension, manipulation or feeling shut out as a parent, this episode is for you. Our guest, aj Gajar, is an expert in recognizing and addressing these subtle yet damaging patterns, is an expert in recognizing and addressing these subtle yet damaging patterns. Together, we'll explore how to protect your peace, support your kids and move toward a co-parenting relationship that's healthier for everyone, Because living divorce rich means more than just moving on. It means taking your power back.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone and welcome back to the Divorce Rich Podcast. This is Jackie Ressler, and we have a really fascinating topic today and I know it's going to be of interest to many of our listeners. I'm personally interested in it and I'm very lucky to have as our guest today. We have AJ Gajar, who is a parenting and trauma consultant. She is a child development specialist and a children's advocate, so she wears a lot of different hats and we are really lucky to have you today, so welcome. Thank you, jackie. It's lovely to be here. Let's start a little bit about. Can you tell me how you came to be interested in this type of work?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I can say so. After school, I would say I did my education in developmental psychology and I started working with children and families who were really coming from less than ideal backgrounds and situations whether it be due to socioeconomic status or due to the children experiencing developmental delays or mental health challenges within the home or complex divorces like that. And my outcome and my outlook was really always focused on best interests of the child from a lens of how do we kind of acknowledge and take what these children are experiencing and still work with them in a way where we can optimize their long-term outcomes, still work with them in a way where we can optimize their long-term outcomes. So, whatever they're experiencing as far as their early experiences go because early experiences are so foundational for children, right. But whatever those experiences are, do they have to kind of be a life sentence for them, right? Like, let's take where they're at, focus on what's happening, acknowledge it for what it is, and then, long term, let's look at how do we create the best outcomes for these kids. So that's what I did for a very long time. And then life happens kind of as it does and I got married and got divorced and you know all the things.
Speaker 3:And that's when I was really opened up to, I guess, this whole divorce community and world, where I saw so many parents and so many children who were struggling through more complex divorces with not a lot of resources out there to support them, right, and I think what I was seeing back then was this lens and this idea if you're looking at a domestically abusive situation or you're looking at coercive control involved, you know the target parent or the intimate partner the other parent is really the only person that experiences the impacts of those behaviors.
Speaker 3:And what I was seeing with the children and the parents that I was working with was that that was actually not true. Right, the children were very, very much so impacted by this. So how are we going to find something that supported the children who were going through this very specific experience? And that's when I kind of took my education and my work experience and I dove into years of research in children, trauma and neurobiological development and all that stuff, attachment theory and I created a parenting approach called Tom Healing Parenting which was designed specifically for children who are going through these coercively controlling parental dynamics.
Speaker 2:Okay, so give me an example. So, for our listeners, can you give me an example of the type of parental situation that you're describing?
Speaker 3:So I get a lot of parents who are like my other parent is extremely strict. So that's what we're really talking about when we talk about coercive parenting. It's a very top down approach. It's a very what the parent says goes. There is no room for the child to express their emotions. There's no room for the child to kind of push back at all. Expectations and demands are extremely high out of the children and empathy and compassion and support and connection is not there to help support these kids in meeting those high demands and those high expectations. Kids in meeting those high demands and those high expectations. And in fact what happens is because this parent has such disproportionate, I would say, expectations out of children. They're not developmentally appropriate. When the child fails to meet those expectations, the child is then punished for something that they have very little control over, right? So it's a very, very rigid style of parenting. It's like I said, it's very top down, it's rooted in power and control and there is very, very little room for the voice of the child.
Speaker 2:Okay, and those are situations typically where the child is spending at least a significant amount of time with the other parent. So any amount of time with the other parent, yeah, any amount, even if it was just every other weekend, but yeah, okay, so I think I'm hearing it right, but can you give me? You brought up the word parental coercive control. So how does that? How does that show up in, how does that show up in the child's behavior? Like, how would a parent know that, unless they have, of course, the experience, I'm assuming, with the other parent? As a spouse of that parent, I'm sure this behavior doesn't come out of nowhere, but how would a parent recognize that that might be happening in the other household?
