Series Recap And Today’s Focus

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Hello and welcome back to the post-separation abuse podcast. In this series, when children resist or refuse, we've looked at why some children don't want to spend time with one particular parent. What some of those reasons can be, particularly when the reason behind the behavior, behind the resistance, the refusal, the reluctance isn't immediately obvious. That was part one. In part two, we questioned what a meaningful relationship really was anyway, given that that is often the goal of both parents or the professionals working with both parents after separation. In part three, we looked at the fact that our nervous systems are not an oracle, that we can be having some pretty intense reactions to whatever we are seeing or witnessing or observing or dealing with in our children's behaviour, and that us having a nervous system reaction is not an accurate assessment of what's happening for our child. In part four, we looked at the fact that our barrister is not an oracle either, that they can be providing us with legal risk management advice, but that it's important that that advice is balanced. It's important that we're able to ask questions about that. It's important that that advice takes into account the evidence that is available in any given situation. And last week in part five, we unpacked whose job it was to quote unquote fix the relationship between a resisting or refusing child and the resisted parent. Today, in part six, we're looking at what we actually do when our children say no, when they're reluctant, when they're resistant, when they're refusing. What do we do about that? What do we do in the moment? And when does encouragement become coercion? And what do we do when they're saying no to us? Not theoretically, not you know, three weeks later when we're talking to either their counsellor or ours, but the day of the changeover, the moment, the bags packed, the other parents waiting, and your child's crying, or hiding, or refusing to put shoes on, or saying that their tummy hurts, or swearing at you, or going completely silent, or barricading themselves in their room yelling, I'm not going.

The False Binary Around Refusal

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What do we do? And this is where oftentimes conversations about child resistance and refusal can be really unhelpful because we're often given what I consider to be a false binary, and that is that either we, you know, quote unquote, make the child go, or we're allowing them to make adult decisions and quote, failing to facilitate the parenting arrangements. Either we're actively encouraging the relationship or we are, quote, alienating. That if we're validating our children's feelings, that's seen by some to be reinforcing avoidance, that listening to our children, acknowledging that our children have a voice is somehow giving our children a veto. There's so much to unpack in this landscape. And as I've said before, and you know, as is the view of us here at Danielle Black Coaching, our children's voice is not a total veto on everything. But it's also not simply background noise either. Listening to a child does not mean that we agree with every conclusion that our child reaches. If our eight-year-old says Dad hates me because he made me turn the PlayStation off when I was in the middle of a game, you can understand and validate those feelings without endorsing the factual conclusion that your child has drawn. For example, you might say, I can understand why that felt really unfair. I can understand why you were angry. That's obviously very different from saying, yes, your father clearly hates you. It's also different from don't be ridiculous, Dad loves you. Stop carrying on. There's obviously a middle ground. We can be curious about what happened, what was the hardest part? What did you think dad meant? What happened next? Is this something that happens often? What would have helped? Having those conversations with our children is not handing our children adult power, rather it's gathering information about their experience. And the same applies to different situations. So if a child says I don't feel safe there at the other house, well that obviously deserves attention. But it doesn't automatically tell us why they feel unsafe, whether there's current danger, what intervention might be required, or what a court would decide. But in my view, it does deserve more than just simply saying, well, you have to go because the orders say so. Feelings are information, behaviour is information, disclosures are information, the history is information, observations are information, none of those things should be ignored, but also none of those things should be lazily turned into a conclusion without curiosity and appropriate assessment. Understandably, parents can be really scared that validating a child's experience means agreeing with something that they can't really verify. But it doesn't. You can say, I can see that this is really hard for you, or I believe that you're really upset. I want to understand. Or you can tell me what's going on. You're not in trouble for how you feel. And those things are not the same as saying everything that you believe about this situation is objectively correct. And our kids need a parent, I mean, preferably two parents who are capable of holding both, but at the very least one parent who's capable of holding both things, who's capable of listening and validating and being curious and trying to understand without agreeing with everything that we're being told in the sense that our children may not actually be interpreting the situation accurately. That should not discredit how they feel, but again, it's about us

