Co-Parenting and Mediation - It can work! / Mac Pierre-Louis, JD || DPTSP # 080 || David

[00:00:00] Welcome everybody out there to Don't Pick This Podcast that has some of the best media to start or continue your divorce recovery for men over 40. We're in this guest with special superpowers and we have one today. He's back for a second time. Whoop whoop! Go around with the mediation and co-parenting. Welcome Mac Pierre-Louis to the show. He's an attorney who specializes in mediation. He has a podcast about resolving conflicts, the Lawyers and Mediation's International Show and Podcast.

[00:00:39] Welcome to the Don't Pick This Cab Podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during or after a divorce. So tell a little bit about yourself Mac and we'll go from there. Yes sir, good to have, good to see you again. I guess I was gonna say good to have you again because I always do that on my own podcast.

[00:01:03] However, anyway, my name is Mac Pierre-Louis. I'm a lawyer and mediator. I'm licensed. I do practice law in Florida and Texas. And so I like to say that I work between both states. Although I'm predominantly in Houston where I'm at right now. And I'm the host of the Lawyers and Mediators International Podcast where we talk law and conflict resolution.

[00:01:25] I've been licensed in 2009 as an attorney, but over the years one thing I love to do is help people resolve their differences and make peace. Sometimes maybe holding their nose to make peace, but not going to court and taking risks in front of a judge. And so that's what I'm passionate about these days. And I'm glad to be on to talk more with you about conflict and how to resolve disputes.

[00:01:49] Yeah, we talked about before, before we hit the record, we were talking about going back to revisit a case and see what happens. So speak to that. Things happen, circumstances change, people change, kids grow up. What happens with that? Yeah. So we call these modifications a lot of times parties do a court order, either by agreement or because the court makes it happen.

[00:02:13] And situations change, like you said. And we call that in my state a material and substantial change in circumstance. It's a legal term to mean basically something that's happened that was beyond people's control that nobody could foresee that then changes people's plans. And what they thought was going to happen doesn't continue. So they have a right to go back to court and modify the court order.

[00:02:37] And a lot of times you could try to change child support. You could sometimes change possession and access like this patient. You could try to change custody or conservatorship as we have in our state. And it all depends. And the example we were given was the common situation that happens when a child turns 12. And I'll say, for example, once a child turns 12, they do have a right in a custody case to speak to the judge and give their opinion.

[00:03:03] They don't make a decision. People always think that people that there's a myth, they don't get to make a decision, but they can't speak to the court and say, look, I want to be with that. I want to be with mom. And most of the time, I would say the court does take that child's voice into consideration and give them what they want. Obviously, the court could disagree with the child. Sometimes they'll have the child get a court appointed attorney economicus and that person will help the court make a decision.

[00:03:30] But the example I was giving was this scenario where you have a dad waiting by the calendar when the child is 11 years old, waiting for the child to turn 12 before they go back to court to try to ask the court for custody. And then and this is the warning I sometimes have given to moms who are my clients, because I represent moms and dads.

[00:03:52] I might tell mom, hey, look, you don't dish it up, dish it out too much on this guy, because one day if that child wants to live with them, you might have the exact same problem in reverse. And I've seen it happen. And people just need to be cautious and be a little nicer to each other and try to look for the child's best interests and not their own. Yeah. How often do you find out that it's about the money instead of the benefit of the child? 50 percent, 70 percent? What's that? What do you think?

[00:04:20] So it's a good question. I've said before that when I'm at mediation and I'm doing caucus mediation, let's say I have mom in one room, dad in another room. They don't see each other and I'm going back and forth and doing the whole shuttle diplomacy thing. Both parents sometimes say the exact same thing. And that is it's all about the money with them. Right.

[00:04:43] And so mom might say, and this is funny to me because I'm like, I they don't realize it, but they're saying the exact same thing. Same thing pointing the finger to the other at the other parent saying that it's all about the money. And then look, let's be honest. We all care about our money. Right. It's just that we tend to have a little more grace on ourselves about how we spend it versus other people.