Speaker 3:So the first thing I would say to parents is, if you yourself experienced coercive control or unhealthy behaviors in your own relationship with the other parent, chances are very, very high that your children are experiencing that as well, because these personality types and these behaviors are very, very entrenched and they're very resistant to change, right. So what you find is that, especially within their inner circle, these personalities tend to interact very, very similarly to the right. So what you find is that, especially within their inner circle, these personalities tend to interact very, very similarly to the people in their world. Right. So the intimate partner, what they might be seeing is very, very similar to what the children are going to be seeing because those behaviors don't change, right, and what the healthy parent is likely going to see, because there is a period of time.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of parents want to give the other parent the benefit of the doubt. Right, I've heard so many parents say you know, he wasn't a great partner but he's a great dad, or she wasn't a great partner but she's a great mom. And you know, I have to kind of bust that myth a little bit, because that's just not what the research tells us. It's just not true, right, it's the person you're dealing with, but I think that there's a difference between like an unhealthy dynamic and an abusive relationship. Right, like abusive behaviors versus unhealthy behaviors, like I think there's crossover there, but when you really look at how entrenched they are, that's where the coercion and the power dynamic that's really really key right.
Speaker 2:That makes sense to me. So the parent that is getting themselves out of a toxic relationship or a very controlling situation should already be on the lookout, and probably already is right For that to happen to their child.
Speaker 3:But I'm sure that when that happens you probably feel pretty helpless you do because I think what happens with a lot of parents is you don't necessarily see it coming right. So I have a lot of parents coming to me and saying I don't know what has happened to my kid. Like my kid goes and visits the other parent. They come home and they are a mess, like it's not, like I don't recognize this kid right. So I was working with one mom who was like I have this little girl. She's very, very sweet, not a violent bone in her body, but she goes for visits with the other parent and she comes back Like she expresses herself violently, like she kicks. She was kicking and crying and screaming and spitting and like just pushing mom around.
Speaker 3:It happened to be in this situation and mom was just like this is not my kid, like I don't know what is happening to her and I don't know what to do about it. So I would say, if you're going to be on the lookout for things like that, what you really want to pay attention to is behaviors that look very different from what you know your child's normal personality is and what their normal expression is, right. Is that going to look different from a developmental lens? Yes, that's going to look different for children, for young children and it will for, say, tweens and teens, that was what I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2:It's got to vary by the age of the child, right, it does so.
Speaker 3:With younger kids, what I have seen personally is their behaviors are much more external, right?
Speaker 3:So you see a lot of heightened emotion and you see a lot of crying and a lot of anger and a lot of those overt behaviors like the kicking and the crying and the screaming and all that stuff, right, and there's there's reasons behind it.
Speaker 3:With older kids, what we tend to see is they tend to internalize a little bit more. So, with parents coming to me, they're like I had my tween come home and they went to their room, shut the door and stayed there for four hours home and they went to their room, shut the door and stayed there for four hours and it's like, yeah, that's also normal given the dynamics, because their brains are processing, they're trying to decompress, there's a lot of hormonal stuff happening in their brains, so there's a lot going on and that's where the difference kind of comes in, as far as usually the younger kids, as far as how they present and how older kids present Overall, like I said, what I would encourage parents to do is really be mindful of what is out of the norm for this kid, like what just kind of feels off to you because you know your kids best and you know how they respond in stressful situations and when they're angry and all things. So when something is off, you want to start paying attention to it Okay.
Speaker 2:So let's say that you recognize that there's something off and you are thinking that there might be a problem. What is the first step for a parent?
Speaker 3:So, if it is truly a coercively controlling parenting dynamic, then probably collaborating with the other parent is likely not going to be your best step. That would be the best co-parenting step, healthy co-parenting step, but that's probably not your best option here. What you really want to do is really focus on your own environment. Focus on the environment you've created in your home own environment. Focus on the environment you've created in your home. Focus on the environment that you're creating relationally with your kid and make sure that that environment is safe, it's supportive, it's healthy. You're always meeting your kids with empathy and compassion and support and connection and you really have to kind of focus on the relational aspect of it first before we can move on to anything else.
Speaker 3:Like I know, a lot of parents come to me. They're like we've tried everything the discipline and the boundaries of the rules and the punishments and everything and it's not working. And it's because with these particular kids. So if these kids are in this, are experiencing coercive parenting, that is, a level of psychological and emotional abuse that their brains are experiencing, right, if their brains are experiencing trauma, basically, then we can't actually approach these kids and parent these kids as though they haven't experienced trauma, which is why the typical parenting strategies don't work with these kids.
Speaker 2:Okay, makes sense. So is it a situation where a parent is expecting a child to behave like an adult? What would be an example of a coercive parenting? That's a great question.
Speaker 3:What you just mentioned is a great example. Parentification is quite common. Coercive parents typically don't have the capacity to meet their own emotional needs, so they put those needs on their kids, they put the expectation on their kids You're here to support me and you're here to help me. So that's a part of it. The other big part of it is, like I said, those expectations that these parents have are so, so severe, right? So there's not a lot of, like I said, compassion or empathy. So I can give a very, very specific example If you are in a situation where you're like, kind of shaking your head at, okay, this punishment or this type of discipline makes no sense.