Validate Feelings Without Agreeing

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being able to hold the nuance and the complexity of that for them. Because as the adults, we still have responsibility for working out what happens next. In many situations, in most situations, it's not appropriate for our children to be deciding exactly what happens next. And it's also not appropriate for them to be told or for them to feel that their feelings are completely irrelevant. We need to be able to hold both things. And this is where children being able to tell us no becomes important. In my home, sometimes one of my children will say no to me about something or other. And sometimes, depending on the situation, I've thank them. Not because they're necessarily getting what they want or, you know, getting out of something that they'd rather not do. I'm still their mum. Sometimes the response is, look, I hear you, and unfortunately you still have to brush your teeth. But I want the word no to feel familiar to them, to feel familiar in their mouth. I want them verbalizing how they think and feel in a situation to be familiar, to be normal, and for them being heard and listened to to be normal. I want them to know that they can disagree with someone that they love and remain loved, that boundaries don't make them unlovable, that another person's disappointment doesn't automatically mean that they've done something wrong, that love does not require them to abandon themselves. I want them to be able to tell me something that they know that I probably don't want to hear, but to also know that our relationship can survive whatever it is, because one day the person that they are needing to say no to isn't going to be me. One day it might be a friend or an employer, a romantic partner, a relative, someone who wants access to their time, their money, their attention, their emotional labour or their body. And I don't want their first lesson in boundaries to be that the word no only counts when the more powerful person agrees with it. And along with kids being able to say no, with practicing saying no, there are other areas where I think we have to become particularly alert to the language that we use around compliance. For example, if a child is expressing discomfort about bodily boundaries, privacy, bathing, toileting, changing, physical affection, sleeping arrangements, or touch, it's important that we listen to the actual concern. We don't want to reduce all of that to just simply they

Teaching Kids No And Boundaries

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don't want to go or the care arrangements are harmful. We do need to listen to the actual concern. And aligned with that, our children should not be taught that maintaining relationships requires them surrendering bodily boundaries. Now, again, this does not mean that every complaint establishes abuse, but it means the complaint should be understood on its own terms. It's also important here that we reflect on the way that we often teach children inadvertently in tiny everyday ways that adult disappointment outranks their own bodily autonomy. Give Dad a kiss, don't be rude. Grandma will be sad if you don't hug her. Sit on Santa's lap. Then later, we hope that they're magically going to know the difference when the stakes are higher. I think as parents we all need to be doing better than that. Now all of this to say parenting involves authority. Children do not get to decide whether they attend school because they'd rather play Minecraft. They don't get complete control over their own medical care, bedtime, whether they wear a seat belt or whether they can stick something in the electrical sockets. Development matters, safety matters, adult responsibility matters. But the existence of parental authority doesn't require us to train them out of having a voice. So this is where we come again to this false binary that I want us to unpack a little bit more deeply. And that is that, well, we're either forcing them or we're just capitulating to their wishes. And I think it's one of the most damaging simplifications that happens in these conversations, particularly once we're involved in the family law system. This whole narrative of, well, if you don't make them go, you're letting the child decide. No, incorrect. A parent can listen, assess, co-regulate, seek more information, encourage, consult professionals, follow legal advice, create structure, do everything they can to facilitate and make adult decisions without pretending that the child's experience doesn't exist. Similarly, we need to look at, well, if the child says no, then they shouldn't have to go. Now that's also way too simple, particularly without more information. Because kids can say no simply because they find transitioning between two different environments really difficult. They can say no because they're anxious about leaving the preferred home. Because the other house has a few extra rules that they really dislike, because they're tired, because they've been caught up in the adult conflict, because they're worried about the preferred parent, because the relationship with the resisted parent is still feeling unfamiliar. It can also be because something genuinely frightening or harmful is happening. But the words I don't want to go or no, I'm not going don't in and of themselves identify the cause of what's happening. And this is why the adult response has to fit what's actually happening. And that's why just simply telling someone to quote encourage

Encouragement Versus Pressure And Coercion

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harder is not a very helpful suggestion. It's you know that is not a universal intervention. So what do we actually mean by encouragement? I just typed into Google what does the word encouragement mean? And it's told me that encouragement is the act of giving someone support, hope, confidence or courage, or something said or done to make an action or outcome more likely to happen. Core definition relates to words, behavior, or incentives that inspire confidence and help a person to face challenges. While often confused with praise, encouragement focuses on building internal strength and motivation for ongoing future efforts. Stemming from the word courage, which is defined here as being the ability to face danger or difficulty, it literally means quote, to put courage into someone. Practically, encouragement can mean saying things like I know that the transitions are feeling hard, I'll help you to pack. Or it's okay to have fun with dad. Or I love you and I think you'll be okay. I'll see you on Sunday. You can miss me and still go. Missing people that you love doesn't mean that something's gone wrong. It's actually really healthy to miss people that you love and care about. And two things can be true. It's possible for you to miss me and to spend time with dad and have fun. I hear that you're nervous. Let's think about what might help. All of that's really different from well, you're going because I said so. Or if you don't go, dad's gonna be really mad. Or if you don't go, mum's gonna be on the phone to the lawyers and I'm gonna get in trouble by the judge. Or you're going to get me into trouble if you don't do what you're told. Or get in the fucking car. There's a point where encouragement stops paying support and starts becoming pressure, and there's a point where pressure becomes coercive. Now the exact line is contextual. Age matters, development matters, the child's capacity matters, the reason for the resistance or the refusal matters, the intensity and the method of pressure matter, the history of the relationship matters, safety also matters, but we should at least be willing to recognise that they're not all the same thing. This is where a practical

