Navigating the Complexities of Co-Parenting with Dr. Jann Blackstone

In this episode of the Dad to Dad podcast, Dr. Jann Blackstone discusses her expertise in co-parenting, blended families, and the importance of communication and acceptance in these dynamics. She shares insights from her book, 'The Bonus Family Handbook,' emphasizing the need for collaboration between parents and the role of bonus parents in children's lives. The conversation covers various topics, including discipline, conflict resolution, and the impact of parental alienation, providing valuable advice for navigating the complexities of modern family structures.

Takeaways

• The term 'bonus parent' is more inclusive than 'step-parent'.
• Effective co-parenting requires communication, acceptance, respect, and empathy.
• Discipline in blended families should be coordinated between parents.
• Children should not be put in the middle of parental conflicts.
• Open communication about dating and new partners is essential.
• Parents should avoid bad mouthing each other in front of children.
• Establishing a conflict resolution forum can help families navigate issues.
• Acceptance of each family member's individuality fosters a positive environment.
• Children need to feel secure and loved by all parental figures.
• Parents should prioritize the child's needs over personal grievances.

How to find Dr. Jann Blackstone

On IG https://www.instagram.com/bonusfamilies/

www.bonusfamilies.com

Dad to Dads on IG https://www.instagram.com/dadtodads/

Transcript

Robert (00:00)
Dr. Jann Blackstone, welcome to the Dad to Dad's podcast.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (00:03)
Thank you, thank you for having me.

Robert (00:04)
Hey, so you currently specialize in child custody, co-parenting and divorce mediations. You've authored numerous books, of which we're going to talk about, the bonus family handbook. And if that's not enough, you have also been on the Today Show and I read the Oprah show as well, the Oprah Winfrey show.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (00:25)
Oh yeah,

that was a while ago. Oprah was a while ago, but yeah, today happened.

Robert (00:29)
Still though, that's pretty impressive.

That's very impressive. And what else have I missed? I know you have a...

Dr. Jann Blackstone (00:32)
Yeah, thank you.

Robert (00:37)
Yeah, that's pretty cool. And, anything else I missed?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (00:40)
I write a syndicated column for Tribune Content that runs all over the world and it's called X etiquette. that's just questions and answers. know, my ex-husband ran off with somebody and did this and how do I handle that? And I'm so mad. It's kind of like Dear Abby for exes.

Robert (00:46)
Wow.

That's what I was thinking. was wondering if it was like that. That's funny. That's great though. I'm sure it's very helpful. All right, so let's jump into it. The Bonus Family Handbook. Why did you write that?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (01:06)
Thank you.

Sure.

Well, that book is kind of the culmination of all my entire career, quite frankly.

I put together, it's kind of like an encyclopedia of co-parenting and blending families because I put together everything that I've worked with, people, everything, all the topics that they've asked me and it's just a culmination of everything and it takes you through co-parenting and using what you know about co-parenting and learning what you know about co-parenting and importing that into dating and having a co-parent watching you date, blending your family.

and then dealing with the extended family as well. So it just kind of brings you all the way through and then it also talks about holidays and weddings and you know it's it's it's kind of everything.

Robert (02:02)
There's a lot of information in there. It's, I almost think they should give you, if you're co-parenting, they should give you a copy of that or make you buy, for you, maybe make you buy a copy of that for your benefit, because it is extremely helpful.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (02:19)
Thank you. Like I said, it's a culmination of everything I've done. it took a while to write and originally it was almost twice as long. My publisher's going, Jan, cut this down a little bit. So I had to go home. I mean, I had to go back through it and edit everything. But it's got most everything I wanted to put in it.

Robert (02:39)
Well, yeah. And so let's go through that. you know, talking about co-parenting, we've, we've spoken, before prior to this. And as you know, I'm divorced, two wonderful sons. My ex has recently gotten re, remarried. Great guy. He is, you know, an excellent, if you want to call it bonus father or bonus dad. he's really good to my boys and very respectful of that.

relationship that my sons and I have. but I know that's not always the case. And I just kind of want to, I had a few questions after going through your book. why do you feel it's so important for someone to be called a bonus parent versus when I grew up, people were called, that's my stepdad. That's my stepmom. Why bonus instead of.

stuff.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (03:35)
Well, I didn't think STEP described how I felt about my stepchildren or my family, and it didn't describe how they felt about me or our family.

And my bonus daughter, I'm so used to calling her my bonus daughter, told her mother and I that her friends automatically thought that she didn't like me because she introduced me as her step-parent. And that made me feel bad. But even more than that, I always tell the story of she had the flu. And she was home and had 103 fever and was getting sick. And I was nursing her all day, the cold cloths

the medicines and sitting with her and wondering if I was going to get sick but I was taking care of her all day and it was a 24-hour bug the next day you know she was fine and we went over to somebody's house and they said well who's this and I said this is my stepdaughter and and she was I could tell by her expression she wasn't happy with me calling her a stepdaughter either because they equate the word step with somebody they don't like you know the Grimm's fairy tales and that was the whole premise is

Then a little bit later, her mother and I were watching her run back and forth on the basketball field, field court. And we thought about, we were just throwing back names, know, the whitening brightening form of mom. It came up bonus. And I went home and I looked it up and it said, a reward for a job well done and an extra.

And so what that told us is every word we tried to come up with either was insulting to her mother, disrespectful to her mother, or insulting to me. But bonus we respected her because inherently it was inclusive.

It didn't eliminate anybody. There was no comparisons. It was just an extra and a job reward. So that's really why we chose it. And I just started using it, gosh, in the early 90s. And then I built a website and it went all over the world. That's how it happened.

Robert (05:45)
well.

So what are your thoughts?

That makes a lot of sense. What are your thoughts on, I've seen this, where the child will call the bonus parent by their first name instead. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (06:06)
Well, my bonus kids called me that. Really what I liked them to do when they were little, when they were little tiny, they made up, they just called me a nickname. And then as they got older, they just called me Jan, or Jana, that was part of the nickname. But you know.

