Fatherhood During Divorce: Keeping Your Kids at the Center

I’m joined by Elisabeth Stitt, an author, educator, and certified life coach who specializes in helping divorced dads and single dads build a stable home culture. We dig into the mindset shift that changes everything: when you have half the time, you have to be twice as intentional. Elisabeth explains why kids aren’t actually chasing the house with the biggest TV or the most activities. What they want is predictability, clear expectations, and the steady feeling of “I know what it’s like to be at Dad’s house.”

We also get practical. Elisabeth shares a simple tool many dads overlook: a household binder or planner that tracks school details, routines, schedules, and contacts so your kids never feel like they have to “wait for Mom’s house” to feel oriented. Then we name two common traps in divorce parenting, guilt and bitterness, and how they can quietly drive decisions around bedtime, treats, control, and conflict. Finally, we talk about building a values-based home culture, so your parenting plan and custody time aren’t just logistics, they’re a foundation your kids can trust.

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If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

To learn more about Elisabeth and how she can help you, you can visit her website at: https://www.elisabethstitt.com/ or download her free guide at: https://dads.joyfulparentingcoaching.com/home-culture-pdf

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Steve Altishin 0:33
Hi everyone, I'm Steve Altitian, Director of Client Partnerships here at Pacific Cascade Legal. And today we have author, parent, educator, and certified life coach Elizabeth Stitt to talk about what you can do as a dad in the thick of a divorce to prioritize your relationship with your child. Hey Elizabeth, how are you doing today?

Elisabeth Stitt 0:54
Hey Steve, good to be here.

Steve Altishin 0:56
All right. Had a little glitch, but

Steve Altishin 0:58
now we're going. So before we start though, let's let's talk about yourself and how you got to become coach of mainly men.

Elisabeth Stitt 1:07
Sure, absolutely. So I came to parenting coaching in 2014 from 25 years of teaching public school. I taught kindergarten through 12th grade, everything except 11th grade in some capacity or another. Most of my time was with middle schoolers. And parents would come and the lament was, where did my sweet baby go? Like, where's the child I used to have? And my first question was always, well, how did you interact or deal with your child? What was your child's behavior like? How did you respond when they were a two, three, four-year-old? Because how you respond to a two, three, four-year-old has principles which really apply to how to respond to a 12, 13, 14-year-old. And if they described, sure, like I had a two, three, four-year-old, there were tantrums, there were meltdowns, but this was how we dealt with them and we tried to provide this kind of support, then I was like, okay, great. This is how you transfer that to these early adolescent years. If, on the other hand, they said, oh, it was a complete disaster, he ran the roost, he would have meltdowns that went on forever and ever. We didn't know what to do. We were just so grateful when somewhere along kindergarten, he outgrew them. I was like, all right, well, uh, we've got a lot of foundational building to do here. So I began to think about this more and more. I was assigned a job called outreach teacher. So I was part-time in the classroom, but part-time I was that person who was available on campus if a parent came in with an issue. If it was a social emotional issue and not sort of a principal logistics kind of issue, the office manager would say, Well, why don't you go see if you can talk to Mrs. Stitt? And that was the first time that as a teacher, I really had the opportunity to spend 30, 40, 45, 50 minutes just hearing what is it like to be a parent right now? And the themes that came forth, divorced or not divorced, overwhelmed, anxious, feeling guilty. And I, even though I was a parent myself, my child was a little bit older than my students. I had I just had no idea that this was so pervasive among parents. And I began to think, wow, I should do something about that. And then fortuitously, I met a life coach. I had never heard of a life coach, and she explained to me what the certification was, exam that you take at the end. But the critical thing was the idea that you get a life coach certification, but you can really apply your coaching certification to any area. And so all of a sudden, I saw a pathway for supporting parents in nuts and bolt, concrete parenting, and then not having to like become an MFT or a licensed clinical social worker, which would have required a lot more formal schooling. And 25 years of teaching, that's over 50,000 hours with direct contact with children, over 3,000 students. I had a wealth of deep practical hands-on experience to offer that didn't necessarily need the more in-depth training that a marriage family therapist or a licensed clinical social worker would provide. So that was the start of coaching. Yeah.

