Book Review: How to Survive and Win as a Co-Parent

One of my favorite resources as a family practice attorney is How to Survive and Win as A Co-Parent, written by Arline S. Kerman. Though this book was copyrighted in 2006, the content is as relevant to any co-parenting challenge you are facing right now–today. It is a resource guide for all parents: single, married, separated or divorced.

The object of this book is to guide those parents who want specific steps to successfully co-parent. It contains real stories which illustrate how the lives of parents and their children can be destroyed when parents are: (1) not motivated to co-parent and (2) not trained to implement a co-parenting agreement. This guide is written from Arline Kerman’s qualified view as an attorney, Doctor of Psychology and mother. With these credentials, her resource exhibits a full understanding of family dynamics.

The opening chapter questions why co-parenting is such a problem for some parents. It exposes some possible reasons that may already be familiar to you. After reviewing this situation for over 30 years, the author determines that there is no single answer to the problems of co-parenting. So, the book begins the journey of sharing cooperative strategies and a co-parenting plan, both designed to promote cooperation between parents, as well as, address and resolve those child-related issues that usually cause problems. Her theme is “Stop the war! Fighting is NEVER an option!“

The most practical portion is contained in Chapter Two, which gives a list of 24 Cooperative Strategies for Parents. A few of these are: (1) consult and confer with the other parent in a positive and non-confrontational manner; (2) admit when you are wrong; (3) realize that flexibility means reasonableness and not weakness. The author actually walks you through implementing each of the 24 strategies and explains to you why they are important to the well being of your child.

Because I am a firm believer that no parent should point the finger without taking an introspective look at oneself, I am tickled that this guide calls for self-evaluation. I am sure you will have big fun answering the questions set forth like: “Why should you admit to your mistakes when it relates to the care of the child?” The 30 questions force you to judge and determine whether you are an antagonist or protagonist in the parenting battle. Seeing you is sometimes difficult, yet very essential to the process of peace.

If parents want to modify their attitudes about each other and their attitudes toward better co-parenting and communication, this book is an excellent resource. There is so much more useful information that I simply encourage you to seek and find in the 356 pages. I will tell you that the back cover of the book contains a CD with treasured information that you do not want to continue without.

This book is available on Amazon.com or for purchase directly from Dr. Kerman. Dr. Kerman is also a co-founder of the Institute for Co-Parenting Resolution and author of Should You Really Seek Custody of Your Child?, Do you Really Want to be a Stepparent? and Sally Rose-A Teenage Casualty of a Custody Battle.

Five Keys to Effective Co-Parenting

Co-parenting can be one of the most difficult aspects of divorce or separation. The residual relationship pain and the challenge of parenting across two households leave too many families in the throes of drama.  If I gave you a set of keys that would allow you to access peace in your co-parenting relationship, would you use them? Great! Let’s unlock a few doors that may have held you back.

1)  Get rid of the term, “my kids”.

Do not use this phrase in disputing with the other parent.  Children are not the personal property of either one of you.  Regardless of whether you like each other, you must accept that you are co-creators with joint responsibility to guide your children as arrows in your quiver.

2)  Don’t discount the other parent as being incapable of making a final decision regarding your child.

Be deeply honest with yourself.  Do you fear you will lose power if you let the other parent make a final decision pertaining to “your” child?  If the answer is, “yes,” recognize that your fear is leading you into selfish thinking.  (Ouch–I know that hurt but take a big gulp and let’s keep learning.) The point is this:  Lead your emotions; don’t let them lead you.  Allowing the other parent to make a final decision (medical, educational, religious, etc.) does not minimize who you are.  At the end of the day, you are still a parent to your child.

Your ability to control your emotions as it pertains to shared parenting has great benefits.  First, it does wonders for the parental confidence of the other parent.  Second, it gives that parent a personal connection to the child.  (If this is another “Ouch” for you, remember Key #1.) It also allows that parent to exercise his or her wisdom as one who does not make decisions for the child on a daily basis.  After all, you cannot expect strong and skilled parenting decisions, if you are not willing to allow the other parent to develop.  Giving room to sometimes make final decisions is motivation for a parent’s involvement in the child’s life.

