Episode 71: Conscious Co-Parenting with Ashley Wood (Divorce Series No. 1)

One of the things that we focus on a lot here at The Balanced Parent is conscious communication. Often that comes up in the context of couples, but the skills I teach are just as important for families that are in the midst of separation or divorce or are looking for support in navigating co-parenting with a former partner.

This stage is difficult. It brings in fear, depression, and anxiety towards what will happen to us in the future. If you are experiencing this right now, I want you to know that you aren't alone & there is help & support available. And so for two weeks, we will have a Divorce Series wherein you will get resources on how to navigate through this stage especially 1) how to consciously co-parent with a former spouse, and 2) how to understand our children's feelings and give them the support that they need.

Even if you aren't currently in the midst of these life changes and transitions, these episodes are filled with golden nuggets on setting healthy emotional boundaries with ourselves and others. I highly recommend you give them a listen, there is something there for everyone!

And so for the first episode in this series, I’m bringing in one of my favorite Instagram and TikTok accounts, Ashley Wood of @theconsciouscoparent. She is a coach who specializes in working with mothers of young children who are overwhelmed and worried about the emotional and financial drain of divorce and feel hopeless about the idea of co-parenting. She also has a great podcast called Split: The After Ever After Podcast. She helps moms who have difficulty leaving relationships to overcome and navigate divorce. And in this episode, she will give us tips and advice on how to consciously co-parent with our former spouse.

Here is an overview of what we talked about:

  • How to preserve our dignity and relationship with our kids after a divorce

  • How to co-parent with a former spouse

  • What are the common misunderstandings in co-parenting

  • How to communicate with a co-parent and getting on the same page

If you are in need of more support as you navigate through divorce, you can find more resources from Ashley here: linktr.ee/theconsciouscoparent. Her Instagram account is @theconsciouscoparent so do follow her as well.


TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.

Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go! 

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of the balanced parent podcast, we're going to talk about co-parenting with one of my favorite instagram and Tiktok accounts. This is Ashley of The Conscious Co-Parent. She's also got a great podcast called Split That After ever After podcast and she is so much fun. Her content is amazing and I'm so excited to have her here for this conversation. Ashley, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do? 

Ashley: Absolutely. Thank you for having me here and thank you for that lovely intro. I mean if that doesn't hype a person up, I will.

Laura: Your reels and your TikTok are so much fun, I'm so excited to be talking with you and have everybody know you who needs help with co-parenting. 

Ashley: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, so I do love TikTok, even just as a quick scroll through my page, we'll see that. So I actually work in the car business. I've been in the automotive industry for about 10 years, so that's my day job. But since I split with my ex almost two years ago and I'm now a co parenting toddler mom about part way through my divorce journey, I found coaching, so divorce coaching and became really passionate about that. I met a local mediator, we've become friends and we started this podcast and now in training to become a divorce coach myself because it's just something that I'm really, really passionate about and I think that as difficult processed separation and divorce, it could be so much easier and people can transition from like survival mode to truly thriving so much faster if they have the right support. So that's a little bit about me. 

Laura: I love that. You know, I think we need support at all big life transitions and divorce is a huge one. It's a huge identity shift. It's a huge shift for your kids and for your family and why not have support for that, you know? 

Ashley: Yes, absolutely. I think that in the early stages, much like any difficult transition, like you said, people are really stuck in there, like reptilian brain, you know, their fear, fight or flight response. And so they're not curious about possibilities. They're not necessarily reaching out to all our exploring all avenues that they could take to get the job done and instead they're just very impulsive just in that survival mode, ironically, that's the time when you need the most support so. 

Laura: Of course you do it and it makes sense to like, as this is all happening. There's so much feelings, there's so many, there's stigma and shame layered in there and there's fears about yourself and what it will mean, what it means about you, what it means for your family. There's all these thoughts that get flowing and you know, I didn't even know that divorce coaching was a thing. So I'm so glad to know that it is. That's awesome. 