The best thing to do is, I mean, if you really want to have it, not the best thing, that's kind of imposing my views on people, but it's nice if you can sit down with your bonus child and say to them, let's think of a special name just for me. That's it, just for me.

And one of the sweetest names that I came up with, not that I came up with, one of my clients came up with was they called each other Sweet Pea, both of them. The bonus mom called her bonus daughter Sweet Pea, and the child called her bonus mom Sweet Pea. That was their nickname for both of them.

But nobody else, that was it. So it's kind of a sweet way to single them out, but you're not imposing mom, because mom is a very big deal. Most people really don't want anybody else calling them, their child calling them mom. Or dad, dads don't like it either.

Robert (07:02)
Wow, okay.

No, that's true. That's true. That's a great point. It's a really good point. All right, so let's do this. A perfect co-parenting bonus parent relationship. What does that look like in your eyes? What is that?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (07:38)
It's somebody that you can call when you're in trouble with the child, that you need help, that they don't give you a problem when you say, you know what, I can't pick them up, I'm stuck in traffic, will you go get them? And they say, sure. It's somebody else beside yourself who puts the child first. And it's a collaborative partner to raise your child.

Not your ex-lover. Not your ex-lover. That's another relationship in a different place. A co-parent is in the present and it's somebody you can depend on to help you take care of your mutual child, your child.

Robert (08:18)
If I was to ask you

three ways are the top three suggestions of being a great co-parent. What are those?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (08:27)
First thing, well, in the book.

Robert (08:28)
If you had to limit it, if you had to limit it to

three.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (08:30)
Can I limit it to four? Because if you remember in the book, okay, it says that you approach the co-parenting relationship, thank you very much, with care. Care, that's what you approach it with care. that's C is communication, A is for acceptance, R is for respect, and E is for empathy. And of all four of those, the most important is acceptance.

Robert (08:33)
Eh, this time.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (08:59)
because, now I'm talking about accepting a bonus child or accepting a bonus parent, but as far as co-parenting, it would be communication and empathy and respect.

Robert (09:09)
That's great. That's great. You know, I like that acceptance too, because that acceptance can be a broad umbrella that can cover a lot of things too, right? Acceptance of the divorce, acceptance of the situation, acceptance of that they've moved on. Maybe they have a new partner, acceptance that there's going to be different rules at different houses. You know, I think that's a, that's a great one.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (09:12)
You only get another.

Well, except...

A new partner. Yep, that's it.

You got it. Exactly.

But mostly now if we're talking about a bonus family and creating a bonus family, acceptance comes from accepting each other's individuality, background. mean, you don't know what the child's gone through. And some of them are smart in math. Some of them are cheerleaders. Some of them are smart in baseball and physics. And you can't put them all into this homogenized group of, now we're a blended family and we're this new family.

They come from backgrounds and they want to be seen. And just like you want to be seen in a new relationship, you want somebody to think you're the greatest just because you're the greatest. Well, kids aren't any different. So if you can come at them as accepting who they are, they're more willing to be a member of the family. But if you're trying to change them, not seeing who they are, losing sight of each individual's personality, you're going to get people saying, you're not my parent. They won't want to identify with

with the family and they'll stress the whole time of where do I have allegiance to mom, do I have allegiance to dad. So those are things that just accepting them for who they are and their individuality, it makes it much easier for them to assimilate into a family.

Robert (10:52)
You know, that brought up when you were talking, that brought up a question I just thought about. Discipline. The bonus parent. Where do you see their role in disciplining their bonus children?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (11:02)
you've been through this. So you're asking the questions

that are real life questions. Discipline is a really big deal.

Robert (11:08)
Ha

Dr. Jann Blackstone (11:13)
And it's also something that you really have to take into consideration if the bonus parent also has children. Because if you're establishing house rules for your bonus family and the bonus parent also has children, you have to really get on the same page with not only your bonus parent, but your co-parent. Because these children are going back and forth. The bonus parent has their own rules for their own child or children. And if they already have established rules in place, you can't walk in there and say, okay, now you can eat on the couch.

because it's my house. mean, that's just, we can't do that. So we have to sit down and that's where this is all, I say it's a dance. Some people are leading at some point, other people are following. But when you have discipline.

You've got to coordinate efforts, number one. And number two, sometimes the bonus parent is the primary caregiver. In my case, I was. We were all working parents, but I had a home office. my bonus kids, mom and dad, had a stipulation in their divorce decree for first right of refusal. So that means if you need daycare or if you need babysitting, you've got to call the other person first. Well, they called us and their dad said, sure, Jan will watch them.

So I had my home office and I'd have to take breaks and go get them from school and things like that. But that's what we did.

And so being the primary caregiver, I had to be allowed to make decisions for the children and empowered to discipline in the sense that we all agreed. The parents made up the decisions of what the rules were and the bonus parent supports that. But it also is, you you have to agree that it's their parent, their kids' rules too.

Robert (12:56)
Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense. just, you know, I've heard of different cases where somebody's been upset because the bonus parent maybe got onto their kids for something or, know, hey, you don't do this, you don't do that. And quite frankly, the cases that I have heard that bonus parent was, they definitely had a reason to do it, but the parent was upset that they have.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (13:09)
I have two.

Robert (13:32)
And I'm like, you know, yeah, your son was being smarty. Yeah, but he shouldn't have said anything. It's like, maybe not. don't know. You know, that's something that you guys need you, you and your ex need to work out before.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (13:43)
I'm in this place.

The parents have to establish rules, the bonus parent upholds them, and if they have children themselves, then they kind of get in the mix and they negotiate and make up rules for the extended family. Because these kids are going back and forth. You guys gotta use your head. can't have separate rules for separate families for the same kids. Take a look at what you're telling. You're asking your children to split then. Act this way at mom's house, act this way at dad's house. That's not about the kids, that's about you.

It really takes, that's where the communication comes in. Sometimes you're going to have to sit down and say, okay, what are we going to do? We've got combined kids here and it's our responsibility to take care of them. And that's what we do.

