As a divorce lawyer and child advocate, I noticed two things: First, almost everyone who gets divorced desperately wants to do it without harming their kids. Second, a great many of them end up harming their kids anyway.
Some of them do it in obvious ways, like having red-faced screaming fights in front of the kids. Some of them do it in subtle ways, like asking the child as soon as he comes in the door, “did dad feed you while you were there?” We’ll talk about all these things in good time. But for this first post, let’s orient you and make sure you’re in the right place. Here are a few things to know about the blog.
1. You don’t have to be getting divorced.
We will talk a fair bit about divorce on here, but if you have never been married to your child’s other parent, this site is for you, too. If you are in a high-conflict relationship but not getting divorced, this site is for you, too. The only thing you won’t find here is advice on how to save your marriage, for two reasons. First, I don’t know jack about how to save a marriage (let’s face it, I’m a divorce lawyer). Second, I’m not here to save you marriage – I’m here to save your kids.
2. You do have to be willing to hear the truth.
Putting children first involves confronting some truths that a lot of people don’t want to hear. Here are a few especially unpopular ones:
- You are stuck with your child’s other parent FOREVER.
- Unless you were the victim of a sex crime, you chose this person to have a child with.
- Putting the children first is more important than being right.
- Going to court is not going to make you feel better.
I respect your time, and so I am not going to tiptoe around the truth with you. I respect you enough to tell if to you straight. If you’re willing to hear and to think about some difficult facts, you will save your kids a lot of pain.
3. I don’t give legal advice online.
I’m going to give a lot of very practical information on here about the law, child development, psychology, trauma, and conflict resolution. None of this is going to create an attorney-client relationship between us. If we had an attorney-client relationship, you would definitely know because you would have a signed contract in your hand and your wallet would feel a lot lighter. See? I told you I was going to tell it to you straight.
So who am I, anyway?
I’m a lawyer who has built my career on helping kids. I have over fifteen years of experience representing children as a guardian ad litem, which means I represent the best interests of children in abuse, neglect, delinquency, adoption, custody, and visitation cases. I’m a Certified Child Welfare Law Specialist through the National Association of Counsel for Children, and I’m on the Child Welfare and Foster Care Committee of the American Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys. I’m a big nerd when it comes to children’s well-being. I study the science of child development as well as the law of child welfare. I’ll share some of the books and resources I study with you on this blog.
I practice family law and nothing else, which means I’ve seen just about every crazy thing that people with kids do to screw it up, and even a few who get it right.
If you want to figure out how to keep your kids out of the middle of your breakup, you’re in the right place. Just by being here, wanting to learn more about how to put your kids first, you are an amazing parent. Pull up a chair. Let’s talk about the kids.
