Is Your Child's Other Parent Difficult? Do Conflicts Keep Arising?

What a dilemma. You know that "bad-mouthing" your ex is a bad thing to do, but he or she seems impossibly selfish or thoughtless or aggravating. Here are recommendations from Bill Eddy of the High Conflict Institute.

1. Never say your ex has a “high-conflict” personailty when your kids can hear you.

2. DO teach them “four big skills for life.” These skills are:

• flexible thinking

• managing emotions

• moderate behaviors

• checking ourselves to see if we’re using these skills regularly

These four skills help you and your child in any relationship, whether it’s with a person you like or a person you don’t like. Learning them makes kids resilient. Let's face it: Everyone has to deal with difficult people from time to time. Let's teach our children how.

Here's an example of a teaching moment. “Did you notice how that guy on TV was just yelling at a store clerk. Would you say he was managing his emotions? Did he seem to get what he wanted? No, he didn’t. How do you think he could have used managed emotions to help solve his problem?” For more on this topic, see http://fairfaxmediator.com/what-to-tell-the-kids-about-a-high-conflict-c....