[00:05:04] We think that they're selfish. So I think when it comes to child, it becomes very personal real quick because now, depending on how people treated each other, depending on what the child needs, depending on what one parent thinks the child needs and the other parent disagrees, you still bring it, bring it money. Okay. You can become a huge, huge conflict. So I know that there are men out there, you know, who in their secret circumstance might believe that all about the money, you know, by this mom.

[00:05:35] And mom is going to try to milk as much as she can out of them. It doesn't matter how much goes to the child. She just wants to either punish the guy or he's making enough. He needs to just pay more. And some guys feel that way. It may be true in some circumstances or the opposite might have a mom who's feeling that dad is going to always insist on paying the minimum amount.

[00:06:01] It doesn't matter what the child is going to go through. And she feels that, look, a bigger portion percentage of the cost of this child is on my back. And this man is not wanting to pay a dime more. And you get this and a lot of it might be valid. Some of it might just be people have motivations over money that they see from their own point of view. But my job is always to be neutral and help them make some kind of agreement that keeps them out of court. My next question, and thank God for editing because I'm having a mind fart right now.

[00:06:31] You are a young blood, but you're younger than me. So back in the day, back in the Kramer versus Kramer days, most of the women got 80, 90% of the co-parenting. So by the time you got into it, had that shifted to 50-50 or is it still swayed in Georgia? Well, I'm in Texas. Texas.

[00:06:53] I did think of taking the Georgia bar one time. I don't know, I'm a nerd. So I like to be licensed multiple places, but never happened. Maybe one day. But the 50-50 thing is very popular. Okay. It's a word, almost like narcissist that is pervasive in the world of family law. You hear this all the time. And it's in too many people. It means different things.

[00:07:16] And so I think to most men, it means, or most dads, I should say, it means that child is with us equally, not just with decision making, but also possession and financial. And so it doesn't matter about our finances. It matters about the child. Let's just work. What happened to this child? The NA perspective is just treat us as a school.

[00:07:39] And so you hear that phrase from that point of view, father's rights movement, trying to get more quality in terms of having rights to a child and having possession of a child. And of course, money, because that's a big deal. So you said back in the day, most of the time, moms had a child and now men are fighting for more or people are talking about it. I do think there's been a big push over the last number of years for people to share a child equally.

[00:08:09] I think what's sometimes questioned is the motivation and where you typically hear a mom will say, he just wants 50-50 so he doesn't pay child. Here we go again. Usually, one way I resolve that in family law negation would be to calculate what, in theory, mom would pay dad if he had custody, calculate what dad would pay mom if she had custody, and then have the parent who makes more money pay the difference.

[00:08:39] That way, the parent who makes more money gets a massive discount. But the parent who doesn't make as much does still get some. Because they're going to argue that, look, percentage wise, because I make less, it's a bigger percentage of my income to take care of this one same child. And I think that usually makes a lot of sense to people. And that's one way we work out that, but it's time sharing.

[00:09:06] And other states like Florida, when you calculate child support, you do have to address time. Whereas Texas, not much. Technically, there's a part of the statute that allows you to consider time, but most of the time we don't. We just separate situations. There's money, there's possessions. And you pay, regardless if you see the kid or not, you pay the guideline amount. And that's basically where I see the 50-50 thing going on.

[00:09:33] It's never going to stop though, because we're going to probably tend to trend toward 50-50. But that's where we are. Yeah. So when you're doing a mediation with co-parenting and that the both parties, mom and dad, it's all about the money. What kind of modalities or what kind of tools do you have in order to get them out of that deep, dark chasm, basically? I think getting people to see things from the other person's perspective is huge.

[00:10:02] Mediation and public resolution will talk a lot about your brain and how things operate when they are in fight mode or when they hear. And we have this phrase called the amygdala hijacking.

[00:10:16] I think I might have mentioned it before, but it's the idea that when we are emotionally high, our amygdala gets hijacked and we make decisions that are, for our own purposes of self-preservation or whatever it might, we will make decisions that are not based on reason. But when we calm down, think reasonably, we get other perspectives and the media can help with that.