A Practical Continuum For Responses

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continuum can help. I personally find it useful to think about adult responses as a continuum. First, don't undermine. That means not denigrating the other parent, not recruiting the child into adult grievances, not rewarding rejection, interrogating for ammunition of the other parent or creating loyalty conflicts. Secondly, it's important that we have neutral openness. Now, the caveat to this is in situations where there is actual present danger in the child spending time with the other parent. You are obviously not going to be coming from a place of neutral openness if you know that there is genuinely something to fear. But again, I encourage you to reflect on that because sometimes when parents have come to me and they're talking about things that they're concerned about or afraid of, during the course of the conversation, it's become fairly clear to both of us, to me and the client, that they're really coming from a place of nervous system activation. There hasn't been physical violence in the past. There's nothing that has been said or done that has caused them to think that the child could actually be in any physical danger, for example. They're having a nervous system response, but there's nothing significant that they can point to that actually highlights that their child is actually at any risk. So this is what we have to be careful with when I'm saying that neutral openness is not appropriate when there is a clear and current danger. What I don't want is anyone listening to this going, oh yeah, well, I freak out whenever my kids have to go and spend time with the other parent. So, yep, it's dangerous. No. Remember, your nervous system is not an oracle. You having a particular nervous system reaction does not mean that your child is actually currently in danger. We need to be able to move beyond the nervous system reaction and really critically look at the situation and look at what our nervous system is responding to. So that's an important aspect of this. In most cases, neutral openness is appropriate. For example, you might say, you can talk to me about dad. Let's have a chat. You're allowed to love both of us. We're all still your family. We're just living in two different homes. You don't need to be worried about me. There's lots of things that I'm going to be doing and keeping busy with. The third is active encouragement, helping with transitions, reminding the child of positive connections, supporting routines, making some practical aspects easier, communicating confidence where that confidence is genuinely held. The fourth is facilitation, actually doing the adult work required to make an arrangement possible. Transport, packing, information sharing, medication, school items, reasonable transition support. And then we reach pressure and coercion, threats, shame, emotional blackmail, physical force, punishment for expressing a view, preventing the child from communicating distress, demanding affection, making the child responsible for the parent's emotions, treating the resistance in and of itself as misbehaviour, as naughtiness. Those categories, obviously, are not a legal test, but rather they're a thinking tool. So when someone says, Well, you need to encourage harder, you might like to consider asking, Well, what exactly are we talking about? What behaviour are you recommending for my particular child in these particular circumstances? You could be explaining that you are. Not undermining the relationship. You're not denigrating the other parent, you're not rewarding rejection, you're not interrogating them, you're not creating loyalty binds. You might mention that you're communicating to your child with neutral or even positive openness about the other parent, about spending time with the other parent. You might talk about the fact that you're already engaging in active encouragement. You might mention all of the things that you're helping with in terms of the transitions, in terms of packing a bag with transition items, supporting routines, the ways that you're making the practical aspects of the transition easier. You might talk about that fourth component that we mentioned, the facilitation, the information sharing with the other parent, the coordinating with the other parent, maybe arranging for an alternative changeover location if that's part of the issue. You might talk about the fact that the only thing that in your view you haven't yet done is use physical force, is use what you consider to be inappropriate pressure and coercion, threats, shame, blackmail punishment for having a view and and emotions that are inconvenient for the adults. So again, when you're being told that will you need to encourage harder or encourage more, in my view, it's appropriate to ask for specifics. What specifically are they recommending you do? What exactly are they recommending for this particular child in these particular circumstances and why?

