Beyond Being Heard: Children’s Voices and the PARENT Framework

How do we make room for children’s voices in divorce without asking them to choose sides or carry responsibility for adult decisions?

In this episode, Tracy Callahan explores the difference between asking children what they think and helping them feel heard. Drawing on research discussed by Dr. Michael Saini, she considers how parents can invite their children’s perspectives, understand the concerns beneath their words, and explain how those concerns informed a decision.

For divorce coaches and other dispute resolution professionals, this work often begins with one parent. Tracy walks through DCA®’s PARENT framework to show how coaching can help a parent recognize conflict patterns, question assumptions, and bring a clearer understanding of their child’s needs into parenting conversations and mediation.

In this episode:

• Why children can have meaningful input while adults remain responsible for decisions.
• How everyday conversations can make room for a child’s experience.
• What changes when listening becomes gathering evidence against the other parent.
• How to explore the concern beneath “I don’t want to go.”
• When professional support or a formal process may be appropriate.
• How one parent’s participation in coaching can create opportunities for problem solving.

A question to take into your practice:
How can you help a parent listen to understand their child’s experience without needing the answer to support their position?

Continue learning

Coaching Parents Through Conflict is a six-week live course using the PARENT framework, with case examples and practice exercises focused on reducing escalation, strengthening parenting plans, and keeping children at the center.

Mondays, November 9–December 14, 2026
1:00–2:30 p.m. Eastern

Resources referenced

• Michael A. Saini, “Children’s Voices in Divorce: Beyond the Right to Be Heard.”
• Rejaän, Z., Mol, C. R., van Dijk, R., & van der Valk, I. E. (2026). A systematic review of children’s views and experiences regarding their participation in divorce-related decision-making at home, in court, and during mediation. Family Transitions, 67(6), 495–541. Read the study.

Learn more about our training and professional development at Divorce Coaches Academy®.

For years, Collaborative Practice has recognized the value of a dedicated divorce coaching role on the interdisciplinary team, but eligibility was largely limited to professionals licensed with a mental health background. Professionally trained divorce coaches were trusted by collaborative lawyers and supported families through the process every day, yet they couldn’t formally take a seat at the table.

In this episode, Tracy Callahan welcomes Dori Braddell, The Divorce Mentor and Director of Education and Development for Canada with Divorce Coaches Academy®, who recently became a Registered Collaborative Professional (Divorce Coach) in Edmonton. Dori is the first coach to enter Collaborative Practice through a new eligibility pathway that recognizes specialized divorce coaching education, including training through DCA®.

Dori shares what it was like to be “the unicorn in the room” as one of only four non-lawyers in her training cohorts, how the Edmonton Collaborative Practice board came to revise its eligibility requirements, and why divorce coaching and Collaborative Practice are natural partners.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What it looked like to support Collaborative Divorce clients from behind the scenes, without formal recognition
• Why the divorce coaching role was historically tied to a mental health background, and how divorce coaching differs from therapy
• How Edmonton’s year-long process opened a new pathway without lowering standards
• What Dori observed as lawyers practiced interest-based negotiation and conflict-reducing communication
• The specific value a professionally trained divorce coach brings to an interdisciplinary team
• How professionally trained coaches can begin building relationships with collaborative communities in their own area

About Dori Braddell
Dori Braddell is a full-time professional divorce coach, known as The Divorce Mentor, and a Director of Education and Development for Canada with Divorce Coaches Academy®. She holds six professional divorce coaching credentials and educates and mentors divorce coaches across Canada. She is now a Registered Collaborative Professional (Divorce Coach) in Edmonton, Alberta.

Connect with Dori:
https://www.thedivorcementor.ca/about-me
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dori-braddell

Read Dori’s article: The Unicorn in the Room: A New Seat at the Collaborative Divorce Table https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unicorn-room-new-seat-collaborative-divorce-table-dori-braddell-vd5uc/

Ready to build the skills behind this pathway?
The next ADRDC (ADR Divorce Coach) certification cohort with Divorce Coaches Academy® begins January 10, 2027. Learn more at https://www.divorcecoachesacademy.com/divorcecoach

If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a colleague in Collaborative Practice.

Conflict Resolution Week usually spotlights processes: mediation, negotiation, collaborative practice. But every process depends on the people in it. In this episode, Tracy Callahan, MA, ADRDC, founder of Divorce Coaches Academy®, celebrates the professionals who work with the individual inside the dispute: divorce coaches.

In this episode:

• Why divorce coaching is conflict resolution work, not “just emotional support”
• How coaches help clients recognize, regulate, and engage conflict
• Why coaching strengthens the work of attorneys and mediators
• Four signals that it’s time to refer a client to a divorce coach, and when coaching isn’t the right fit
• Stop, Drop, and Roll: a simple approach for interrupting conflict patterns in divorce and co-parenting
• A thank-you to the divorce coaches doing work no court record ever shows

Cases close. The skills stay.

Learn more about the ADR Divorce Coach (ADRDC) certification at Divorce Coaches Academy

Find an ADR trained Divorce Coach for you or your clients

A disagreement about pickup times, schedule changes, or activities can become a position a parent defends for years. What can divorce coaches do earlier to help parents navigate those moments more thoughtfully?

In this episode, Tracy Callahan draws on her work in divorce coaching and parenting coordination to explore how unresolved concerns become entrenched positions—and how coaches can help clients examine what those positions protect, what they cost, and whether they still serve the parent and child.