Ashley: Yeah, I think it is a loss, right? Like it's grief. It totally is, you know, for your relationship, for your identity. Like you said for me, it was like the hopes and dreams of what, how I wanted my daughter to be raised and what her idea of family would mean. I grew up with my parents had divorced and that I never wanted that. I mean, nobody goes into a marriage and has kids thinking, okay, yeah, we're going to split in a few years and yeah, so, 

Laura: But statistically speaking, that's what happens a lot of the time too, you know. Yeah. And so then the question comes, how do we do it well, right? So how do we do it in a way that preserves our dignity, preserves our kids, relationships with ourselves and with their parent, preserves kind of the common humanity in a family? Do you have any ideas like how do you do that? How do you dissolve a marriage in a way that kind of builds a foundation for kind of a shared meaning around what this new way of being in a family is? 

Ashley: Yeah, I would not label this as necessarily an easy task, but it can be done with, you know, a few things. One having the support like you said, also, one thing that really helped me and now seeing as I'm working with others within this community is shifting from like the story of divorce and what has happened in the past to the decisions of divorce and focusing forward on how you want to look back at who you were during this time and who you want to be because a lot of people, you know, they're holding on to all of this resentment towards their partner, all of this sadness, all these negative emotions. And it's not to say to just shove those deep down and not address them. Like certainly you need to do that, but it's focusing forward every step of the way. How do I want my future to look? How do I want my kids to grow up through this because this is happening, the relationship is over. But what can I do today and moving forward to limit conflict and ensure that I can still live a happy life and my children can still live a happy life and also your former spouse too, Right?

Laura: Yeah, because of course we want good things for them too for the most part, most of the time. And I heard a piece and then that’s what you're saying too, that it seems like taking really good care of yourself, being very clear on what your work is to do and what's not the work of the children. What, where that work has to happen on your own with a therapist or with a coach, right? And having good boundaries around that process.

Ashley: Absolutely, Like I before this process, I really did not have a lot of boundaries in any of my relationships. So that was a big positive for me coming out of this and where that started to take place is when I realized how little control I had moving forward and I realized obviously when we were separating that when my former spouse had our daughter, he would be parenting his way, but I don't think I actually understood that until it started happening. And especially for people who are coming out of the relationship where there's very little trust, maybe there was an affair or even just poor behavior between spouses. It's very hard to then and trust that person with the other person you care the most about in the entire world because possible. Yeah. And I kept me, stuck in pure grief for quite a while. You know, I remember like there was about a week where I got really sick and I couldn't even get out of bed and I had always like, understood what real depression was, like, I thought I understood and I could empathize with people and they said like they were paralyzed with it, but like, that happened to me, it's really important to have support in place in that self care and have someone like a coach or a therapist to help you along the way. 

Laura: So how did you get past that point of just, I don't know if I can handle entrusting my kids to this other person when we're so different. I want to talk about differences in parenting styles, you know, more generally, but that is almost like a mindset kind of thing that probably has to get worked through. How did you do that work? 

Ashley: Yeah, it really is. And you know, I will say like, my daughter loves her dad and he loves her and I'm really happy that we're able to support each other so that, you know, we're both actively in her life, so I'm very happy about that. But like I said, there was little to no trust between us at the time we had horrible conflict. It was court ordered by a judge that we had to have someone help with those exchanges. So you know, without getting into the full backstory, just a pin, a picture of like things were pretty rough. But you know, realizing that legally if your child is like quote and quote, physically safe and not in harm or your former partner hasn't done anything to that you've been able to document as that the child is an unsafe environment, then that's it. 

You don't really have a lot of control there. So it's accepting that. But then getting to that acceptance piece was again, looking at how do I want our daughter to grow up and how is she when she's with her dad and taking myself out of the equation? Because when I separated, what had happened between us and I looked at how are they when they spend time together, she was happy to see him. She was happy when she came back. Obviously some transitionary things. You know, she's very little. So like that when she would come back home after a weekend, she might have a few tantrums just because it was a big change. But overall she was happy. It's really dividing what has happened between you and the other person. And looking at how they are as a parent and what the relationship is between them and your shared child.

Laura: Yeah. I love what you're saying. It's almost like, you know when we have all of this stuff between us and the other parent, it's like taking off a pair of sunglasses so you can see the situation clearly so we can see clearly what's happening between them and there's a bit of the releasing of control. I mean, I think parenthood is a constant lesson in the art of letting go of another opportunity to learn that lesson of releasing control, accepting what is and then finding where your power is. Where do I get to craft a story that's meaningful for me, right? That's what I want, what I choose.