Robert (14:29)
Great. So are you okay if I just ask you, are you okay if I just ask you random questions? I know you covered a lot of these in your book, but I think they're pretty common questions that, you know, co people listening to this will hear. So when co-parents just, when they just can't get along and you know, every, there's just a lot of conflict.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (14:29)
And quite frankly, we'll see. Sure.

I would love you to ask me.

Sure.

Robert (14:56)
between the two, there's not co-parenting or maybe the co-parent will sometimes weaponize the parenting agreement, the court order parenting agreement. Maybe they'll, you know, they'll stick by it when it benefits them and they'll ignore it when it doesn't. What do you recommend in a situation like that?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (15:15)
I need to stand so I can go.

Well, the key thing is when it benefits them. This isn't all about them. The breakup was their decision, but the people who have to go back and forth are their children. So if you use the kids as the criteria for your decision making, what are you going to argue about? If you really ask yourself, is this about me, or is this about her or him, or is it about the children?

And that's what you have to discuss is if it's about the children, not if it's in your self-interest. Exes, people who break up don't particularly care for each other. Otherwise they wouldn't break up. All they have to do is respect each other as the parents of their child's other parent and make their decisions based on that.

And if you really think about that, there's not that much disagreement. Then you're arguing about whether I should get our kid a phone, know, things like that. It's not about their psychological development. It's should I get him a phone? Should we, is it okay if they go to bed at nine o'clock? Talk about that stuff. People who tell me they can't get along, I tell them people who want to get along do. People who don't want to get along don't.

You know, if you don't like your boss you don't open your mouth because you're going to lose your job. So you can, everybody has a They can do it.

Robert (16:25)
Yeah, good.

But what a

Yeah, but what about those cases when...

It just, we just won't work. it went when unfortunately the child is not put first where it is almost, they're almost using their decisions to punish the other parent. What do you, what do you suggest? Yeah. What do you suggest in those situations?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (16:52)
me the parental alienation, like that.

Well, sometimes you need professional help, obviously. In that particular case, if you've got true parental alienation, that's a psychological component that, when I've run into that working with people, sometimes there's mental illness, there's a personality disorder, but more than that, they're not thinking about what they really are doing to the child. They're just thinking about winning. Example.

When I first married my bonus dad, I used to refer to their mother as Cheryl, not mom. That was rude. It was disrespectful. I'd say, it's time for you to go back to Cheryl's house. Because I was the mom at this house. But that was so disrespectful. Did I know I was doing it? Kind of in the back of my mind. Yeah.

Robert (17:40)
Wow. Did you realize that at the time?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (17:43)
Not at the beginning, but I got it. And when I finally started to realize it, I called her up and said, you know what, I owe you an apology. And I apologized to her. I it wasn't right. I apologize. And I refer to you as their mom now. But yeah, a of good co-parenting is education. Life is different now than it was when we were growing up.

Robert (18:07)
Yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (18:12)
Attitudes are different and cultures are change and you know, and what's acceptable changes. I mean, when I grew up, it was okay to spank. It's still not illegal to spank, but it's frowned on. you know, and it wasn't when I grew up. No, getting popped in the butt was...

Robert (18:29)
No, it definitely wasn't what I.

I have my fair share.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (18:35)
Seriously, but it is now. And oftentimes parents call CPS because they found out their child was spanked. Well, CPS can't do anything about it unless there's bruises.

That just starts with talking to each other, communication and listening. And in the book, there's all sorts of scripts because people who don't like each other don't speak to each other properly. They start their sentences with you and blame the other person. You blame the other person, you're backing them into the corner and they're not going to listen to you. So it's got scripts of how you should approach people and get what you want. Because I know.

Robert (19:17)
Your book is

phenomenal and the, the index is amazing. It literally covers from holidays bar mitzvahs birthdays. I mean, like it's, it's literally when I was, I just, the first thing I did, I went to the index cause we had talked about it and I went to it and I'm just flipping through and then I'm thinking, okay, I bet she didn't cover this.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (19:20)
come on.

we were talking about.

Robert (19:46)
And then I found out, nope, she did. You, there was a lot of thought that went into this and, know, just to go through the index, it's, it's, it's a lot like it is, it's literally a handbook. I mean, it's, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful resource. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (19:59)
Well, thank you. That's why it's called the Bonus Family Hairbrush.

Thank you. The reason

I wrote it, laid it out that way is I know from writing other books and dealing with people all the time is they don't read from beginning to end. We Google things and we get our information in articles and 30 second sound bites. So I wanted to write a book that was actually useful. So I made sure that the index was really extensive. So if you want to look up bad mouthing, you go to bad mouthing and then go to the page because it's 300 and I don't know how many. I told you I had to cut it back, but it's 340.

three

Robert (20:33)
It's like 380 something pages, isn't it?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (20:33)
pages long. So yeah, well this one, no, it was. I told you, it was just kind of back jam. But yeah, but that's what it is. You just go to that and then you go into the index and and basically you're googling a subject. In that way.

Robert (20:37)
Maybe not that much.

Haha!

All right. So what do you recommend?

What do you recommend when a, when a child comes to you and they say, mom or dad is just being unreasonable or they're so mean, or I don't like mom and dad because of their decision on this. What do you, what do you suggest in situations like that? Like the few times that's happened with me, I always, maybe I did this wrong, but I always try to push it back onto.

Have you approached your mom about that yet? Have you talked to her about that yet? What, you know, I think this is something that you need to open up that communication with your mom or, you know, what, do you recommend in situations like

Dr. Jann Blackstone (21:28)
It depends on the age of the child. I mean, if it's a teenager, their communication with their parents is established and they can work on it. really, when they're coming, they're coming to you for help. So how would you help them? I would probably call the parent up and say, look, let's chat.

I really, our child's coming home and saying this. look, there's another way we can look at it. Is there another way that we can get together and I can support you here and you can support me there? That's what's important. If you get into a groove of reaching out to each other in the name of the child, then you won't take it personally.