Through practical examples and coaching questions, Tracy discusses how to help parents distinguish facts from interpretations, evaluate requests, practice clearer communication, and maintain effective boundaries. She also explores how to keep children’s needs visible without making them responsible for adult disagreements.

This is central to the work of ADR divorce coaching: supporting clients in navigating current conflict while preparing them for the difficult conversations and decisions ahead. By helping clients understand their concerns, examine their assumptions, and practice useful skills, coaches support more thoughtful participation in the divorce process and the parenting relationship that continues afterward.

Continue the learning

Our new six-week live course, Coaching Parents Through Conflict: Reducing Escalation, Strengthening Parenting Plans, and Keeping Children at the Center, brings this work into practice through case examples, discussion, and applied exercises. Designed for divorce coaches and related family dispute resolution professionals, the course explores escalation patterns, parenting triggers, entrenched positions, communication, boundaries, and parenting-plan details that can become recurring sources of conflict.

Classes meet live online on Mondays, November 9–December 14, 2026, from 1:00–2:30 p.m. Eastern, for nine instructional hours. This is professional development and does not confer certification or an additional credential.

Register before October 26 and use code GROW to receive $100 off.

Visit DivorceCoachesAcademy.com to learn more about the course and our work preparing divorce coaches to support clients in navigating conflict with greater clarity, skill, and purpose.

Knowing you need to handle conflict differently doesn’t always mean knowing how.

In this episode of the Divorce Coaches Academy® podcast, Tracy Callahan explores how divorce coaches help clients develop practical skills for navigating conflict, from pausing before responding and examining assumptions to making clear requests and evaluating difficult decisions.

Through relatable examples and thoughtful coaching questions, Tracy examines how professionals can help clients apply these skills when emotions run high, decisions need to be made, and participate more deliberately in the divorce process.

At Divorce Coaches Academy® (DCA®), skill development is central to our approach to professional divorce coaching grounded in dispute resolution. This episode brings that approach into practice, with insights for divorce coaches and ADR professionals who want to help clients build capacity they can carry into their next challenging interaction.

Learn more about DCA® and our professional training programs at https://www.divorcecoachesacademy.com

What does it really take to build a divorce coaching practice, before the referrals are consistent, the calendar is full, or the results fully reflect the effort?

In this episode, Tracy Callahan speaks with DCA® Certified ADR Divorce Coach Karen Yurack, founder of White Oak Divorce Coaching. Karen launched her North Carolina-based practice after more than 19 years as a family law paralegal, bringing together decades of professional experience, her personal understanding of divorce and blended-family life, and a commitment to providing the support she often saw missing from the legal process.

Karen shares an honest, behind-the-scenes look at building a practice from the ground up: networking, creating meaningful professional relationships, becoming visible, explaining the value of divorce coaching, moving beyond her comfort zone, and continuing through the quieter periods when effort and results do not yet match.

The conversation was inspired, in part, by Dr. Vivienne Ming’s idea of being a “fanatic”—someone so deeply connected to the purpose of their work that they continue pursuing it because the work itself matters. Tracy was introduced to this idea through Conversations That Contribute, organized by DCA® mentor Carolyn Jacobs in support of Kids in Conflict.

Together, Tracy and Karen explore what sustains a new entrepreneur, how to recognize progress beyond immediate revenue, and why building a successful practice requires persistence, adaptability, professional community, and a strong connection to the reason the work matters.

This episode offers realistic expectations and meaningful encouragement for newly certified divorce coaches, established professionals growing their practices, and anyone considering the leap into entrepreneurship.

Connect with Karen Yurack and White Oak Divorce Coaching:

Website: https://whiteoakdivorcecoaching.com
Email: whiteoakcoaching@gmail.com

Learn more about Divorce Coaches Academy®: www.divorcecoachesacademy.com

Learn more about Conversations that Contribute: https://www.keepslowing.com/events

“You have to love your children more than you hate your ex.” It’s a familiar phrase, but what does it offer a parent who believes the fight with their co-parent is for their child?

In this solo episode, Tracy Callahan explores how blame can become a lens through which every missed message, changed plan, or difficult exchange seems to confirm the worst about the other parent. For divorce coaches and ADR professionals, the challenge is to interrupt that cycle without dismissing a client’s history, minimizing a genuine concern, or asking them to give up an appropriate legal remedy.

Through practical examples, Tracy discusses how to help clients separate facts from assumptions, identify the decision in front of them, and respond with their child’s needs in view. The goal is not forgiveness or forced cooperation. It is helping a parent make the next decision with more than anger in the room.

To learn more about the work of divorce coaching and how Divorce Coaches Academy® prepares professionals to support clients through conflict, visit divorcecoachesacademy.com

Should parents stay together for the kids, or are we asking the wrong question?

In this episode, Tracy Callahan explores what children need when a marriage is struggling. Drawing on comments from Real Housewives of New York City star Sai de Silva and a Census Bureau working paper examining children’s long-term outcomes after divorce, Tracy considers the financial, emotional, and practical consequences of family change—and why population averages cannot determine what one family should do.

The conversation examines how financial strain, relocation, parental distance, and ongoing conflict can shape children’s experiences. It also explores how divorce coaches can help parents anticipate challenges, prepare for difficult decisions, and protect children from becoming caught in adult conflict.

Whether parents remain married or separate, the central question is: What will they do to create a safer, steadier, and more supportive environment for their children?

Interested in learning more about the professional practice of divorce coaching and helping clients navigate these complex questions? Explore Divorce Coaches Academy® and discover how our training can help you support clients through conflict, decision-making, and family change.