Ashley: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's why again, going back to support is so key because a lot of people, even if they're not necessarily going into litigation, but they meet with a lawyer and have a consultation and find out what are my legal rights. What are their legal rights and if there's been some sticky situations in the past between you and your partner and you may have some concerns and you have a lawyer tell you while you know, this might be a 50/50 access situation regardless of how you may feel about that person and the lack of trust. That is really hard to absorb.

So having someone like you said, who can be your thinking partner and help you get curious and more open-minded about, okay, let's just see where this goes and giving it a chance and then again, not focusing on what's happened in the past. I just think that's really important.

Laura: I think so too. You know, I heard you say just a little bit ago too, about you talked really openly and candidly about how hard it has been for you. And I really appreciate that message because I think that sometimes we can get like rose-colored glasses kind of view on social media and stuff. And I really appreciate that about your content, that you give a much more realistic view of the parts of it. And we get to see how it's hard sometimes, but we also get to see the benefits of putting a kid first, putting the relationship that the child has with each parent ahead of our other adult concerns. What are some of the things that like that you feel like parents need to know about co-parenting? Like the, what are the myths that you like to bust? What are the, you know, the common misunderstanding? 

Ashley: So there's a lot on social media, like you just said about co-parenting, which I think it's great that it takes away a lot of the shame and guilt associated with divorce when kids are involved. So I think that's awesome. But the part that I don't like and why I am really building up my continent with, you know, my experience is you don't have to be best friends and that is for things to be successful and to have low conflict and to have children who feel equally loved by their parents and feel like they still have a family unit, you don't have to be besties. In fact, that can quite often lead to lots of conflict and the people that I've spoken with and you know, the podcasting that I'm doing now myself, that's not like the norm. That's why I try to do a lot of videos about, you know, I did one recently where my ex and my fiance are just having a quick chat in the driveway after pick up and drop off and that was a win. We couldn't have done that a year ago. This was even just being able to do pick up and drop off between the two of us and not have a third party anymore, like is great. So I think it's celebrating those little winds is really important and it builds your confidence back up.

I know when I was going through this, like my confidence as a parent was at an all time low, I just felt like I'd let my daughter down and I had ruined her life. But that's not the case. I think you should just strive to do whatever necessary to keep conflict low because studies and research shows that it's not necessarily the divorce itself that determines the child's resilience. It's the amount of conflict within the family between the parents. 

Laura: Yeah, I'm so glad you're mentioning that research. I think that that's something that are still so misunderstood about divorce and separating. I know that there are people listening right now who are contemplating it interesting in a home that's filled with conflict and not great interactions. And they're staying for their kids because they love them and they want to give them a family. You know, that they thought they were supposed to have the research really is pretty clear that it divorce itself is not the problem. It's the conflict. That's the problem. So, and regardless of whether you stay together, you don't, you've got to learn new conflict skills, right? Regardless. 

Ashley: For sure, Jennifer and I on our podcast, we talk a lot heavily about communication skills. And another kind of benefit to me in this whole journey is learning how to be a better listener and how to be an active listener and how to communicate my needs clearly and again, bring it up again, but boundaries, boundaries and respecting boundaries. 

Yeah. And so, you know, sometimes have people slide into my DMS like I just texted on this now he's saying that or she's saying that and it's like, okay, first of all you're texting, why are we texting? 

Laura: You don't need to? Yeah. So what do we need to do? How should we communicate with our co-parents? 

Ashley: So there's a few options, like some people will use apps such as like our Family Wizard, which I don't use personally. It's an app that you can text through. It logs, everything attracts everything. And it also filters out any inappropriate language which can be helpful. But I think the greater takeaway in forms of communication is to do whatever you need to do to ensure that you are responding and not just reacting a lot of the time when you get a text, it can derail so quickly because you're making assumptions about what was said and you're replying to quickly and more often than not, we're not taking the time to really think about what the person is trying to say and what we want to say back to focus forward. 

So I would personally recommend, first of all, is it child-centered? Because if it's not really don't need to get into that also, it's a lot. But this is where boundaries come in because I would never say you want to just go someone entirely, but you need to make it very clear if you can early on that I think it's best that for right now we just try to focus on only communicating about what the kids need, their immediate needs are and giving yourself some space in the beginning, know that it's definitely possible you can maybe grow a bit of a friendship later on and have more chit chat later on, but your emotions are so intense in the beginning, like you need that space. 