If somebody's calling you out all the time, then you take it personally. You're saying you're telling me how to live at my own house. And that's not what you're doing. You're asking how can we make this transition from house to house seamless for our child. Because the courts are making them live in two houses. It's not their idea.

Robert (22:24)
That's helpful. What

what about when there's times when there's secrets, when the child will come to you and say, Hey, this happened. Don't tell mom or don't tell dad, or can we keep this a secret from mom or from dad? Or what's your feelings on when the parent says, don't tell your mom this, don't tell your dad that what thoughts on that.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (22:49)
My rule of thumb is that if the child knows something that the other parent doesn't know, that's a problem. Because now, even though they're asking you to put them in the middle, you are. So if they say, don't tell mom or dad, first of all, I'd explore why they don't want to know. And then I would...

Personally, I would say, I have to discuss this with your dad. If it's private, I had a little girl who started her period and she, I was working with the family, she didn't want her mom to tell her dad. Well, that was pure embarrassment. She didn't want to have to talk about it. But here's the deal. Dad knows about periods. And that's kind of what mom needs to say. Honey, daddy is fully aware about women having periods.

Robert (23:26)
Yeah, I get that.

Yeah

Dr. Jann Blackstone (23:39)
It's nothing to be embarrassed about. Take that embarrassment away from her. And if she doesn't, you don't have to talk to him about it, but let her know, first of all, dad knows about periods. You're not gonna be ostracized. And the other thing we have to do is make sure that you get the pads that you want over at dad's house. So that has to be an open line of communication because it's not only gonna be mom and daughter. If she's living at dad's house,

Robert (24:01)
Yeah, he needs he needs to know what to buy.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (24:04)
Exactly, exactly. So I try to open up communication. Don't shame anybody in those particular cases. And also, from the beginning, say, gotta tell you that. Gotta.

If it's something, I won't keep a secret from them if it's something like that, if it's something important like that. mean, if it's, you know, you can weigh it out, but people keep secrets from the other parent because they think they are the preferred parent. my child loves me more because they're confiding in me. A lot of times what they're doing is playing you against dad or you against mom. Don't tell mom.

then you and mom have a secret. Don't tell dad, then you and dad have a secret. So you know what dad knows, you know what mom knows, but dad and mom don't know. And dad and mom are the parents. So dad and mom are the ones who have to take control over that situation. Otherwise, you're letting the child raise themself.

Robert (24:58)
That's really helpful.

That is really helpful. You touch on, and I know I'm jumping, but you touch on dating and also remarriage in the book. So I have not remarried. I do date, but what is your...

Dr. Jann Blackstone (25:04)
I hope so.

Nor have I.

Robert (25:17)
Like

what, what is your advice? Like, what do you, what do you suggest? Like how much do you tell your kids? Do you tell your ex, Hey, I'm dating. you like what, if you were to tell me, if we're sitting down, you know, sitting across the table from each other and you know, my situation and I'd like, Hey, I'm thinking about starting dating. What would be your advice to me?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (25:40)
Tell your co-parent. The reason is, first of all, I don't believe that we should date in front of our children. We share enough custody, you have enough downtime, that you can date on your own. When it gets serious, that's when your children are involved. But it's important that, I mean, what if they see you out and about? I have seen my children.

when I don't have them with me, their time is with their dad, I've seen them out and about with somebody else that they weren't expecting because we lived in a very small town. So you have to make sure that your co-parent knows that you're dating. And that's going to be a bummer for some people because it opens up a whole can of worms, but it's better for when the children come home and say, you know what, mom's got a boyfriend. And you don't say, what? I didn't even know she was dating. You can say, yeah, honey, mom told me.

she was dating and she told me about Tom and she seems to really like him.

There you go. Now you're not, you know, the last thing you want to do is throw mom under the bus. But you're also, but that's what you are, you're doing when you don't tell people stuff. You don't have to give them the intimate details. I mean, that's none of their business, but letting them know that this is my intent.

Robert (26:52)
Yeah. And say you meet somebody you're you've been dating and you're dating somebody. They become special. They there looks like potentially there's a future with that person. What do you do? What do you do from that point on? What do you do?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (26:52)
That's what I...

I would go slow, start on day visits, know, just like you would with anything. As you go slow, maybe for a couple hours go out for lunch altogether. The next time maybe go to the park, you know. I usually stay away from movies, but movies in that kind of case might be a good idea. You know, it just, you look at the things that...

Robert (27:27)
Yeah, because there's no talking. Yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (27:30)
You can talk about it afterwards. You could use it as a vehicle to have a conversation afterwards, but it's usually two hours of sitting and not talking. If you really want to spend time with your child, you know, got to do the prep work. This is what we're going to do. Then we watch it. Then we talk. You don't just say, how'd you like the movie? You're looking for something to talk about. And it's the same thing when you're introducing somebody. You know.

going out for pizza and the kids playing video games and then you guys go play them with them. Look for a miniature golf, something that kids like to do and get them involved slowly. Wouldn't spend the night for a while just because that's confusing for children. So you really have to know where you're going when they're at.

when they're starting to spend the night. And that's usually when you're gonna move in together and then there's a whole other conversation, because kids will wanna know, how's my life gonna change now? If they had children, are we gonna have to share a room? There's something in the book called the before exercise. It's in the chapter about blending your family and combining families. And it's what you do, the conversation you have with your new partner about what you're expecting when you.

contemplate a life together. And it's just questions that you go down and you do it together. How am I going to cultivate a relationship with your parents? How am I going to cultivate a relationship? What do you see my relationship with your daughter being? I'd like to be comfortable around your ex, your co-parent. How do you see that conversation? And listen to each other.

And don't be afraid to say, I don't really want to talk to her. And then say, you kind of have to. We're sharing the kids. She might be outside picking them up.

You might see her in the supermarket with the kids and what are you going to do, walk right by the produce section? You know, they have to, and this happens. If you live in a small town like I did, there was only two grocery stores. I'd run into all sorts of people, including my husband's ex-wife and his sister-in-law.