Fit The Intervention To The Cause

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Now we're going to segue slightly because I want to talk about something that is often invisible in parenting disputes, and that is the thousands of small interactions through which we come to know another person. The preferred parent typically knows all kinds of things. They know the child who likes blueberries in muffins but not on their own, who can't tolerate a particular kind of sock, who needs a particular night light at bedtime. They know which of their children comes home from school needing a certain amount of time of quiet before they're ready to talk. The preferred parent is often the parent who knows the particular tone of voice from their child that can signal that the child's overwhelmed, even if the child is saying that they're fine. Think about the ordinary consideration that we show our friends. If a friend is frightened of dogs, we don't invite them over and insist that they put up with our dog jumping all over them. If they dislike seafood, we don't serve prawns and accuse them of being manipulated when they won't eat them. We remember these things in relationships because relationships involve paying attention. Yet a child's preferences are sometimes dismissed as fussiness, pandering, or an attempt by the preferred parent to control the household of the resisted parent if the preferred parent shares that information. Children can absolutely benefit from flexibility. Different homes can appropriately have different routines, and not every preference can always be accommodated. But there is a difference between helping a child tolerate reasonable differences and communicating that what matters to them is of absolutely no interest to the resisted parent. When a parent's been less involved in the everyday care before separation, there can be a great deal of relational knowledge to learn. Now, that doesn't mean that that parent is a bad parent, and it doesn't mean that the relationship can't grow. But it does mean that demanding additional time with the child is not a substitute for doing the work of understanding that particular child. And the preferred parent has work to do here as well. Having been the primary caregiver doesn't mean that you're the only person capable of understanding your child. Provided that the situation is safe, the other parent needs opportunities to learn, make mistakes, repair them, and build confidence. Historical caregiving patterns do matter, but they don't automatically determine the limits of the relationship as time goes on. So when the preferred parent is encouraging, what are they encouraging them towards? Encouragement is not inherently good simply because the destination is the other parent. We need to be clear on what we're encouraging our kids towards, because if a child is anxious because they haven't slept away from their primary caregiver before, sensitive support and gradual increase in time with the other parent may be appropriate. If a child is resistant because the resisted parent struggles to understand the child's neurodivergence and the environment is overwhelming, then perhaps the work includes the resisted parent taking the time and the effort to make changes to the environment. If a child's angry after a relational rupture, perhaps the resisted parent needs to repair rather than everybody else working double time to quote, encourage the child and expect the child to just move on from the rupture. If a child's frightened because of violence, abuse, or coercive behaviour, simply encouraging harder can become a really harmful instruction. The intervention has to fit the cause. Otherwise, we're simply treating compliance as the desired outcome. Relevant to all of this is that prior to me working in the space of counselling and then coaching, I spent many years working as a teacher, and I'm also a mother of four children. If a child cries every morning at the school gate, most parents don't automatically conclude that school is inherently harmful. Typically, we get curious about why a child is upset. Is it separation anxiety? Is there bullying? Is something in the classroom environment overwhelming? Is there a teacher who hasn't yet appropriately understood the child's individual needs? Is there something about the transition that's miserable even if perhaps they settle and enjoy the rest of the day? Those possibilities call for very different responses and interventions. Now, I know that school and a child's relationship with a parent are not the same thing. I'm not suggesting that they are identical. But I think the assessment principle here is useful. Distress provides us with information, but it's not in and of itself a diagnosis. The child who struggles before a changeover might need support with anxiety that's more or less manageable with appropriate support. Or they might be telling us something important about the quality of care that they're receiving with the other parent. The fact that they settle later doesn't really completely answer the question either. We need to be looking at what happens before, during, and after their time with the other parent, how that other parent responds, what things have been tried, whether the child's experience is genuinely improving. If the child has become more comfortable after predictable transitions, more attuned responses, and greater time to develop the relationship, well that matters. If the distress is intensifying despite reasonable adjustments, that matters too. The objective isn't to force every child through the same timetable, but it's to understand what supports this particular child and what might be contributing to the problem. Another trap is over-analysing transition behaviour. Some kids become extremely distressed before separation and then settle relatively quickly. Some hold it together during transition and unravel later. Some struggle because the transitions themselves, so just simply moving from one environment or activity to another, can be very physically, neurologically, or emotionally difficult. Some struggle because of what they're worried awaits them. Some struggle because they're worried about the parent that they're leaving. Some struggle because adults have made changeover, the emotional equivalent of an international hostage exchange. What happens at a transition gives us information, but it doesn't automatically tell us whether the entirety of the parenting arrangements are good or bad? Again, we have to get curious, we have to assess this. What happens before, during, after? How long does any distress last? What does our child actually say or do? Are there any other adults that have observed things? Are there patterns? Have there been changes to things, to the responses? What exists independently of the transition? We need more curiosity and less instant diagnosis. And I know that this can be hard because kids don't always hand us a clean verbal disclosure, particularly younger kids, particularly neurodivergent children, particularly children who are frightened, ashamed, loyal, confused, or worried about consequences. Their distress may appear in aspects of their behavior, sleep, toileting, somatic complaints, aggression, shutdown, regression, school refusal, clearness. These things can be important, but they're also fairly nonspecific. A tummy ache can be anxiety and it can also be gastro. A child can wet the bed because of stress. A child can also wet the bed for other reasons. We don't dismiss what's happening with behavior simply because it's not a clean verbal disclosure, but we also shouldn't be pretending that the behavior in and of itself identifies its own cause.