Yes!  There is something in this for you, too, if you are the primary caretaker–comfort in knowing that in your absence, there is another parent who loves your child and takes seriously the job of making wise decisions.

3.  Be accountable in your words and deeds to the other parent and to your child.

Let your “yes” be a “yes”, and your “no” be a “no”.  Just do what you say you will do.  If you cannot perform your word, then speak up about it.  Give the other parent and your child, if age-appropriate, a truthful explanation of your intention and plans to make your word good.  Failing to do so destroys your relationship with the other parent.

Even more damaging, it plants seeds in your child that carry wounds into adulthood.  Those seeds are doubt and anger.  Doubt is really a form of fear–fear that you will lose something or be taken advantage of if you believe another person’s word.  So, as a defense mechanism, your child may adapt to doubting what people say in his or her daily life.  Your child is then burdened with evaluating every person through the eyes of the “truth” or a “lie.”  What a heavy burden to carry all because a parent repeatedly planted seeds of unaccountability.

4.  Compliment the other parent for a change.

An important element of co-parenting involves encouraging one another to be a better parent.  When one parent has done something well–just say it!  It’s not complicated.  It won’t kill you!  And, the only thing it will cost you is a lot of your pride.  After mastering this key, you will begin to see that your pride is really not that valuable considering the results you will reap.  Acknowledging a simple thing goes such a long way toward nurturing a healthy relationship between parents.  It is as simple as a custodial parent saying:  “Thank you for calling the kids today.  They love talking to you and it makes my day easier when they are happy.” Or a non-custodial parent saying: “I know every day with our son isn’t easy for you.  You are really doing a good job.  What can I do this week to help you?”

5.  Make a quality decision to give your child every advantage in life.

In order to give your chid every advantage, allow them to benefit from the best that is within you.  And, allow them to benefit from the best that is within their other parent.  OK.  Some of you are thinking, “All the best things are in me!”  If that’s you, continue to meditate on and practice keys #1, #2 and #4!

Defining Deadbeat…and Fatherhood: WeParent Talks to Lisa Carter

Father absence is an epidemic in the Black community.  We know this.  But, according to attorney, filmmaker, WeParent expert panelist, and founder of Seed in the Earth, Lisa L. Carter, there may be more to know about the causes.

WeParent had the opportunity to talk to Lisa about her organization, Seed in the Earth, and insights she gained while filming her documentary, A Fatherless Child:  Diary of Absence.

WP: Let’s just jump in! Tell us a little about Seed in the Earth, your organization, and the film, A Fatherless Child: A Diary of Absence…

Lisa: The film itself was designed really as a ministry tool. I’m a born-again Christian and in my search through asking God what the purpose of my life was, He gave me an assignment, which was to minister to fathers who were absent from their children’s lives and to help them to reconcile and restore broken relationships that existed between themselves and their children and the mothers of their children. And so when I got that assignment during my prayers, I actually got the vision for Seed in the Earth, a hand dropping a seed down and that seed floating down to this image of an earth, of a globe. The mission of Seed in the Earth is to educate people regarding the roles of fathers and to restore the honor in fatherhood.

At some point, a portion of the assignment was, “Okay, you need to make a film.” I didn’t know anything about film. I didn’t know anything about media. I happened to be talking to my best friend about it and pouring my heart out about this big task and how I didn’t know where to start. Well, low and behold, my friend actually has a media production company. Her name is Milicent Hunt, and she was very instrumental in helping me bring the film to pass as a ministry tool for Seed in the Earth.

WP: I haven’t found many documentaries that really focus on this subject. What insights did you gain through doing the film? Was there anything that surprised you, or did it just validate what you already knew about the issue of father absence?

Lisa: Well I’ll tell you that I went into the film with the perspective of being very balanced. I didn’t want to take a position in favor of mothers or in favor of fathers. My intention was to hear the voice of the children and how they feel about all of these conflicts that are going on between mothers and fathers.