Robert (29:34)
goodness.

you introduce that, before you introduce your children to the person that you're seriously dating, you should let your ex know, correct? Let them know, Hey, I'm thinking about our, I want to introduce the children to whatever the

Dr. Jann Blackstone (29:49)
I think so.

Robert (29:54)
person's name is this weekend I was thinking about going for ice cream and maybe walking in the park afterwards. I just wanted to make you aware of that. That should happen first, correct?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (29:56)
Right.

Right, because the kids are going to come home and tell you about it and I just want to give you a heads up. I don't want you to be embarrassed and then you can reinforce it. Then she can say, Dad told me all about it. We don't want to make the kids think that there's secrets at each house because they live in both homes. So like I said, when the child knows something that the other parents doesn't know, there's a problem.

Robert (30:25)
Yeah, yeah. True.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (30:33)
Because then the child has control. It's the best rule of thumb I can give you.

Robert (30:35)
true. That's true.

all right. So let's go to marriage. goes even further. We're we're, you know, Hey, I'm thinking about asking this person to marry me or this person's about to ask me.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (30:40)
All right.

Robert (30:47)
I would assume again, go to your ex, go to the co-parent, inform them of the situation.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (30:54)
I mean we're talking about in a perfect world. Perfect world.

Robert (30:55)
before the children.

Right in

a perfect world. Right. Right. Like my my exes.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (31:01)
in perfect world.

Robert (31:04)
Go ahead.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (31:04)
The goal is to have a collaborative approach to raising the children. I would tell the other parent, yeah, and you've also laid the groundwork, hopefully. The other parent knows this person. Because if you're living together, for example, the child's living with that person. So you want it. I don't know about you, but if my kid's living with somebody, I want to know who they are.

So I'd like to meet them. I'd like to have a conversation with them. We have kids that spend the night at friends houses.

The first thing that we do is call up the other house, say, hi, I'm Jan, I'm Harley's mom, and she's allergic to peanuts, and she has a problem with clowns. Don't show her any pictures of clowns. These are kinds of things that you, when she's nine, don't let her watch a PG-13 movie. You just talk to her about it. You do that with your kid's friends' parents, but you don't do that with your co-parent,

Robert (31:56)
You

Dr. Jann Blackstone (32:13)
parents partner you know have a conversation everything what do think they're gonna do I'm not gonna be with them

Robert (32:22)
Yeah, and that's a perfect word. You know, I'll say this, my,

my ex's husband, I was really impressed. He reached out to me to let me know, hey, this weekend, I am going to, this was a couple of years ago, this weekend, I'm going to ask her to marry me. I just wanted to let you know, you know, and he had already informed the boys and kind of asked their permission.

And he said, just, you know, and it was literally just a few minutes before. he said, you know, I also told them I'm not their dad. You're their dad. And that was, I was like, wow, I was so appreciative of that. And I thought that was such a great way to handle that. you know, it was, was, was, it was a great way. I thought, wow, if I'm ever in that situation, that's. That's wonderful. You know, I just appreciated that respect.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (33:16)
He demonstrated.

that was just going to say he demonstrated respect. There's a pecking order to this bonus family life. The parents are the ones who establish the rules and the bonus parent supports those rules. So basically what he did was he gave you the respect of being dad but told you I'm going to be married to their mother and he kind of laid out the pecking order giving you the respect that was necessary.

I think that was great. Plus, he talked to the children and gave them the respect that was necessary. Because you don't just drop bombs on people. That's their life. And you can reinforce it because you know the kids, if they liked it, they're going to come home like I've been saying through this whole podcast. They're going to come home and tell you, guess what? Mom's marrying blah, blah, blah. And now you can say, you know what? He told me all about it. And I was really impressed how he said it. So now you're building him up.

Robert (33:48)
Yeah, he did. He did.

Right.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (34:12)
you want your children to like your co-parent's partner, they live with them. If they don't like them, their life is going to be miserable. You don't want that for them. can't have too many people love your kid. Or respect your kid.

Robert (34:17)
Right. Right.

No, I,

I totally agree with you there. You definitely can't have too many people that love your kid and that are in your kid's corner. I totally agree. So what

Dr. Jann Blackstone (34:37)
I really

like it that way. I'm going say, from now on, I'm going to say in your kids' corner. Because sometimes bonus parents don't love their bonus kids, but they like them a lot. They respect them. They're in their corner, and they'll support them. That's really all you're looking for. The love thing is a hard one. And sometimes you're lucky enough to love them. Sometimes deep like is cool.

Robert (34:59)
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes deep like is it's enough. So the biggest pitfalls that you see.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (35:05)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Robert (35:12)
What do you see? Where do people get wrapped up? Where do you see most common places people fall apart in co-parenting?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (35:22)
Staying stuck in the past and blaming and faulting the other person for past indiscretions and not letting them change. Everybody changes. Sometimes people don't bring out the best in each other and somebody else will.

A year down the road you realize, I was terrible. Or, God, that was miserable. Whatever. Not allowing their co-parent to change, but thinking it's okay that they changed. You've got to allow people to get better. And not spend your entire time in the past. Because you lose your children growing up in front of you.

and you're still mad about when they were three and their mom left you. And they're seven now. know, people will say, not enough time has gone by to co-parent. Because I teach co-parenting. I have co-parenting classes. they'll say, we just broke up. There's not enough time to co-parent. I said, your kids are getting older by the minute.

You have to learn to do this. I don't care if it's only been two years. Your child is now eight and he was six and that is something that you have to take a look at. So for two years, he's been watching his parents fight and be miserable. And that's not fair to him. You guys gotta have to figure this out. And the first thing I do is I tell people to let their ex lover relationship go.

Robert (36:43)
Yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (36:56)
You can't change it. You can't say, I'm sorry enough. Either can he. So now you establish a brand new relationship from this point on as parents and be who you want to be this time. You know, you don't have to judge each other and it's a different relationship. And that's what I would tell him. And you can actually like him for it's dad.