Speaker 3:For what just happened to this kid, okay, that's what I would look at, right? So there was a kid who again, I was working with her daughter went to dad's house, scuffed her knee on the cement as they were riding a bike totally normal stuff, right. The scab started, or the scar started kind of scabbing over. The kid was picking at the scab, which is a normal child behavior. Dad's response in this situation was to ground the child for three months, as opposed to oh hey, kiddo, you don't want to pick at that, it could get. It's going to bleed, it could get infected. How going to bleed? It could get infected. How about let's clean it up? Let's put some polysporin on it? Why don't we? I'll help you, we'll put a bandaid on it. If it gets itchy, come get me and then we'll, you know, try some different things. Right, like that would be, I would say, a more normal parental response. But the excessiveness that, you see, is very rigid, very black and white. You do this. You're grounded for three months.
Speaker 2:To me. What strikes me about this is that you know I'm a parent. I'm lucky that I have. When my children were minors, I had a really great co-parent. But if I was in a situation where I didn't have a great co-parent and this was an example of what was going on I think this would make it really difficult to get the court system get involved, because it's not as overt as physical abuse or something that you can point to specifically. How does that impact the people that you work with?
Speaker 3:Significantly, I would say.
Speaker 3:You've hit the nail right on the head.
Speaker 3:I think coercive control, as far as being recognized within the courts, it's starting to be recognized as far as having an impact, again still on the intimate partner, on the other parent not with children so much, and the impacts that you see with coercive control really with children is it's typically a lot more on the psychological and emotional side, right? So that is very, very difficult to prove in any sort of court setting. Like you look at the sexual abuse side, you look at the physical abuse side. That is also challenging to prove in court, but I mean emotional and psychological is just there's a whole nother bar there, right? Right, I would imagine. Yeah, so what we do again with the parents that I work with is, you know, let's try and maintain as much stability as we possibly can. Maintain stability, make sure that those kids feel safe and we start giving these kids like empowering them in a way where they feel like they have the tools to navigate the situation at the other parent's house, have the tools to navigate the situation at the other parent's house.
Speaker 2:What incredible, powerful work you're doing with parents to be able to do that. I think also you know that must feel so helpless to be in that situation as a parent and not think that there's anything you can do to help your child. But you're right, giving them the tools that they can use and apply in other situations in life. Is that really possible to do?
Speaker 3:It is, and it can actually start with really young kids, and it's like you have to kind of just drip it into them, right, like very, very slowly, you drip it into them. The other thing we want to do I know a lot of parents get super concerned about, oh my goodness, my parents or my kid's going to turn into the other parent and they're coming to me, they're coming home and they're acting like the other parent and all these, you know, less than ideal behaviors and disrespect and things like that. And the thing is, instead of taking it personally which is very challenging to do but instead of taking it personally, what we can really do is take a step back and come at it from a place of curiosity, like, oh, that's an interesting perspective. Why do you think that kiddo or you know, ask questions around it, and then what that really does is it actually gets their critical thinking going?
Speaker 3:Sure, and that's what's really going to start making the difference between oh, I see a difference between mom's behaviors and a difference between dad's behaviors. Now, where do I fall in the middle? Right, it's a very different approach than you know. Dad's going to say this and mom's going to say this, and now you have this kid who's stuck in the middle between both parents, who are probably saying two very different things to them.
Speaker 2:Be a good example of something that your child comes home and tells you that you can turn around and have them prompt them to think it through.
Speaker 3:So okay. So here's one. One child comes home, was spending a week at the other parent's house. Comes home, the kid was younger, so around 11-ish, kind of went off on mom, you have a horrible job, you have been in the same job for 10 years because you are not smart enough to get a promotion. Dad said this. Dad said this dad, right, like things like that, yeah, yeah At things and they're poking. They typically tend to poke at things that are very valuable to you, that mean a lot to you, right?
Speaker 3:So in this scenario mom could get very defensive and mom could say that is not true. And here's all the reasons that I've been in my job for the past 10 years and why that's a positive thing and why this, that and all the rest of it. But what we had her do was really just walk her through and say, okay, those are really really interesting perspectives. Why do you think that kiddo? Well, dad said that Interesting, that's a really interesting perspective. Dad has what do you think honey?