Preferred Parent Fear And Regulation

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So back now to encouragement. Our favorite word, our word of the day. And I'm turning the spotlight here on the preferred parent and encouragement without projecting fear. For parents who have experienced family violence, changeovers can activate very real fear. Sometimes the fear reflects genuine current danger and needs to be taken very seriously. Sometimes past experiences are influencing how we're interpreting our child's present behavior. Both of those possibilities deserve careful assessment and curiosity. The history of abuse is important, but we do still need to distinguish what happened to the preferred parent, what happened to the child, and what the child is currently experiencing. Again, what the child is currently experiencing. Children may also become worried about leaving a preferred parent who looks upset or frightened. They might believe that enjoying time elsewhere is a betrayal. And so for preferred parents, we can miss our children terribly. We can be worried about them and we can still reassure them that we will be okay. We can acknowledge their discomfort without treating every objection that they have as evidence that the other parent's dangerous. And we can remain open to signs that their relationship with the other parent is developing, even when that possibility makes us uncomfortable. So if you are the preferred parent, think about your face, the tone in your voice, your posture, your body language. If you've got all kinds of big emotions happening at changeover, the reality is that your child might notice. Now that doesn't mean that you caused their anxiety or fear. We don't need to turn this into another stupid mother-blaming situation. But the reality is that children can notice your fear because for you there might be something genuinely fearful going on. They can also become more anxious because the person that they rely on, you, looks terrified, even if you're trying hard to put a smile on your face. Both things can be true. So the question is not how do I perform happiness really convincingly so that no one can accuse me of influence, but rather the question is how do I remain as emotionally regulated as I can while still taking my child's experience seriously? You don't have to grin like someone in a toothpaste commercial. You can be steady and grounded and say things like, I hear what you're saying, I understand that this is really hard for you right now. I'm okay, you don't have to look after me. But what if you really are doing everything reasonably possible? And this is the question that so many preferred parents want answered. You prepare your child, you encourage the relationship, you speak respectfully or at the very least neutrally about the other parent, make the practical arrangements, seek professional advice, respond to concerns without reinforcing every negative conclusion, and your child still refuses. The other parent says that you're not doing enough. But their disagreement with what's going on doesn't establish that you've failed. But your sincere belief that you've done enough doesn't guarantee that a court's going to agree with you if you are in the court system or end up in the court system. The distinction is between what a parent says they've done, what the evidence shows they've done, and what a court concludes about the child's best interests? Did you offer workable arrangements? Did you keep your child informed without burdening them? Did you genuinely support the relationship over time? What did the other parent do in response to the child's concerns? Were appropriate supports tried? What did independent professionals observe? An unsuccessful changeover is information.

Courts, Evidence, And Asking Lawyers Better Questions

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It is an outcome of sorts, but it's not an automatic finding about who or what caused the changeover to be unsuccessful. For parents who are in the court system, and I'm talking here specifically about the Australian court system, those parents can be afraid of losing primary care. The reality is that Australian courts can change a child's primary residence, including when that outcome is against the child's wishes. It is a real possibility, and it's one that parents with current orders or any parent who's in the court system with a resisting or refusing child, those parents should be discussing their situation with their own lawyer. So none of this is legal advice or specific coaching to your situation. What I do want to say here is that being told, quote, the court could change primary residence or primary care is generally a statement of possibility. It's not automatically an assessment of your specific risk. Courts have to consider the evidence, the child's safety and their developmental needs, the capacity of each parent, the child's views, and the likely consequences of the available arrangements. In Humphrey and Humphrey, the court examined persistent resistance by a 13-year-old and allegations that the father had not facilitated time with the mother. The court dismissed the contravention application after considering the father's attempts to comply, and it did not order an immediate change of residence on the evidence before it. But it also made detailed interim arrangements aimed at facilitating contact. This was not a finding that children can simply veto parenting orders. It was an examination of the evidence and the available options. In Dvorak and Watts, the court did order a change of primary residence despite the wishes of a 12-year-old. The decision involved wider concerns about the child's needs, school attendance, parental capacity, and the likely consequences to the child of remaining in the existing care arrangements. The judge recognized that transferring a child's primary home is a serious intervention. These cases are not a statistical guide and they're certainly not predicting anybody else's outcome. But they illustrate why the factual findings and the reasons for the orders matter more than a frightening statement of the court could change primary care. If your lawyer warns you about a possible transfer of primary care, a reversal of the current arrangements, for example, consider asking them what behaviour they're specifically worried might be attributed to you, what evidence currently exists to actually support that concern, and what reasonable steps they suggest you take. You can ask what you should do if your child continues to refuse despite taking those reasonable steps. Asking those questions, getting curious, getting specific, is much more useful than simply being told repeatedly that a change of residence is legally possible? Yes, of course it's fucking legally possible. It's an outcome that the court has available to it. But again, what evidence supports that concern? What behaviour specifically is your legal team concerned might be attributed to you? And what reasonable steps can you take? And despite those reasonable steps, what do they advise if your child keeps refusing? I suspect I know there are lawyers who tune into this podcast and most of them are fantastic. We do correspond, but there are some, whether they're listening or not, who I suspect have no fucking idea what a preferred parent should do when the child's resisting or refusing. And this oftentimes is part of the problem because the vast majority of lawyers, unless they've undertaken additional training themselves, they don't have any idea about child development or attachment. They're not child psychologists. And in saying that, there's some family therapists and child psychologists out there that are also equally fucking clueless when it comes to how a preferred parent can support a child who's resisting and refusing. This is, I don't know, seriously, this series on children resisting and refusing could probably be and just an entire podcast just totally on this topic.