Robert (37:16)
All right. I'm I'm gonna ask you

this. And you know, we were kind of talking men, women earlier offline before.

If you don't want to answer it, you don't have to. Where do men get stuck the most and where do women get stuck the most? And it might be the same thing.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (37:30)
Same thing, paybacks, paybacks and not being able to let the past go. That's it. It's a lot of it's fairness. You did this and I do it and you call me out on it, but you do it all the time. know, it's tit for tat. You had a breakdown. said women are, what did you say? You don't want to bring it up? Yeah.

Robert (37:50)
Yeah, this was, well, this was, uh, in another conversation, it was, it was a

men versus women in divorce and how they, you know, how they handle or not how they handle, but when they come into the attorney's office, you know, how, what, and that was Erin Schaden that was on that was talking about that. And you know how men are a little bit more business-like and how women, lot of times are more vengeful. Um, you know, was her experience that she's seen over 20 something years, 28 years.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (37:58)
I

really did.

Robert (38:19)
So I I want to ask you another question. So if you are the bonus parent, I know we kind of touched on it. If you're the bonus parent, you're stepping into this role. Give me advice. If I'm the bonus parent, I'm the new bonus parent. I'm walking into a situation where I'm going to be the bonus parent to three kids. And you have to give me advice.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (38:27)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

Robert (38:40)
What are you going to tell me?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (38:41)
Do your best to be friends, befriend or least be cordial with both of their parents.

Do your best. And it might not be easy because the co-parents might be at odds. But the children have to go back and forth. as much as you want to be close to those children, if you can support both of the parents, that will come.

You get a jealous mother, it's gonna be a problem. You get a jealous bonus parent, it's gonna be a problem. You get a jealous dad, it's gonna be a problem. So that's the relationship that really is important. It's also really important to get close to your bonus children and establish a plan for blending your family.

Robert (39:05)
Good advice.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (39:31)
And it's something that's really important about that is to have a conflict resolution forum in place when you move in. So you guys know how to solve problems in your home.

Robert (39:40)
Tell me more about that.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (39:41)
Family discussions, and it's in the book about how to establish that. oftentimes, one of the things that I would ask my clients in my office is, okay, they would be at odds. And I'd say, how do you guys solve conflict when you don't agree? What do you do? And they just looked at me like, what? We fight. I said, well, what if you...

Let's try not to do that. What do you want to do? And they said, you mean have rules for what are you talking about? I said, if you're in a family, you have to have rules to solve problems together. I'll tell you a quick story.

In my house when I was growing up, my kids were growing up, we had something called family discussions. My bonus kids, I had two bonus kids and two biological children. And the family discussion, if somebody was bugged, you could call a family discussion. And you could say, and everybody had to go, there's rules. And the rules are in the book. And everybody had to go, you had to call it at a certain time, you had to let everybody know. And you just discussed it, there was no yelling, you listened.

One person spoke, the person who called the discussion was the moderator. And it worked. And when the kids were, my daughter was eight and my bonus daughter was nine.

They called a family discussion and my husband at the time and I thought, they want popcorn at movie night. know I'm saying? We didn't know what they, you know, we're the ones, usually the parents are saying, okay, you're not cleaning a room and we have to talk about this and you know, but this one, they called it and they were very serious and they put a note underneath our doors because we both worked at home and we had two different offices and we both had invitations and we're reading the invitations and we all showed up and we sat.

Robert (41:16)
You

Dr. Jann Blackstone (41:37)
there and I'm thinking okay what's going on and my daughter stood up and said you guys don't spend enough time with us you're working all the time and we would like you to stop working at a certain time so that we know that we can go do stuff together and my husband and I looked at each other and went what we work at home we can do anything they said but you work all the time and I went

So what I was grateful for is we have a forum for my eight and nine year old in front of everybody else to say, please stop working at five o'clock so we can have dinner together and the phone's not ringing. And I went, gosh, I was really impressed with them, but also with the forum for conflict resolution. And we used it all the time, but that was the first time that they used it. And it was important to them.

And we changed our lifestyle. You know, we turned the phones off at five.

Robert (42:30)
Yeah, it's empowering. It's empowering for them.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (42:33)
Mm-hmm, exactly. They weren't telling us what to do. They came to us and said...

Robert (42:35)
We do that, we'll have, right.

We do sort of a, it's, we call it a family meeting. Anybody can call it. And you know, the hardest thing for the boys was to put your defenses down and it is, so if one has a problem with the other one, or maybe both boys have a problem with me with something, whatever it may be, you have to put your defenses down. You hear what they say. You mirror back what that person says. Okay. So it, I'll just use example.

So you wish I wouldn't be on my cell phone as I, you I hear it makes you very annoyed when you try to talk to me and I'm on my cell phone, you know, and then you empathize with them. Okay. I bet that makes you feel frustrated. makes you feel sad, possibly even unheard. We go through that and then go through, okay. How would it be better for you?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (43:15)
Absolutely.

Robert (43:29)
Like what would, what would it look like in a perfect world? Okay. Well, it would look better if, or I would feel better if, maybe you only use your phone between when we're with you between 5 PM and 6 PM and from 6 PM till 9 PM when we go to bed, I'm just using examples, just random examples from 6 PM to 9 PM. Then, you know, that's our time with you and then you can get back on your phone.

We literally, and I wish it went always that easy. mean, we still do them not as often, but we started that when they were young and it was more of when one brother was aggravating the other. you know, but it was, thought it was a great way for them to learn to be able to one, get their frustrations out and then also to learn how to solve conflicts, that conflict resolution for in the future, whether it's through work.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (44:13)
problem solved.

Robert (44:23)
whether it's through future relationships and instead of the yelling and all of that.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (44:28)
May I make two observations about what you said? Okay, number one, make sure that a family discussion does not turn into a bitch session. This is not I'm finding fault with you, you bad person. That's not it. And the other thing is you said, how can you, when you were asking about it, how could you make it better or how could I make it better? I would approach it as a communal. How can we make it better?