Speaker 3:And then leave it open, right, like if the kid at that point in time falls in line with dad and says yeah, I believe dad, okay, well, then, that's up to you, honey. And then we kind of back off and let it be and parents struggle with that, I know, like in an isolated one-off it's like, oh my goodness, what are we doing? But if we do that enough times over time and multiple different situations and circumstances, then that's where they start kind of looking at oh wait, things are a little bit different. Am I always going to align with dad or do I have my own opinion on things? Right? And sometimes kids don't believe or think that they can have their own opinion on things because the coercively controlling parent is going to tell them that they can't, right?
Speaker 2:So you work with the parents one-on-one. Do you also work with the children?
Speaker 3:I do not. So I'll tell you the reason behind that is because I work very much so from an attachment framework and children have a natural attachment to their parents and the amount of work, the amount of safety, the amount of healing that a parent can actually do when they work with their children because of that attachment dynamic is significantly greater than anything I could do as an outside practitioner coming in.
Speaker 2:Right Now that makes total sense to me and to provide that support where it's really needed too. What a fantastic idea that you came up with this. So you work one-on-one and you also do parenting groups, right? Can you tell me a little bit about how that works? Yeah, so.
Speaker 3:I have a parent group that runs for 14 weeks.
Speaker 3:We meet kind of every other week for 14 weeks and it's a combination of education and information around child development and nervous system development and, you know, brain trauma and what's happening to these kids, the experience of these kids and how we can then best support them through what it is that they're experiencing.
Speaker 3:And then there is also ample time within that framework to really customize the approach to meet each individual parent's needs and their children's needs, right? I think what we find with the broader parenting approaches out, there is children are all such individual beings, right, like you can have three kids in one household and they're all so different from one another, right? So in honoring that, we really have to be mindful of making sure that we're adapting whatever parenting we're using. Even this particular parenting approach, we have to kind of adapt it to meet the needs of that particular kid. So there's time kind of embedded within the program to do that with parents as well, so that it's not just a cookie cutter template, it's not something you just take away and apply, because otherwise it's not going to.
Speaker 2:Got it. That makes sense to me, and so the group sounds like education and there is some time for sharing stories and support that way. And do you start? Are these maybe in Michigan, like me, have noticed that you have a slight?
Speaker 1:Canadian accent.
Speaker 2:So, but people could still participate, even if they're not where you are. You're in Alberta, you said.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, I'm in Alberta. I've had people participate from the UK. I've had people participate from Switzerland. All the sessions are virtual. They're all recorded. If you can't make it because of the time difference, okay, they're all recorded. If you can't make it because of the time difference, okay, they're all recorded, they're all sent out. There's also opportunity for you to send me questions through email and things like that that I can answer in between as well. I try to make it very interactive. I try to make sure there's a lot of time for parents to also connect with one another, because I think what we find in this dynamic is so many parents feel so isolated in it that it's really impactful for them to connect with other parents who are going through very similar things.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and this is so specific too. I think that what you're doing is targeted to such a specific group that I'm sure parents that are experiencing this don't know where to turn. And you do coaching of professionals as well, right? You coach lawyers, you coach other professionals, and what does that look like?
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know about coaching, but I do provide training, I do presentations and stuff to lawyers to really try and create awareness around this whole dynamic of parental course of control and the impact that it has on children, right?
Speaker 3:What I've heard time and time again from both clients and lawyers is, you know, this is a parenting dynamic we don't really get involved in that. Mom is just a really strict parent or dad is just a really strict parent, and I'm like we can't really hide behind that anymore, because the impact that that strict parenting quote unquote is having on these kids is immense and it's going to follow them for the rest of their lives. So we actually have to start unpacking what we mean when we say, well, this is just strict parenting, we don't deal with parenting. And then look at it that way, right, because if you actually look at the long-term implications and the long-term harm that again quote-unquote strict parenting does, it's along the same lines as exactly what coercive parenting does to these kids and that's not okay, right. Like, if we're in the profession of actually doing what's in the best interest of children, we have to take a different look at this.
Speaker 2:Do you recommend that parents who are experiencing this consider going to a parenting coach?
Speaker 3:I would encourage the non-adversarial parent or the non-coercively controlling parent to, just so that they can gain a better understanding of how they can better support their kid, because it's you know what. It's really quite unfortunate sometimes from the parental lens, because I don't know about you, jackie, but when I became a parent, I had a very specific idea the type of parent I wanted to be and the kind of parent I wanted to be right, and I think a lot of parents have that. And once you're dealing with dynamics like this and once you've seen things that your children are experiencing that are really changing their brain, it's kind of a tough pill to swallow for us to say, okay, we actually have to now adapt our parenting. It's not okay for us to parent in the way we thought we were going to parent and we've got to shift this so that we can actually meet the needs of these kids, because these needs are very, very different from typical kids.