Elisabeth Stitt 4:39
And then the shift to working with men came because I was in a marketing class, and the first question they asked, they said, go back through your client list and identify with whom have you really enjoyed working and with whom have you felt effective. And I looked at that list and I was like, you know, I really like my divorce dads. And my single dads, both. Um, first of all, it's easier to coach one parent than it is to coach two at a time. And secondly, I find dads, they're just a little bit more action-oriented and a little bit more just ready to go, like, okay, let's try it. Let's see if that's a strategy that's going to work in my family.

Steve Altishin 5:26
Like you said, you know, you primarily work with divorced dads. And you talked about kind of how they think and and their kind of mindset. So, what mindset shifts do you try to create before you even start with strategies or systems or getting them going?

Elisabeth Stitt 5:44
Well, for most of them, they are going from two parents parenting. Very often, they have still been the primary breadwinner, they have still been doing a lot of outward energy, and they've been relying heavily on their partner to do the at-home energy. And now they're creating their own homes. And so there's just needs to be this awareness that when you have half the time to influence your kids, you need to be twice as intentional. Because when I'm talking to parents who are living together, a lot of the times what I'm saying is if you're trying to influence your child, you want to do it with dropper size drops of you know, building bit by bit, day by day. If you don't have your kids every day, there needs to be a shift there. So we we can't just sort of wait for the teachable moment to come along. We have to be more intentional about building those moments into our home routine.

Steve Altishin 6:50
It feels like dads sometimes it's like they've gotten now more jobs, and it kind of constrains their time, and you would think would make it more kind of like not ready. But but I remember you saying that that you know these constraints can actually clarify what really makes a difference.

Elisabeth Stitt 7:11
Yeah, absolutely.

Elisabeth Stitt 7:13
And the other piece that I might insert in here is the idea that over time you have a mother and a father, which means you have mom energy and dad energy present. So if both parents are kind of there, you can tag team each other in a way that allows that masculine or that feminine energy to show up when you need it because you're working in concert with your partner. But when you're in two different homes, the kid isn't only gonna just show up with the need for masculine energy on the days that they're at your house. Which means we need to expand our repertoire a little bit. We need to be able to tap into that more social emotional focus energy as well as our dad energy of like, let's get it done. Here's how you do it, let's go out. And so that's not as familiar to a lot of dads. And so we have to be more intentional about that piece as well.

Steve Altishin 8:09
Yeah, dads love to compete. And if I came in and I said, you know, this is like a competition, this other other home, other things are happening there. I gotta up my game or whatever. I mean, how do you deal with that?

Elisabeth Stitt 8:24
Well, first of all, let's acknowledge that it's a very human feeling. Our kids are so important to us. We care so much about our relationship with them. And I think dads may feel, I think culture says that moms are more important. And in fact, a lot of the work that I do is to remind dads like, no, no, you may not be as hands-on, especially in those early young years, but you are a hundred percent critical. And the research shows over and over that where dads are present, kids thrive at higher levels. So kids are not looking for the house that has bells and whistles. It doesn't have to be the bigger TV, the better game, game console, the better trips or vacations. They're looking for safety, really. And so they're looking for a steady home, one where they can anticipate what is it gonna feel like to walk into dad's house, and over time that feeling is gonna be consistent. So we really want kids to go like I'm safe, I'm stable, I know what I'm gonna get. And that is infinitely more important to them than like, okay, kids, we're gonna have a great time. We're gonna go to the mini golf, and then we're gonna get pizza, and then there's a movie this afternoon. That kind of frenetic energy might be fun in the short run, but it doesn't feel safe and grounded to kids. And especially during the divorce, when there's so many open questions about how things are gonna land in the end, the more solidity that we can promise, the more clarity that we we can develop about like this is dad's house. And at dad's house, this is who we are, this is how we show up for each other, this is what it feels like to be here, this is what we can expect.

