Divorce 101: Co-Parenting Experts Help Couples Like Jon and Kate Gosselin
Expert says criticizing an ex is "Sophie's Choice" for children and "cruel."
Oct. 16, 2009 — -- As Jon and Kate Gosselin's ongoing public divorce demonstrates, keeping this amicable during a split is not always easy.
Unfortunately many other couples, such as Susan and Blaise Ebert, also know the challenges of separation.
After their divorce, the the Eberts spent eight years fighting in front of their two sons. The California couple had eight marriage counselors and, for a time, even a restraining order separating the two.
But, now, the Eberts all get together for pleasant movie nights, and both parents cheer their sons at soccer games.
The key to the drastic reversal? The Eberts took co-parenting classes, an answer more and more divorced Americans are looking to when raising children is too hard to do together.
The point of co-parenting classes is to deal with the conflicts that emerge after a split surrounding the kids.
"I think a lot of people come in here thinking we're teaching them parenting itself, and we like to say in no way is this a parenting class," said family mediator Judy Morton of the Mediation Center of Charlottesville in Virginia. "This isn't about how to parent your child but rather how to deal with a situation when the parents do not live together."
Before the Eberts took the co-parenting classes at Solutions for Families of San Bernardino, they said they were unwittingly putting their children, Zach, 10, and Nash, 16, in an unfair position.
"I gave the boys the child support check and said, 'Give it to your mom,'" Blaise Ebert said. "I told the boys, 'Boy, you mom just lied to me.' I kind of got them in on it and they were looking up to me, and here I am feeding them this kind of stuff. I should have kept it up on an adult level and I didn't."
Susan Ebert admitted she "wasn't looking to [her] kids first."
"I was busy about the business of being mad and getting a divorce," she said.
Everything changed after a judge ordered the couple to take co-parenting classes.
"The class put us in the position of having to work together," Susan Ebert said. "It gave us the tools, and the first night we had to have dinner together. We had to spend time together. We had to interact together. We had to solve the issues."