Book One-On-One Coaching If Needed

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That's how vast it is. And so if there's anyone who's navigating this particular topic or anything else, I have actually just recently opened up a handful of one-on-one sessions on my calendar that people can book via the website, Danielblackcoaching.com.au. If you go to the services tab in the main menu and then scroll down to one-on-one coaching, you'll see the button there that you can book. If anyone would like some specific one-on-one coaching about this or any other topic, the appointments that have been made available are limited. The vast majority of my work is with clients who are working with me via a coaching package, and my books typically are fairly full. As any of you who have wanted to book in with me might have noticed, my books have actually been closed to new clients for the vast majority of this. Year. So if there's anyone who is interested in touching base with me specifically and potentially also with a view to working with me over the longer term via a coaching package, the place to start is by booking an initial one-on-one consultation. Again, that's for whether or not you are wanting support with this kind of situation with a child who's resisting or refusing, or whether you've got some other situation that you're struggling with. But back to the statements of what might happen if there is a quote failure to facilitate the orders. One of the saddest consequences of these warnings is that some parents become frightened of listening. They become

Don’t Turn Your Child Into Evidence

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frightened to validate their child's distress because they're afraid that it's going to be labelled reinforcement of what's happening for the child. They can feel that they have to tell the child that the orders are the orders, that the other parent loves them. End of discussion. Sometimes children then learn that they can just no longer safely tell the preferred parent what they're experiencing. Now the answer is not to validate every conclusion that the child comes to or to remove every difficult experience. Rather, it's to try and remain a parent who can listen, be curious, assess, and make appropriate decisions. In my view, children should not be told that if they refuse care arrangements, that, quote, a judge will make them live with the other parent. Or that the preferred parent will, quote, get into trouble. In my opinion, that is placing a significant adult legal burden onto a child who is clearly already struggling. And don't even get me started on the professionals whose view is that a child resisting or refusing is just a child being quote unquote naughty and misbehaving and that they require consequences. I mean for fuck's sake. Now this is not me saying that in no situation is it possible that what we're dealing with is actually a preferred parent who is actually a very ineffective parent. But in my experience, typically that shows up in other areas. For example, there can be real issues with school attendance and other appropriate parenting decisions. Other things that fall under that parenting capacity banner. But simply for that to be a blanket, oh well if a child's not complying, then they're naughty, and also then we start looking at the preferred parent and questioning their parenting as though the hallmark of being a quote unquote good parent is just simply having children who comply. And you may or may not be surprised to know that there are plenty of family law professionals who have that view. There are plenty of report writers who have that view. There are plenty of parenting coordinators and family therapists who have that view. Yes, I kid you not. Please don't be thinking that because someone works in the space of mental health or psychology that they'd know the first fucking thing about attachment child development or appropriate parenting. I'll tell you what, I could tell you some real horror stories to the point that sometimes I'm learning about all of this stuff and this shit that professionals are saying to parents struggling with this dynamic, and in the back of my mind I'm thinking, fuck me, I really hope that this particular professional does not have children because God help us all. Enough about that. You know me, you know, sometimes I get a little bit fired up about these things. But truly, it's because I care. And I know I've said this before, and I know that those of you listening who know me, so those of you who are part of our Danielle Black coaching community, uh, particularly those who work with either me or another one of our coaches one-on-one, if you're in our online community, if you're joining us on the group coaching calls, even if you've just uh listened to most or all of these episodes of the post-separation abuse podcast, I know that you know why I do this work, why I'm so passionate about this, and fundamentally I just really care about the families that we're working with, primarily the women that we're working with, you know, that's the majority of our clientele, the children that we're helping those parents that we work with to support. Because myself and the senior coaches on our team, currently that's Trudy and Bridget at the time of recording this, we've experienced so many things in this space. We genuinely do care about our clients, about their children, about the outcomes, about what's happening for them, about what