Speaker 2:What I hear from a lot of clients who've been through something similar to what you're describing and from friends, is that they were the buffer during the marriage or between the other parent and the children, and now the buffer is gone. And, as far as I'm aware you know, every state in the United States is different on how they handle parenting through the court system, but there would be very little that could be done about a situation like this through the court system. So giving your child tools to help them handle it sounds amazing to me. It also sounds like really hard work.
Speaker 3:It is very hard work, but you know what these children are really struggling. So, if we like, take a step back and look at it from again the lens of the child. These kids are going through so much and they are struggling so much. Like we, as the non-adversarial parent or the non-coercively controlling parent, have to find a way to support these kids right, in the best of our capacity.
Speaker 3:And it is the program I run, the parents that I run through it. They come back to me and they're like this is exhausting. And I'm like, yeah, it is exhausting, which is why there's a whole step-by-step process on how to kind of manage yourself through it. But it is exhausting and it's sometimes a very sad reality that we have to come to terms with. And on the flip side you've mentioned it a couple times already right, like, these kids are gaining skills and tools at a very young age, probably at an age where you would hope that they wouldn't have to. But they are learning skills and tools that are going to help them for the rest of their life. Right, because they're going to come across less unhealthy personalities in any aspect of their life.
Speaker 2:That's true, and I think even just validating what the kid is experiencing is real has got to be tremendously helpful for these kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and I think, like the biggest example I can give, or the analogy I guess I can give, to kind of really drive home how different this really is for these kids, is like if your child came home from the other parent's house with a broken leg, you would make accommodations for that kid that week, right, or that month, or for the next four months, however long it took for that leg to heal, right. You're not still going to expect them to go and mow the lawn, you're not going to expect them to still vacuum the whole house or A, b, right, all the things You're going to make accommodations for that. It's very, very similar with these kids as far as what's happening in their brains and the impact that the trauma is having on their brains. It's just a lot more difficult, I think, for parents to wrap their heads around because we're not seeing it physically on the outside. Right, right, what a great example, yeah, right, like we don't. It's not okay for us as parents to not make the accommodations because we're not seeing that physical side.
Speaker 2:Well, also parents. It doesn't come with a book when your children are born and, like you said, every child is different, so it would take a really high skill level for someone that was in a relationship like that with a person who was toxic. In that way and controlling. It's enough to get yourself out of that scenario, but to also know how to support your child through that. I would imagine that getting this kind of professional help would be so beneficial.
Speaker 3:Well, and I think you make such a good point right, like divorce nowadays, like if you're in a scenario like this, you are doing a lot of your own healing in this dynamic. Still, right, you're recovering from that toxicity and you're recovering a scenario like this. You are doing a lot of your own healing in this dynamic. Still, right, you're exactly that toxicity and you're recovering from that relationship. You're probably in therapy and you're doing a lot of work on yourself. So it's not only that lens of it, but now it's like.
Speaker 3:Now I also have to support my kid through it, which is why I love what you're doing and just bringing all these different people together, because divorce, I don't think is what it used to be. Right, this is not something where you just go out and get a divorce lawyer and we're done at the end of the day. Right, like that's what I tell parents is like really go out and build your team of people, because you're going to need a team of people to support you. You need the finance people and you need the lawyer and you need a coach and you need a child. You know somebody to help support your kids and you know, have all of those people around you, and it's okay to have all those people around you to support you, right.
Speaker 2:I am so glad that I have found you as a resource, because I think this is a tremendous resource for people and it's you know, nobody can figure it all out themselves. You do need to ask for help, but I do believe that a lot of people, a lot of parents in this situation, are not aware that there is any help for them. So thank you so much for being my guest today and telling us all this information. I'm going to share your contact information in the show notes. Is there anything else that we didn't talk about that you'd like to cover or say?
Speaker 3:You know what I'd just like to lead your parents with a little bit of hope and say it's never too late, like if you're seeing challenging behaviors in your kids, you're concerned about what their experience at the other parent's house is. It is never too late for us to intervene and provide them with the parenting and the support that they need. And you can absolutely turn this around it's never too late, great.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It was great talking with you, AJ. It was lovely talking with you too, Jackie. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to Divorce Rich Podcast. If you like this podcast, please follow us on Apple or anywhere that you download podcasts and share this link with any friends or family that you think might benefit from this information.
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