[00:10:42] And we get reason and rationales as to why the other person feels that way. We can start using our frontal cortex to make more sound judgments and sound decisions. Sometimes people just need to go home and sleep on the ideas, come back to the table and keep negotiating. But when it comes to people being in their dark place and they have their fists behind the table and they're saying words like X, Y, Z, period. That's the one I'd be hearing.

[00:11:11] When people end the sentence and the position with the word period or they threaten to leave the mediation because unless they get their way on something, you have to find ways. And you talk about tools to keep the person there, validating the person's experience, making sure that they feel heard, getting them to feel like somebody is actually listening to them.

[00:11:32] That's huge. So helping people get the perspective of the other side in a way that's not going to trigger them and then validating their own position so that they feel like their point of view is being factored in to the decision making. That's how you do it versus the traditional way of you go to the courtroom and the judge just does what they're gonna do. Throw the dice, baby.

[00:12:02] Throw the dice. And the judge does it and it's force, it's fiat, and the court has the power to rule. And I've been in enough courtrooms where once the judge rules and one parent stands up upset about the results, that bailiff will walk over so fast and kick you out of the courtroom because the court doesn't have time to receive this. This is not a debate. Yeah, this is a done deal. Yeah, that's it. So don't take the risk.

[00:12:30] What kind of, because you gotta have a lot of psychology, what kind of psychology can you apply to being a successful mediator? So it's a broad question. But I think you first need to read up on this stuff a little bit, understand what's happening to the person. If you are doing in-person mediation, I think it's easier. If you are doing in-person mediation, you can see the person sitting right next to you and literally see their face turn red.

[00:13:00] And that might send you a signal about what's in-person mediation. But when you're doing it online, it's a little bit more different. Okay? And so that's one big factor first off we have to consider. We underestimate how seeing somebody on the glass makes our job a little bit more difficult to read body language and all of that. Because you speak so much more through your body language than through your words.

[00:13:26] And imagine then putting the person in the same room and how that might blow things up. I've done that and I've had success and I've also regretted it real fast. Okay? So I would say one, some tools, something you can consider psychologically is whether or not you're going to be putting people together. We call the phrase caucus style mediation, where we give people up and we don't let them talk to each other.

[00:13:54] Some people say that's not true mediation, but the true art of mediation is getting two people who are so polarized into the same room. And usually I have a circle table here, circle table, and you do your magic. And you are the communicator. You have some ground rules, but we're not going to yell at each other. They're not going to get people who have dignity. They're not going to be accosted or threatened. This is confidential. So get things off your chest because no one's going to, it's not going to leave the room. But that's a big job.

[00:14:23] And it's something that most people I think can't do unless you practice them a lot. So that's the first is you can have them together or not. If not, then it does become a little easier in a way to have them separately. But then you have the other problems to deal with and that's time. You can get a resolution much quicker if you get two people just duking it out in person. But when you're splitting people up and you're doing the whole photo performance thing, you're going to be there all day.

[00:14:53] But guess what? People feel relaxed. They don't have to see the other person that who's triggering them. I use that word a lot because one thing I've noticed is, again back to psychology, a person, and I think I hit this last time I talked to you. People sometimes think if they're in a relationship with somebody or they were and they have a kid together.

[00:15:21] They sometimes think that they as person A is the best person to be able to judge person B's character because why I know them? But is that true? Because other people know them and they may disagree with you, like their parents. But then because people think because I was with them, I know them. That person then feels justified to put down a whole list of grievances and things that the person did wrong and the person had trusted with child or whatever.

[00:15:49] And then when the N word, narcissist comes out, right? That's usually the person. And so the reason I say that as an example is I'm like, is it really the best way to do it to use somebody who's not objective? To judge somebody, to basically diagnose somebody else with a mental illness of narcissism? Some people say, yes, I'm the one because they hurt me or I'm the one because I've seen them in their secret life. Practically in what they do. But that's the thing we got to step back.

[00:16:18] That's not always the best. Oftentimes, we need third persons, neutrals, doctors. Let a clinician do that. Okay, because you might be biased. You might have your blinders on and know what you don't really like. We all do. And I think that's the first step of reality is acknowledging you might not be the best person to be the one to diagnose somebody else.