they're experiencing in the court system, about what they're experiencing in interactions with the other parent, about what the children are experiencing. We're passionate about getting curious about what's going on for kids, about how we can best be supporting children. That's what matters to us. And really wanting everyone who works in this space, in the space of separation, divorce, post-separation parenting, and all of the little offshoot professions in, you know, whether we're talking about counseling, mediation, family law, the court system, family therapy, parenting coordination, all the things. What we here at Danielle Black Coaching want is for the bar to be lifted for all of those professions, for all professionals to be interested in knowing more, learning more, challenging their own values, beliefs, and attitudes and assumptions more, their own unconscious bias, challenging that more, holding themselves to a much higher standard of accountability and ultimately doing better. Doing better for families, doing better for children. I don't know if I'll see a significant change in the post separation space in my lifetime. Damn I really hope that I do. It's not going to be for lack of trying, that's for sure. So back now to this discussion on when you're in the legal system and more specifically when there are court orders, I want to be abundantly clear here. If there are parenting orders in your situation, so I'm not talking about an informal parenting plan. Maybe you and your former partner went off to Relationships Australia or some other mediation service. Perhaps in that space you agreed to particular parenting arrangements. Perhaps you've got one or more children resisting or refusing. Parenting plans in Australia are not legally enforceable. So that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about parenting orders, court orders. So if there are parenting orders that apply to you and your situation, or there's a current legal dispute about complying with orders, if you've been accused of withholding, if there's anything going on in terms of variation of the orders, recovery orders, your conc or you're concerned about what you're required to do in your particular situation because you're in the legal system. Please do get legal advice about your specific circumstances. I cannot stress that enough. And it's not telling you to force compliance with one either. I'm not applying family law to your individual situation. Rather, what I'm talking about is the relational and parenting question that can exist alongside the legal one, which is how do I hear what my child is telling me, respond appropriately, and get professional advice without handing the child the adult decision or pretending that their entire experience is irrelevant. Sometimes the most useful thing that you can take to your lawyer is not, well, they're just refusing to go, so what do I do? But rather to tell your lawyer exactly what's happening, how often, what your child specifically has said, or what behaviour have you specifically observed, what other people may have heard or observed from your child. So for example, school teachers, or if your child's connected with a counselor or a psychologist, those sorts of things. So other verifiable accounts from adults, what you've done in response in those moments, what you've been getting curious about, what support is involved, what is established as fact, and what are you inferring that can give any professional that you're working with something that is much more useful than just simply, well, they're refusing to go full stop. Aligned with preferred parents being frightened is that there can sometimes be a temptation to just gather more and more proof or evidence. Tell me exactly what dad said. What time was that? Who else was there? Say it again for grandma. Can you tell the psychologist? Can you write it down? What happened next? Now, sometimes information genuinely needs to be noted down by you and provided to appropriate professionals. But your child should not become inadvertently your paralegal in all of this. They shouldn't have to repeatedly perform their distress so that you can jot down all the details and so that other adults will believe them. Document what you observe. If it's appropriate to ask questions in a neutral way, again, if the situation warrants it, the caution is here that you are not interrogating your child. Definitely seek appropriate professional support. Follow the advice that's relevant to your situation. But also, please don't turn every single conversation into evidence collection. Your children should be able to tell you things because they just need you, their parent, not because they're being prepared as exhibit A. And I understand this all too well because I had a child who was completely and utterly refusing. So I get it. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. This is like it takes superhuman effort. You will get out the other side of this eventually. One day you'll be sitting in a similar place to me and reflecting on everything that you had to go through. And obviously, this is part of why you tune into this podcast to learn more, to understand more, to take on board some other perspectives, to consider alternative approaches. That's really important. You know, please don't underestimate how important that is. It's also important that we don't inadvertently debate our kids into a different experience. But you had fun last time, but