One of the things I was really, really impacted by is the term “deadbeat.” What I learned is that we have used the term way too freely to describe a majority of absent fathers. Did you know that the real definition of “deadbeat” is an unrestricted parent who is treated equally, no restrictions, but who voluntarily chooses not to be a present or supportive parent in his/her child’s life? That’s the real definition. So, once I came to that understanding and started hearing people’s stories, I started comparing them to that definition. And, I started realizing that, you know, he’s not a deadbeat, because there are certain things about his situation that are restrictive. There are things about his situation that do not appear to be treating him as an equal parent.  I learned that our society has grown to use that term loosely without really listening to why fathers are not present.

WP: And, what about the children? What did you hear from them?

Lisa: Well, let me start by saying that the epidemic of fatherlessness has three voices and three perspectives. And, sometimes people don’t really realize that. Mother’s got a perspective; Father’s got a perspective; and the child’s got a perspective. And, despite the conflict between the mom and the dad, the child’s perspective is, “Listen, I just want us to get along. I don’t want you to trash each other.” Because, to them, when you have enough self-restraint to not do that, it communicates love toward them.

WP: Right.

Lisa: They don’t want to be in the middle, because when you dog out the other parent, you really dog out a part of your child. The bottom line is the more you talk badly about the absent parent, the more you defer your child’s wholeness. And, this is what they are saying. They’re saying, “Mom, whether you like it or not, part of me was created by Dad. When you make your negative feelings about him openly known to me over and over and over, you cause more bad things to fester in me than you realize. You cause me to feel rejected. You cause me to feel abandoned. You cause me to feel that a biological part of me is bad. You cause me to feel guilty for wanting to mend the relationship with the absent parent, and you just cause me to feel angry toward the world as a whole.”

WP: Some of the things you’re saying may be hard truths for people to accept. It’s much easier sometimes to only be the victim than to recognize how you may contribute to the issues. What types of reactions did you get from mothers?

Lisa: Mothers were very protective in not allowing their children to express themselves. At first I thought it was natural protectiveness, and some of it could have been that. But, much of it seemed like it was more about not wanting my child to let the whole world know that I say to them that your dad is a deadbeat; your dad’s no good. I didn’t get a whole lot of depth from the mothers, other than the anger about how much money he pumped into the child.

WP: Did you find that that was a primary justification? I mean sometimes the absence is just a pure fact of Daddy having made a decision. But, the point of what you’re saying is that sometimes mothers are restricting the relationship. So, is child support the primary reason?

Lisa: I hate to say this, but regardless of the reason the mother and father’s relationship was broken, the mothers seemed to use the money as a weapon. For example, they would articulate that they were angry, because the money a man spends on his child is representative of the quantity of love that he has for that child. That’s what they were expressing, but the more you talked to them and got the background of the relationship, a lot of times, it would come back to something emotional; some fight they had had; something that he had done like, “He hit me,” or, “He cheated on me.” So their tool is to get him for child support, but that wasn’t the real reason they were acting the way they were. Does that make sense?

WP: Yes. I definitely get it. But, one of the things I struggle with as I see more of this dynamic, sort out my own co-parenting relationship and talk about it through the website is that I also get it as a mother. I understand the pain and the frustration and the disappointment that we mothers feel.

Lisa: When you try to measure his worth, meaning his self-worth and whether or not he loves this child by money alone, that’s a kick to his ego and to his manhood.

WP: But, that’s how we’re socialized. It is how men tend to measure their worth and how we measure their worth. There’s really a need to for us to think more broadly about this, but it’s not necessarily how we’ve been raised. I was raised in a two-parent household, and I can remember my mother boiling things down to, “You’ve never wanted for anything. He’s a good provider.”

This is one of the reasons I really like the Role Identifier, the eight roles that fathers play, that you talk about in the film and on your website. It gives a comprehensive description of the part that father’s really play, or should play in their children’s lives. It seems simple, but it’s a good tool to challenge what can be narrowness on the part of mothers and fathers sometimes.