[00:16:39] So when it comes to the mediation table, the mediator plays an important role of trying to reframe things and helping the person who's accusing to see things from a different perspective. And that's very much needed. That's why you're unable to resolve your own conflict yourself because of the emotional component of it. And that triggers all of us. How do you meander through all that fluff? Because it sounds like that the mediation starts with just fluff. Stuff that doesn't matter.

[00:17:08] How do you get to the crux of it? And how quickly can you get to it? Yeah, quickly. It's a function of time. And so I think time, if you have a lot of time, you can tolerate the venting. You need to let people vent because they have to get things off their chest. Completely normal, completely human. I don't fault people for wanting to tell me things. Even things that at first blush might not be considered relevant. But to them it's relevant. It's important. And they're like, Mac, listen. No, I got to tell you this.

[00:17:39] And I want to listen. I want to hear what the person has to say so that I can get why their reasoning a certain way and how they get there. It helps me because I go to the other room and I'm talking to the other parent. I always want to give a rationale as to why an offer is being made.

[00:18:00] Because if people get a rationale on the steps somebody took logically to get to a conclusion and why their position is this and why they're so strict on this, then it's easier to accept. But if you just say, he wants this or she wants that, it's much more different. People don't think their motives must be nefarious. They're just doing to hurt me. Your brain is going to fill in to prevent yourself all the negative emotions.

[00:18:31] But venting is important. You let people talk. It might feel like fucked to the other side. That's not relevant. Why are we here for it? We're not here about that. We're not here for that. We got to let them hear it. If we don't have time, because again, time is the critical factor here. If we don't have time, we're going to get right to it. Then we'll start differently. I will say this. Let's say I started a coffee-style mediation and I will be with one parent. Here, I'll spend maybe 40 minutes with them.

[00:19:00] And I'll hear their side of the story, a version of the story that is obviously from their point of view, that may be mostly true, but may have things in there that might be filled with misunderstandings. Sometimes I go to the other room and sometimes I'll ask the person who's in the other room, I heard what person A said. Do you want me to just get right to it and just tell you what they want?

[00:19:28] Or would you prefer that I just hear you out without knowing anything else other than what they told me? It's funny, but which one do you think people suggest first? They want to hear what they said. Yes, that's it. Oh, yeah. They want to duke it out, man. Rock and soccer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, but I don't know.

[00:19:52] It's a little scary when that happens because now I'm going to be sharing some things that the other person wants to convey without knowing what the buttons are. Perhaps if I just heard from person B their perspective first, I can start in my own mind, start seeing where these people align already and where they actually disagree. Because people sometimes agree on more than they realize. It's the details of little things that they can blow up to big things and take root.

[00:20:22] And so maybe I should start knocking people the option and just say, listen, I'll talk to you on the other side. Tell me your side of the story. And then I can hear. But I just notice if I ask that question, people just want to get right into it. Someone's got to go first. Someone's got to go first. Have you ever mediated another lawyer? That's a good question. What are you saying? Where they are? Like a divorce case with another lawyer. The lawyer was getting better.

[00:20:53] Okay. Oh, yes. Taking back. Yes. I don't think it was. I had a case. I mediated once and the father was an attorney. It was a custody case. We were child support as well. And I was a mediator. So it's not infrequent. I think honestly, most lawyers would want to keep their business out of the court.

[00:21:17] I think if you told lawyers, you're going to hear that most attorneys would rather not have their business public like this. Interesting. And so they would probably just, but sometimes you have a choice. You have to go through the whole discovery process and go through trial. And I've met a lawyer like that. And her business was all public. And literally other lawyers were in the court were watching the trial of a very well-known attorney.

[00:21:47] And most lawyers, I think they fear that they don't want their business out like that because of the fact that this is what they do for a living. And the last thing they need is for their own case. So I think most attorneys would just wrap this thing up privately, especially if they're both lawyers. It's like me having a cavity. I got a cavity. You're a dentist. No. You're seeing a doctor smoking behind the building. No. Yeah. What about active listening?