Resisted Parent Responsibilities And Repair

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Dad really loves you. Oh, but mum bought you that really expensive bike. You said yesterday that you'd go. Now all those things can be true, but obviously they don't necessarily answer what our kids can be telling us in that moment. A child can still have fun at times and still be resisting the overall parenting arrangements. A parent can love a child and can still behave in ways that the child experiences as frightening. A child can change their mind. A child can hold contradictory feelings, you know, and let's be honest, adults do it constantly. We can love someone and want space. We can enjoy a holiday and be so glad to come home. We can love our mother and dread Christmas lunch. So why do we suddenly require our kids to demonstrate perfect emotional consistency before we consider their experience as credible? Again, it's about getting curious, curiosity first, and then we start going a little bit deeper with a nuanced assessment. And I have not forgotten about the resisted parent. The resisted parent has responsibilities too. We have to challenge the assumption that the resisted parent is simply the innocent recipient of somebody else's interference. As we've said before, on this particular series, wanting a relationship with your child, loving your child is not the same thing as knowing how to appropriately build a relationship with your child. If your child says that you become angry or upset when they cry, that you dismiss their needs, that you insist on particular physical affection that they don't like, that you criticize their other parent, that's something important for you to examine. The preferred parent might be contributing to the resistance in some way, but that possibility does not excuse resisted parents from reflecting genuinely on their own behavior. What can also be true is that a parent may not have been very involved at all before separation and now genuinely wants to become more involved. Great. But a meaningful connection is built through attentiveness, responsiveness, and repair. It's not simply going to materialize into existence simply because one parent demands it and believes that they're entitled to a particular amount of parenting time. Conversely, the preferred parent can't insist that the relationship remain frozen at the level it was before separation. Both parents need to be open to growth. And let's think about kids who comply for years before refusing when they're teens. The child who went every second weekend at six might have been really unhappy at nine and might be openly refusing at fourteen. Now that doesn't automatically prove that the resisted parent is harmful. Adolescence can bring its own complexities, but years of compliance don't prove that the relationship was actually strong. A child can follow a roster, a parenting schedule, without feeling significantly connected to the person that they're spending however many nights a fortnight with. What we've uncovered here in this episode is that encouragement can absolutely be appropriate. Children can often need adult confidence. They can need help doing hard things. They can need support through transitions. They can need us not to amplify every little wobble into some kind of catastrophe. Appropriate encouragement can sound like I know that you don't feel like going. Let's have a chat about what's making it hard for you today. Or you can miss me and still be okay. Missing people that you love and care about is normal. It doesn't mean that anything's gone wrong. Let's talk about what you can do when you're having those feelings of missing me so that you can still make space for having fun. Two things can happen at once. You can miss me and still be able to have fun. I know that changeovers can be tough. Let's work together to get what you need organized. You don't need to worry about me while you're gone. I'll be here when you get back. I've heard what you've said, and the adults are working on it. Encouragement doesn't require our children to surrender their reality in order to protect ours.

Red Flags For Coercion And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

Rather, it says, I hear you, and I remain the adult. So when does it become coercion? Now there's no magic sentence that identifies that exact moment in every family. But I would be concerned when the adult response increasingly depends on overriding the child's internal experience rather than seeking to understand it. So as I mentioned to you before, the professionals who immediately come to the conclusion that the fault lies completely with the preferred parent, or that it's the fault of the child because the child is just simply naughty or misbehaving. I'd also be concerned when shame replaces curiosity, when fear is being used to produce compliance, when the child becomes responsible for an adult's emotional well-being, when affection's demanded, when the child's punished for the things that they're disclosing, when physical force is used to produce some kind of relational contact, and when supporting the relationship becomes a reason that no one's allowed to ask whether the relationship itself needs further scrutiny or needs to change. I'd also be concerned about coercion when the outcome's been decided before the child's experience has been appropriately assessed. At that point we need to ask: are we helping this child to maintain a beneficial relationship with the other parent? Or are we teaching this child that relationship means that other people's access to them consistently outranks their own internal signals? Sometimes after listening really carefully, adults are still going to make a decision that the child dislikes. That is part of parenting. A child having a voice does not mean that children carry adult responsibilities. A six year old should not be told, fine, you decide whether you ever say mum again. But neither should they be told, Well you're six, therefore what you're telling me means nothing. We can say thank you for telling me, I'm taking this seriously, you don't have to solve it. The adults will work out what needs to happen next. That is a child having a voice without the child being burdened with the responsibility. And I think it's one of the most important distinctions in this entire series, really, of when children resist and refuse. And there's obviously a question underneath the question. So when our child says no, when they resist or refuse, the question is not only how do I get them to go, rather, there's so many other questions underneath that, which is what exactly is happening here? What does this particular child need? What do I actually know? What don't I know? What belongs to this child? What belongs to me? What belongs to the other parent? What does the history tell us? What are the professionals observing and saying? What's the least coercive response that still meets my adult responsibilities? And if I'm being asked to apply more pressure, what exactly is that pressure intended to achieve? Compliance or a beneficial relationship? Because those are not the same thing. In the next episode, we're going to look at the circumstances in which the court can decide not to require a child who's resisting or refusing to spend any time with a parent. Now that's different from cases where no contact is ordered because the evidence establishes serious safety risks, even when a child wants to go. Rather, we'll be exploring the particular issues that can be raised when a child is resisting contact, so their views, their developmental stage, the reasons for the refusal, and the risks of attempting to compel a relationship that can lead a court to decide that this particular child should not be pressured into particular parenting arrangements. After that, we'll be looking beyond parenting orders and asking what happens to relationships as children grow up. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate the fact that you're taking time out of your day to be engaging with this particular topic, to be making space for other thoughts, other views, other perspectives, seeing how they fit with your particular situation, being willing to look at your situation with a different lens, with a different perspective. That's really important work on this journey of post separation parenting and on the journey of moving forward despite post separation abuse more broadly. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.