Laura: They may always be intact. 

Ashley: Always be. And that's ok. 

Laura: Yeah. An intense relationship with this person, a deep love person that created a family. Yeah, so things might always be there. Okay, so then maybe after we're out of kind of the intense conflict stage, we've done some of the pieces that you're talking about here, where we've had really conscious communication, we've had really good boundaries and maybe we're moving into like where we can feel a little bit more comfortable. Are there ways to kind of get on the same page as parents when you're co-parenting? You know what I mean? So we talked about before, you know when we just have to kind of accept that they are going to do things different. I believe that to be true. Even when you are parenting in the same house there's a piece of staying in your own lane no matter where your parenting partner is parenting, you know.

Ashley: I think it really depends on who you were as a couple and the reasons why you divorced in the first place you know maybe if it was just like lack of communication mostly and like you know over the years that builds up and then there was just no going back. You probably have a much greater chance of being able to. Like you said, once things have settled you have a parenting plan in place, Your divorce is finalized. Maybe you both have new partners. Is there a chance that your kid tells you something that happened at your former spouses and you want to have a discussion about it with them and it goes well, you can set time aside, make time for a discussion on at that time and move forward. But you are coming from a really toxic relationship or someone with a personality disorder. There was some abuse like you don't necessarily have to full-on parallel parent where you basically don't talk at all, but I think that in order to keep things as low conflict as possible unless it's a health or safety issue, you should really try to stay in your own lane.

Like just as an example, I'm in a fairly good place with my ex now, but I catch myself wanting to insert myself into his parenting. Still, quite a bit like we had a little bit of chit-chat today, just on the phone about something and he told me about my daughter throwing a tantrum over the weekend and he said he had to put her on a time out. You know, I told her you're going right to your bed, and immediately I wanted to be like, can we just not call it like, you're going to bed? Like, were you doing the 123? Like I, you know, I want to go into that, but I knew if I did that, there was a chance you might react by you're questioning me, you're questioning my parenting and ultimately I know she was okay. They adapt to their circumstances, right? Like, I mean, even who my daughter is at daycare is probably a little bit different than who she is with me, her teacher and I both have rules, but they're not exactly the same. And that's OK because she learns different things from daycare and different things from me, and that's what makes us all well rounded. I don't know if that really answers.

Laura: No, that's so helpful to think about those things and there's a piece of it to that. Like we can't be responsible for all of the relationships our children are going to have were responsible for the relationship we have. We can absolutely do things to protect the relationships that they have with other people. I mean, and this goes for everybody in our kids' lives, had to figure this out with my own parents that they would do things that I did not like that were not in line. 

And I had to take out like where is the line, where is damage occurring, where is hurt occurring? What is my role in this is my role to set a limit. Helping my daughter set a boundary is my role to comfort my daughter afterwards, because my daughter has some really firm body boundaries. She does not like to be touched unexpectedly. She has a heightened nervous system from some birth trauma and it's just there, you know, And so there's one grandparent in particular who touches her unexpectedly and it's really hard on her nervous system. A lot of my work with her has been rather than focusing on that grandparent has been focusing on my daughter. Yes. How do you set that boundary? How do you communicate that you know?

Ashley: To empowering her? I think it depends on that note and I love everything that you just said they're like because my daughter is very young, there's only so much that I can do with her, but I know with older Children absolutely, it's having the discussion with them and asking them what they're okay with and what they're not okay with because sometimes, like I have a lot of people say my ex is asking our child to call the new partner, mom or dad or some name, that they're not okay within the thing. I always think and I know this is painful. I know it's a sensitive thing, but it's like, okay, well how does the child feel about it? Is the kid okay with it? Is the kid maybe saying something different to you because they know you're not okay with it. Like it's we have to ask these questions. We have to ask what's best for a child, not like what are we getting upset about? What are we inserting into this situation?

Laura: Like getting our ego out of it about the kids so hard to do that. That feels like it must be just like this, like rubber band that just wants to bring back right into place and you're kind of just having to push it off to the side and it's kind of just always giving you a bit of resistance. I don't know. 