Robert (44:30)
I would love for you to.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (44:57)
What can we do as a family? The reason I would say that is parents don't want to give up their parental power. And kind of the way that you presented it, you put the kids in charge. And that's great, but...

Robert (44:58)
Oh, that's a good, that's a great idea.

That's it, yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (45:13)
We have to say to them, okay, I'm hearing what you're saying. How about this? Be the leader. Don't let the kids be the leader because the children need, they need to be led and they need to learn how to negotiate. They need to feel secure and think that their parents have the control. So I'm not saying that, you you override what your children say. You always give them a voice, but in the approach, in the approach, it's okay, we're a family. How can we do that? And you come off that

Robert (45:36)
Right, right.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (45:43)
way as the parent and yet especially when kids go back and forth they need to feel safe and secure and if they think they're the ones who are in control they don't feel that safe and secure.

Robert (45:56)
No, and they have to have that. They have to have

that stability and security. They have to.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (46:01)
I've got a really important point to make that often parents, especially parents who are at odds with each other do, and it's along the same stuff as we're talking.

If they can't come to an agreement and one parent has control over the situation, the other parent says, honey, I can't, the judge said this, the court order says this, we have to do it. What you're saying then is that the judge has more, somebody else has more power over your children than you do. So you're telling your kid, I'm not the last word.

So take a look at that because children think their son rises and sets with their parents. They think that there's somebody else that has more power over them. You've got to be careful about that. The other thing is if indeed a judge has made a ruling, you've got to take a look at that because you have now not made the decision for your family. And before that happens, hopefully you can get some co-parenting help so that the co-parents can decide and not have to put it in the hands of a judge who doesn't know you.

They're just making decisions that they think are right or wrong in a given situation. But they don't know your child. They don't know you. They don't understand the situation all the way. And also, I tell parents, if you agree on something, you do not have to stick to the court order. If the court order says you exchange children at 4 o'clock, and you and your co-parents sit down and say, you know what, that's not working, we got to do it at 7. And you agree, do it at 7.

The courts want you to raise your own children. The only reason that you have a court order is because you can't agree. When you do agree, do something else. All you have to do is write each other a letter.

Robert (47:42)
And usually there's language

written in the parenting agreement that allows for that too, where you don't have to just hold to that, it gives, you know, if both parents agree, blah, blah, you know, it gives them the ability to, yeah, to work together. So, and I also think.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (47:56)
Yeah, but a lot of people

don't read that section. They don't read that section. We'll set court order and we're sticking to it.

Robert (48:03)
Yeah, yeah, but I

And that's when it's kind of weaponized too, right? But I think it's so valuable for the kids to see that when, you know, they might know, okay, I go back to dad's on, I don't know, let's say on Thursdays or whatever. And they see, okay, it's that doesn't work or whatever. And the parents change whatever it may be, or dad's always going to pick me up from baseball. Well, dad can't because for whatever reason,

Dr. Jann Blackstone (48:10)
That's exactly right.

Mm-hmm.

Robert (48:36)
when they see the parents working together, I think that's so valuable. You know, it shows, I think it shows those kids that love those two people, their mom and their dad so much that yeah, they might not be in the same house, but they're working together. I think that's so valuable there. For them, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (48:52)
Exactly. For us. For us.

And when I teach co-parenting class, I've got a bunch of clients and most of them are court ordered to come in and I tell them...

Tell your children that you are in class. Tell them, your dad and I or your mom and I love you guys so much, we know we're not getting along. And we're going to a special class to learn how to talk to each other, get along better for you because we love you and we don't wanna do this.

Now the kids, so it's Thursday night and they're coming to co-parent, we gotta go to the class. And they know that they are going to get, we go in Zoom, I Zoom, but I think it's important exactly what you said. The kids know that the parents are working together, they're trying to get better at communicating, and the catalyst for that is them.

Robert (49:43)
So when you're saying that I'm already hearing comments that I know I'm going to receive when people are, people will say, yeah, but my ex won't do that. My ex is a narcissist. My ex, you know, isn't going to, is it everybody's ex is a narcissist, right? But my ex is a narcissist. My ex is whatever my ex won't do that. every situation is not going to be perfect, but you know, I think it's

Dr. Jann Blackstone (49:55)
Everybody's next is a narcissist.

This isn't a perfect

call.

Robert (50:10)
Yeah, I-

And I guess there are going to be times, there are going to be times when the other one, not always, but there will be cases, let's say we're in those situations where you're just fighting against somebody that's not putting the children first, you know? And that is when I think, I guess you've got to go back to court. What do you, what do you suggest?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (50:11)
Do you me to, my answer to that is?

first.

Well, usually, in court, they said, it's time to go to Jann And then I sit them down and say, OK, guys, what are you really doing here? But when you said, my ex won't do that, one of the things that I find really amusing is I have a meeting with each parent separately at the beginning of the process. And I'll ask them a question, and they will tell me what their ex will do. Just like you said, my ex won't do that.

Robert (50:39)
Yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (50:59)
But I didn't ask you what your ex would do. I'm asking how you can make changes. What will you do in those situations? Well, I'll tell you. You know what she'll do. And it takes a while to channel them into speak for yourself, do what you know is right. Don't do it in response to her. And if she does what she knows is right and you know what you know is right, you know what? And you both use the children as the criteria and you talk about it, I bet you won't have the problems you think you have now.

It's, it's, it's, it's really not rocket science.

Robert (51:29)
Yeah, that's.

Yeah, it goes back. No, it's

not. And you know, as we talk more and more, it's always the underlying tone is putting the kids first, putting the kids first, putting the kids first.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (51:45)
Yeah, not making them make the decisions. I made that clear. No. Use them as the criteria.

Robert (51:48)
Right, right. But in your decisions

and your decisions in your actions as the co-parents, it's putting, putting the kids first, putting the kids first, putting, right, right, right. Putting, know, putting all our crap aside, putting how I might feel, how mad I might be at my ex, putting that aside and what is best for our, our child.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (52:00)
their needs.