[00:22:16] That plays a big part. You've learned that skill over time. Yes, sir. You can't learn it like in a classroom, I don't think. But how has that played a part with your mediation? Yeah. It's so important. It's so important to the dynamics of mediation and helping people feel heard and feel engaged. It's so important that when we started doing Zoom mediation, because we were not in person, I can't turn to the person and look them in the eye.

[00:22:46] If my camera, and I'll do the test right now with you. If I take your image right now and I move it down, and I'm looking down at your face, I feel like I'm looking at you in the eye. However, my camera's up here, and you probably do not feel I'm looking at you right now. That small little thing has an effect. Okay? Wow.

[00:23:05] Now, if I move my window back up, and I put it right, and I put your face right underneath my camera, that's going to make a difference in how you feel like you're being heard. And now, I know it's still not perfect because you're still underneath my camera. But if I look directly into the lens right now, don't you feel engaged? Okay? Something so simple. Yeah, exactly. It is.

[00:23:30] And I actually purchased from Amazon a small little camera that has a suction cup in the back that I stick on my monitor so I can make sure it's centered. Small little thing, but it's that important to mediation and the need for people to feel like you're listening. I've had a mediator. I write about this in my book. I wrote a book called The Five-Step Mediation for Online Mediation Practice, where we basically talk about making sure you use technology in a way that's powerful to engage people.

[00:24:01] And in the book, I give the example of a mediation I went to years ago. I represented the father in a child support case. And people should know the reason I talk about child support a lot is because I used to work for the Attorney General Child Support Division five years before I went and did my home practice. But anyway, I was at a mediation and the mediator was basically the entire time looking at his second monitor over here. And he would talk to us like this.

[00:24:30] I remember the feeling like my client and I are on the same scale. Look at me, dude. Exactly. And so you're naturally going to feel like this guy's not listening to me. It's something so simple, but that meeting didn't last really long. It fell apart. I think there was a lot of frustration. The person wasn't using technology the way it should be. These were the early days of the pandemic. It was Zoom. So I'll give grace that the person, the individual, was not too keen on how to use some of these tools. However, it makes a difference.

[00:24:59] If you're going to be doing this business, then know the technology and make sure you're using it effectively. Oh, definitely. How does boundaries play a part of mediation? Yeah. So the other day I was interviewing a mediator. She's not a mediator. She's a foster care parent who's talking about co-parenting disputes. And one thing she says is that boundaries is connected to self-respect. Okay.

[00:25:24] The reason you create boundaries is because you respect yourself enough to say this. And this can happen. This cannot. All right. And so one of her boundaries is that she will not be cussed at. Okay. It's a red line for her. And so when she's dealing with her children, stepchildren, or anybody, any human being, whether it's a heated topic, passionate debate, whatever it is, she's not going to cuss. It's fair.

[00:25:53] If people understand that lying is something you will not tolerate, and it's made clear to them, but they cross it, then there has to be a consequence. Okay. It's sort of my own thought process about boundaries and what it means. I went through the book, Boundaries, book some years back, and I did the audio book, actually. I'm sure I heard about it on NPR years ago. But it gives a lot of good points in why boundaries are important.

[00:26:18] And especially in co-parenting and dealing with children or kids who are not yours biologically. But you have to, or yourself, learn how to step up your boundaries. If you're coming to mediation, I would say, I wouldn't use the word boundaries. I would use the word red lines, where here's the thing you've done a hill for, and here's the things that you're willing to negotiate. Okay. So that's how I could be it up in my head. But...

[00:26:48] When it comes to boundaries, again, it's a personal thing. You need, all of us need, to make sure that we are installing good boundaries for ourselves, to make sure that we're not being taken advantage of, to make sure that we're not being abused, to make sure that we can keep our sanity. For example, one of my own personal boundaries, just to speak about it, is I have a problem with saying no. I just wouldn't say no. People would ask me, I would say yes. I was always, yes, yes, yes. I remember, you know how burnt out you'll get after you say, you say to everybody, there's nothing left. And then you end up hurting people because you lash up and all that.