Steve Altishin 10:37
Being on the other side, which is a kind of a weird part of what it you know, the woman, the mom, it seems like you have particular insight, knowing what mom things that dads don't think they can do, but they can do.

Elisabeth Stitt 10:53
Typically, stereotypically, but let's just go for it for the moment. Women are more emotionally in tuned, they have spent more of their energy reading the room, seeing where

Elisabeth Stitt 11:06
things fit in, tracking kids' up and down emotions, and therefore have put more energy into, perhaps, and not uniformly, because there are tons of moms out there who go from zero to yelling, but have perhaps put more energy into what's a way that I could approach my child in this situation that is going to help them to feel safe and connected. So, you know, that's a big one. And a lot of it, and I'd say the other piece is that very often moms are the holders of all the details.

Intro/Outro 11:38
Yeah.

Elisabeth Stitt 11:39
You know, and every once in a while I get an example of this from a dad that I'm talking to where I'm just kind of like, what? So for example, I talked to a dad. It's like, okay, so you have a five-year-old. Is she in kindergarten? He's like, I think so. What do you mean you think so? Well, she might be in that other thing. Do you mean transitional kindergarten? Yes, I think she's in transitional kindergarten. And of course, inside my head, I'm going, there is not a mother on the face of this planet who would not know what class her child was in, who the teacher was, when the class was at the school, when they had break, what time was pickup, which days they have music, right? So in general, moms have been the keepers of those kinds of details. And so one of the things that I work with on dads is like just nuts and bolts. I have a household planner that I developed for them so that there's a concrete space to write down those kinds of details and to print it out and put it in a binder because that then becomes a concrete representation to the kids of, oh, like dad's dad's got the binder. Dad knows he's in the know. He knows when the soccer schedule is and which day is pizza day, and whether or not you need to bring extra money for that at school. And that helps them to feel safe and familiar. Like they don't have to wait until they get back to mom's house to get access to that kind of information. So when you're like especially your little kid, right? So when your four-year-old goes, like, Thursday's pizza day, you're going, Yes, Thursday's pizza day. It's already paid for. Don't worry, you'll get your pizza. Instead of going, oh, Thursday's pizza day, that creates anxiety in your child.

Steve Altishin 13:30
You talked about there are traps that you see your divorced dads fall into, and maybe even not understanding, recognize that they're falling into them. And it really is the two sort of biggies in in divorce, guilt and bitterness you talked about.

Elisabeth Stitt 13:47
Yes. Yeah, exactly. And it's not unique to dads. This is one which I see women fall into all the time, too. But parenting from guilt and parenting from bitterness are never going to serve the child in the way that we want to serve our children. And they're particularly insidious because the actions that we take when we are parenting from guilt and from bitterness, they can both look like care and love. So parenting from guilt often looks looks like the generosity piece. The I'm not there, I don't see them all the time, I broke their home apart. Even if you're not the person who instigated the divorce, as far as your children are concerned, your children don't actually care. As far as your children are concerned, the covenant has been broken because the promise of family is mom, dad, child together. And so no matter why the split happened, the covenant has been broken. And so we feel guilty about that. And so we overcompensate. We make every day a circus day. Every day is an adventure day. Every day is a we're going to go out and we're going to do something. We're going to let bedtime slide because I don't get to put you to bed every night. And I love this bedtime with you. And I want to have it with you. So instead of preserving your sleep, I'm going to milk it and I'm going to read you three more stories, sing you two more songs, lie down with you for another 20 minutes. That's out of guilt and trying to make up for what they don't have. That does not serve our children. Children need clear expectations. They need consistency. And it's somewhat child personality dependent. You may have a child who can handle a little less sleep, a little bit of flexibility around that. But on the whole, children do better when we get them to sleep at a consistent time. Their quality of sleep is better. They wake up, they're more ready to learn and to deal with their day. Same thing with eating and the extra treats and the extra sugar. There's nothing wrong with the occasional ice cream, the occasional junk food. But when we're just giving into it, and I feel like today's kids are getting smarter and smarter about pushing that button and manipulating it. If you loved me, you would take me to McDonald's. If, or worse, and and this this one I've heard come up, that if you don't let me, if you don't get me that, I'm going to commit suicide. I'm going to kill myself. Well, they may be saying it as a joke. They may be saying it because it's language that they've heard on the playground. But as a parent, that stabs deeply. And we can't really ignore that kind of language, given that they are in a vulnerable state, going through a very difficult time. So that's very provoking to a parent. And so they may be more likely to give in because of fear. So that's sort of guilt.