Kids don't care who's right and who's wrong. If I sat down with a child and said, and they know their parents are fighting, I'd say, who's right, who's wrong? I'd go, I don't know, I don't care. They want their parents to go back together. And if that can't happen, they want their parents to stop fighting. That's it. the reason, no bad mouthing. No, yeah.

Robert (52:34)
Yeah, and not speak ill about the other parent.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (52:41)
And that's something that makes it really clear in the book what bad mouthing is, because a lot of people don't know that they badmouth. Saying, mother is so lazy, or she's always late and it drives me crazy, that's bad mouthing.

And people think that if you call each other bad names.

Robert (52:56)
But it can also be subtle too, right? It can be

a facial expression, a rolling of the eyes of something like that too, right?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (53:05)
Attitude, I tell this story all the time and I think it's really important because parents don't know oftentimes when they're bad mouthed. And there's stories in the book about bad mouthing and running into it. this happened maybe a couple of months ago. My grandson sitting in the back seat and my grant, my, were talking about how his mother and I are jokesters and we get along really well. And we were laughing about some of the things that his mom and I have done. He's only eight, nine, nine now.

And I said, yeah, mommy and I get along really great and I'm driving along. And I said, but daddy's shy. If you watch daddy at a party, he won't talk that much. And his face dropped. His face dropped and he got tears in his eyes. And he said, my daddy talks to me. And I went, honey, do you think shy is bad? And he goes, yeah.

So you gotta remember what your audience is. So no, shy's not bad. Shy is just, and I explained to him what shy was, and that daddy is more just quiet. Doesn't mean it's bad, just an observation.

And I had to call up his mother and say, get ready, because this is going to happen. He's going to come home and ask for it, and this is how it happened. So she had all the ammunition to support that daddy's not, know, he calls me mom who didn't say anything bad about daddy, because that's badmouthing. But those are the kinds of things that happen. You got to talk to your audience. If your kids are overhearing you screaming about your ex to your sister on the phone and they're in the other room.

It happens all the time and if they hear the whole thing they will fill it in and then they will go tell the other parent you know what mom said or know what dad said and they didn't hear the whole conversation so you got to be really careful.

Robert (54:43)
my goodness. Yeah.

And even if they don't go tell the other parent, it's still, you're talking about half of them. You're talking about half of that child.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (55:05)
Their DNA, exactly. They know inherently. That's almost a quote from the book. But they know inherently that they are half mom and half dad. And if you're saying something bad about daddy or you're saying something about mommy, you're saying something about me. You might feel that way about me. Kids have a way of making everything their fault.

everything from if I were a better kid, maybe they wouldn't have gotten a divorce, maybe they wouldn't have broken up. They fill in the blanks. We all do, but especially children, and sometimes they do it wrong. And then it's closed conversation with themselves. They tell themselves over and over all the bad stuff.

Robert (55:28)
I know, yeah.

Dr. Jan, I know we need to wrap up, but if you're to give...

Dr. Jann Blackstone (55:48)
Yes.

but this is so fun

Robert (55:55)
I mean, look, I could talk to you forever and I want, I want additional episodes. I want to have you back on here. Cause I know this is going to create a lot of questions and comments and I'm going to hear some supportive. I'm going hear some, well she's never seen my ex before. bet she has. but I'm going to hear, I'm going to hear a lot. And so I would love to have you back on even if it's to answer the top five questions or complaints or whatever they might be. But if you're to give advice for bonus families.

What would your tip be? What would your advice be for bonus families? If you could really just package it in, what would that be?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (56:31)
It was the acceptance answer before that we talked about. That's it, is letting everybody be who they are and accepting them for who they are and creating an environment where people can be themselves and accepted and loved. And then they want to be part of this new family. When you ostracize them, don't see them and don't take what they're feeling as serious.

Robert (56:34)
Yeah.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (57:00)
they'll reject you or they'll reject the whole principle. They'll say it's below me, you know. So that's the biggest thing I can say is talking about is acceptance.

Robert (57:10)
That's great. That's great. All right. How can people find you?

Dr. Jann Blackstone (57:13)
They can go to my website bonusfamilies.com and email me. My phone number is on there too if they want to call me. But I won't answer it. I'll just say I have an appointment available.

Robert (57:23)
careful about that. What, what about.

What about social media? Are you on any social media? Okay. Okay.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (57:33)
everywhere. I'm on Instagram and Facebook. But I'm not

on X or Twitter. I mean, I am, but I'm not. I don't really spend a lot of time with that. But if they want to get a hold of me through Instagram or Facebook, Bonus Families, both of them, not Dr. Jam, but Facebook has Bonus Families and so does Instagram. And that's me.

Robert (57:52)
I

will, I will publish the links to, will make sure to include links to those sites as well. And look, I just thank you so much and I do hope you come back. I'm looking forward to comments and, um, I think we could, we could, we have, I won't, I don't even want to say we've scratched the surface. I don't even know if we've done that. I think this is such a, you know, this can go in so many different directions, but, I so much appreciate you taking time out of your afternoon to come on here and talk. think this is such a.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (57:59)
Thank you.

Anytime.

Robert (58:22)
You know, it's a subject that's near and dear to me and I think with many people too.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (58:23)
I love you.

Thank you. I love doing this because I really want to get the word out there. There's nothing worse than not getting along with your co-parent because that's your life and your kids have to see it. And so my life's work is trying to smooth that over and make it a happy life for the children and you, you know, and us.

Robert (58:49)
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Hey, and thank you all for listening to the dad. That's podcast. You can find us on Spotify or Apple podcasts, as well as on most platforms. You can also find us on YouTube and Instagram. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes and please leave a comment. I really enjoy reading. read all the comments. I enjoy reading the comments as well as the suggestions for future episodes as well.

Dr. Jann Blackstone (58:50)
So thanks.

Robert (59:17)
Thank you all again for listening and we'll talk to you next time.