[00:27:18] That was something I had to learn, was to say, look, I have too much on my plate. I'm sorry, but I can't add more. And it needs to be clear. If you make sure that boundary is clear and known to other people, less likely you're going to hit their feelings by accident, more likely they're going to respect it and not push against it. People will respect boundaries if they know it. A lot of times people don't know it, and then you end up lashing back. And it's not fair to them. So we all need to do it. But I think saying no is a big thing. I think especially tomorrow.

[00:27:48] Oh, thank you. In my co-parenting and in my divorce and my communications, I think I told you that our divorce was very brutal. And I had three no's. I had no with explanation. I had no with, that's not going to work for me today, but thanks for asking. And I had a no that was a mic drop. Boom. No explanation. None. So I used to rotate those no's, and I learned to figure out which one worked for me.

[00:28:17] So, yeah, that was interesting. My kids, my men have about a half hour attention span, but man, that was fun. I really appreciate you coming back and doing it again. Oh, yeah, my last question. And so I think we thought of this before, but that my men have a hard time not being able to control what happens at the ex's house. That's huge with my men. Huge.

[00:28:40] And how can they, and they really can't factor that into a mediation because the two households are separate. How can you speak to them and say, hey, guys, you got to let it go because you can't control it? Yeah, I think the need, the need to control really is a need to protect, right? You want to make sure that you can protect them when they're not with you.

[00:29:04] If things are happening in the other parents' home that are dangerous to a child or unsafe, obviously you got to get the authorities involved in police, child protection services and all of that. Maybe ask for a welfare check. Go make sure things are okay. But just make sure that you have evidence that's credible. Don't just call the police on people like that. It's going to backfire. Too many people will start a CPS report that then comes back, says nothing happened, and it just backfires.

[00:29:32] So you've got to make sure that whatever, if something is happening to a child and the other person at home, that you address it properly. But that's the reason. Yeah. You got to let it go. Yeah, exactly. Back to that.

[00:29:47] If you are dealing with the other person who has moved on and they're doing certain things and their parenting style does not jive with yours, you disagree with how they are raising the child. Sometimes that's a huge one, common one. Mom is letting the child, the girl, the teenager, dress in a certain way. That's very provocative. That's come up multiple times.

[00:30:16] I'm going to read the book in my office. And so how do we address that? Can we address the mediation? Sure. We can put injunctions into court orders that says neither parent is allowed to do this. So whenever I tell people, hey, have you ever heard of an injunction? What's that? An injunction is basically something that cannot, is not allowed to happen. Okay. You can put injunctions about anything. Whether or not they're going to be enforceable in court is a different discussion.

[00:30:45] But for example, an injunction against the child not having their own bed. Just need. Neither parent is allowed to do that. An injunction against letting the child play with bones after 11 p.m. If it's mutual, neither parent, they're full of agreeing, neither parent will fall through that that happens. An injunction against drinking with the child while you're in possession.

[00:31:14] Or up to 12 hours before you get the child back home. Wow. Okay? Interesting. Many parents agree. That's a very common one. Especially because the truth is most parents who abuse the other one of abuse with alcohol have the same problem. Because they were doing it together. That's just my, I see it happening a lot. But you can put injunctions as long as you're willing to say it applies to you as well. Maybe that's the way to go around it.

[00:31:42] And court on court, have some say about what happens in your other parent's home. You both are agreeing. Here are some rules. We're both going to compile it. An injunction against talking to the child about y'all in the case. An injunction against talking bad about the other parent in front of the child while we're at home. Seriously? An injunction against spanking the child or disciplining the child. The list goes on and on.

[00:32:09] So I sometimes tell people, think of everything you could possibly want to stop happening. Let me go to the other room and present it. And then they'll probably take a bunch of things out. But sometimes it works out. All right, Mac. I appreciate it, man. It's always a pleasure talking to you. Never a dull moment. Thanks for presenting mediation and co-parenting. Tell the people out there how to find you. Yes. So MacPillie.com is the best place to go for everything.

[00:32:38] But I'm also a creator of InstantMediators.com. We have mediators who can be contacted to help you resolve your situation. I'm on there as well. So that's InstantMediators.com. And I'm on social media. Just find it at MacPillie.com. All right, sir. Hold on the line. Let's go ahead and sign up. And everybody have a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.