Intro/Outro 16:46
Yeah.

Elisabeth Stitt 16:47
Bitterness looks like so much anger that you've been put in this situation, and so much anger at the other person's taking control of anything, that you desperately try to reach back for that control. And you try to control what's going on at the other house. And you get very locked in to place about what works and what's right. When actually, and this is one thing I know, one thing that was I taught the whole seventh grade, which meant that if the Smith family had three kids, I got to see Johnny and then James and then Joey, which meant I got to see three different kids, three different personalities, how do they interact with their parents differently? I also saw many, many different families, which means I saw that effective parenting can look really different in different households. And so when we get super locked in tight about what should be happening at the other household or what good parenting is, like again, that comes across in our energy and the way we're parenting and the messaging to our kids, and that anger and bitterness is corrosive.

Steve Altishin 18:03
Yeah. You are what I think is healthy, different approach than a lot of attorneys, therapists are you know talking to their kids about, and is make the homes the same. It's like if this kid goes to bed here and has this kind of routine, it should be the same in that house. And and you're it sounds like you're kind of saying it doesn't have to be the same. That's not necessarily the goal.

Elisabeth Stitt 18:32
It's certainly not the goal if it's one parent driving and putting pressure on the other parent. I would say that there are a lot of things that are just easier if they're the same. It's like if bedtime is the same, meals and expectations around food are somewhat the same, it's probably going to be easier for each parent in both households. But in terms of the psychological impact on the child, I suppose my perspective of being a teacher and knowing and watching kids learn that the way that you can behave in Mr. Alterston's class is different than the way you can behave in Mrs. Stitt's class. And that when you walk through that door, you code switch. And parents talk about or professionals talk about this as being really hard. And I think it's challenging, but actually kids code switch all the time. And if they're code switching to an environment that may be different from their other parents, but it feels safe and stable and good, then really we're just talking about little details.

Steve Altishin 19:38
Yeah.

Elisabeth Stitt 19:39
And that's not as important. And I encourage parents, you know, if if a kid tries to pull the butt mom lets me, you can go. That's great that you have that at your mom's house. That's mom's way of doing thing, and that's just fine. But you said that we couldn't do it. Well, because to me this is important. And so at this house, we're gonna do it this way. Then is mom wrong? No, mom's not wrong. She's just different, and there are different ways of doing things, and you get the advantage of experiencing them both ways, kiddo. And as you grow up, you can decide which one works better for you.

Steve Altishin 20:12
I love that. It just gives options and more growth in different directions, it feels like to me. You you must get dads who are hard to get started. You know, kind of where do I start? I mean, you know, I I don't even know how to start any of these things. And and you talk about a couple of practical things that divorced dads can do to kind of start building this stronger home, this stronger culture for their kids. And could you kind of talk about that? Because that seems like that's the it's like getting that first step.

Steve Altishin 20:50
Sure.