Ashley: Yeah, I mean even when you were describing the situation with your daughter and the grandparents, I mean it makes me think of, you know grandparents and my own situation and I love my parents too, but you know, sometimes they do things differently and it's so hard, it's so hard not to say anything because it's just it's recognizing like okay, I'm having this thought, I'm kind of being triggered by this, but it's because I love my kids and I just want what's best for them, even just taking a minute to acknowledge that it brings me a little sense of relief, like, OK, I care, therefore I'm doing a great job. 

Laura: Yes. And that little touch of compassion for yourself to that sounds like a little mini compassion break that you're giving yourself just a little bit of like, okay, that's what this feeling is, Love and protection and safety and wanting to show up for my kid, okay, I'm a good person and now and then we can lead when we bring a little bit of compassion, just a snitch to our conversations, we show up differently. Our tone of voice is different or softened and we get a better result, don't you think? 

Ashley: Absolutely. And you said yeah, having compassion for ourselves and for the other person in case of divorce and co-parenting. Having compassion for the other parent. I mean, even professionals, like I'm sure even you you know, you've been faced with situations as a parent where you're like, I think I know what to do, but I don't like I don't know 100%. I'm kind of just trying my best here and we don't know for sure on so many things I guess is what I'm trying to get at. And so even though you know, we want to say to the other parent, I think you should be doing it this way well why like a control thing or what?

And then I think like over time if you don't make a mountain out of a molehill on every little thing, then when you're faced with something that just really isn't sitting well with you for a few days and you really want to address it, then you have a much greater chance even in a very high conflict situation of having the other person give you the opportunity to calmly voice your concerns and if you're keeping the concern like child-focused, I think you're doing this wrong. You know, instead of that, maybe I have concerns about our child, you know about this area of their development or this piece, can we talk about that? Or even sometimes I ask my ex if it's something I that's just not sitting well with me, I'll say, “Hey, I've been really struggling with this. Like, have you noticed that with her? Has she been acting out with you in this way?” And I just asked, Yeah. And then it's not confrontational, it's just a conversation and it's just both. It's me saying, hey, like I'm not perfect, can we work together on this? 

Laura: Yeah, it's teamwork and that's what that felt like to me when you were saying it. Yeah, I love that you're kind of touching on all of the forces of conscious communication, right? So I'm getting really clear on what it is that you want to say what your goals are that you're focused on your child. Getting curious what could be going on. You know, what do I like, curious with yourself, curious with compassion. I mean you're touching on all of them. The fourth scene there is connection and I think like if we're prioritizing the connection that our child has with us and with their partner with their other parent, regardless of how we feel about the other parent, that connection, that parent-child relationship is important, right? Yes. And regardless of how we feel, we've got a, it's the relationship that we have to support, right? The connection. Yeah.

Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. You nailed it all of that? Yes. Okay, good. 

Laura: Okay. Well I really appreciate this conversation. I feel like we don't get to talk about it enough. And so I'm really glad that you're putting this information out there for parents who really, really need it. Where can people find you? I know I mentioned your, your handle on Instagram. I kind of like, I'm just out on Instagram today. You know, these days you're the conscious co-parent on Instagram. Yes. Where can they find you? You know on Tiktok or your podcast. 

Ashley: Thank you. So yeah, the podcast one more time is split the after ever after podcast and that is with myself and my co-host is a family law mediator and she's just amazing. She specializes in really high conflict situations and just a communication expert all around and we have some really great guests on that show. So you can check that out. But the best way to connect with me is really you're on Instagram, go to Instagram and in my bio I have a link to all my other media outlets. So Tiktok, Facebook, and a bunch of links as well. Website is in the works but not up yet. 

Laura: Yeah I hope that you have a course coming out soon. There's something, at some point, a way people can learn with you. 

Ashley: Yes, thank you. My coaching certification will be done in April and then I have a certain number of hours until fully fully certified and ready to take clients. 

Laura: So good for you. Okay? It's exciting times gay everybody get over there and follow her so you can get on the ground floor of all the beautiful things that she's building. Actually, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. It's a conversation that is so important and it was so helpful to have you talk with us. Thank you. 

Ashley: Thank you, Laura. I love what you put out into the world equally if not more. So it was an honor to be here with you today. 

Laura: Well, thank you so much. This is so fun. 

Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from. 

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um, and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too. 

All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this.