Lisa: I will say that the role of a father has not changed, but many fathers just don’t know what that role is anymore. So many fathers don’t really know what they are supposed to be doing. They don’t’ know that as the creator, they’ve created life and are a source of light for their children; that everything in your child’s development begins and ends with you. They don’t know that as a nourisher, they’re supposed to be there to meet that child’s physical, spiritual and emotional needs. Or, as a protector, they’re supposed to protect their children from negative influences, whether that be through television or radio or the way they dress or speak. They don’t know that it’s their job as a leader to be disciplined himself first, because leadership and influence over your children is part of his job. And, they can’t maintain that job through fear and domination. They need to understand that as a lover, they’re supposed to love their children even when they do bad things. They are supposed to love and care for them and let them know you are committed to them. Not just in your words, but in your actions.

The most important thing that fathers don’t know is that they are the redeemer. That means that you take back what’s been taken from you and in doing that, you have to judge your own wrong as a father. You have to correct the mistakes you’ve made with your children to the best of your ability. Then, you just have to step back into position and just keep on going. You teach your children about what you did wrong. You guide them on how to not make the same mistakes. And, if they do, you pick them up, you love them and you keep going.

WP: I like that provider/nourisher is just one aspect of how you define a father’s role. When I take that to heart, then I can start going down the list and see that, OK, maybe he’s lacking in this area, but there are five others…

Lisa: That he may be doing a wonderful job in. Or, that he may be stronger in the financial area. And, when you start balancing them out, you start to realize that maybe the money isn’t as important as I’ve made it in identifying his worth as a father. Because, if you ask the child, the money is not that important. It is only important to them when they don’t understand the other roles, because you keep telling them your dad doesn’t care about you; he hasn’t paid his child support. Then, they assess that their dad is worthless.

WP: One thing I want to clarify is that you are not saying that fathers don’t have a responsibility to provide. Right? The reality is that there are some true deadbeats out there.

Lisa: Oh, absolutely not. That’s just not the only role. That’s not the end all be all. By definition, there are some who are unrestricted, and they just voluntarily choose not to be a regular or supportive parent in their child’s life.

WP: So, what do you see as being needed to educate fathers who are unclear about the breadth of the role their children need them to play and to reposition them in their children’s lives along all of those different dimensions?

Lisa: My solution is just a small part of the big solution. My solution is just to be in your face with people; to make people interactive; to make them talk and hear each other. It’s not going to be fixed overnight, but just begin the process of dialoging and actually listening to the other person. It’s going to be up to you and the other parent to find the the solution to your situation. We have to be careful about coming up with these magic solutions for people, because relationships are very specific. The magic formula is that you have to sit and dialogue.

I’m sure there is lots of help in the community, but at the end of the day, change is not change until you change as an individual. So, we can look at organizations on a larger scale, but until you change what’s going on in your household, in your mind and in your actions, change is not change. You’ve got to realize that this realationship you have with your child and your child’s mother is not right. Identify what your part is and just start with the decision that you want to change. That’s the most important thing.

For more information on Seed in the Earth or to purchase the DVD of A Fatherless Child visit www.seedintheearth.org.

Words from the Wise: Should I Take Him to Court?

Lisa L. Carter, J. D.

Lisa is a family law practice attorney in Georgia and has worked to help families resolve their problems in this area of law for more than 10 years.  But, her passion for helping restore family structures began long before her professional career. She has long had a passion for people who had a desire to correct a relationship with another person but simply lacked understanding as to how and why that relationship correction was necessary.   Over the years, that passionate seed developed into sadness for children who suffered from a broken or absent relationship with their fathers.

Out of that passion, Lisa embarked upon a search to understand why a large number of men in this generation fail to actively function in their roles as fathers. What she discovered is that some men lack understanding of their purpose and the honor that comes with fatherhood.  Her pursuit of the answers to these problems led to Lisa’s directing and producing a feature-length documentary, A Fatherless Child–A Diary of Absence, and the birth of Seed in the Earth, a non-profit with the mission of restoring the honor of fatherhood.

Lisa is a regular contributor to the Words of Wisdom.

Have a question for Lisa?  Email her at wow@weparent.com.