Elisabeth Stitt 20:50
And I'd actually say we start high and low. We start big picture, and we also start low-hanging fruit. Things like the binder, that's low-hanging fruit. That's like, let's just do it. Let's just make sure that you have all the phone numbers, all the schedules, all the information you need, because that already is going to make things a lot calmer and smoother. Low-hanging fruit. But where dads really show up as the architect of the family are the big overarching ideas. And for that, I want it to feel consistent when I come into dad's home. And so I want a few values to really be driving things. And it doesn't matter as much what those values are. It's more like we have a place to hang all the other information and all the other interactions. I'm going to use respect as an example because that was in my classroom. I had three rules let the teacher teach, let kids learn, be respectful. But that be respectful did a ton of work. And I spent a lot of time with my students when I wasn't teaching curriculum, because just as you To create a home culture, you have to create a classroom culture. And so we talk about what is respect for self? What is respect for others? What is respect for property? What does that look like, sound like, feel like? And as you begin to build up this value, in this case respect, but I've had parents choose hard work, I've had them choose creativity, kindness, it it's less the value and it's more how we build it up as a clear sense of who we are and how we're going to behave. Because when you have that clarity and you could almost make it into the family motto, we are the altitude, we are respectful. That means we A, B, and C. Now, when I kind of enter a parenting situation, I can look and say, How do I show up respectfully here? How do I build the respect in the situation? What I might do for that. And then you build up a rule or a ritual around it. So it might be like if I want to be respectful about music in the car, what might that sound like or look like? Well, it might sound like and look like taking turns, and not just putting Rafi in for the 389th millionth time, but teaching the kids like, like, you know what? One day a week we're gonna listen to dad's music because it's respectful for you guys to be open to what I like to listen to. And you're gonna listen to the 14-year-old's music, and we're gonna listen to the six-year-old's music. And so now we have a ritual, but it's it's held in and connected to this concept of respect. So it's not a random rule. It's not like, okay, this is just how we're gonna solve this right now. It's these small, consistently repeated moments that uh match the value or come into the value.

Steve Altishin 23:50
I think that's so important. Building respect, which is kind of the first thing that gets torn down in a divorce, especially between the divorcing couple, rebuilding that and building that up is it's like you said, it's kind of like the base that you can work everything else with. I'd love that. We

Steve Altishin 24:10
are unfortunately running out of time, but before we go, I would like to see if you would want to tell anyone how they can get a hold of you, talk to you more about this, and maybe even sign up with you. How would they get a hold of you?

Elisabeth Stitt 24:26
Yes, thank you for asking. I'm Elizabeth with an S, not a not a Z. That's the first thing to remember because often people, there's another Elizabeth Stitt out there, she's an educator too. So remember that S. And actually, current website is Elizabeth Stitt.com. I am in the middle of transferring it over to joyfulparentingcoaching.com. But searching for my name, Elizabeth Stitt, is going to get you there the most quickly. And the first step is a complimentary getting to know you call, where it's just that. It's just an opportunity for me to hear what's showing up in your household, what's your situation. And if I feel like we're a good match, then I share with you what are the various ways that I work with parents.

Steve Altishin 25:10
That's a great way to do it. Yes. And and again, thank you so much for being here today. You to talk about what dad's can do when they're in the thick of divorce, everything's going crazy, but be able to start to prioritize their relationship with their child, which sometimes becomes the last thing that's prioritized. And that's when it all really goes bad. So, really, thank you so much for joining us today.

Elisabeth Stitt 25:36
Yeah, you're so welcome. My pleasure. And down in the information below, we're gonna have a link for a PDF that I have on creating home culture that highlights some of the ideas we talked about today and adds a few more.

Steve Altishin 25:50
Oh, perfect, perfect. Everyone else, thank you for joining us today. If anyone has any further questions on today's topic, you can either post it here or get connected with Elizabeth yourself. And until next time, stay safe, stay happy, and be well.

Intro/Outro 26:07
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