{"id":2292,"date":"2011-08-04T07:08:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T14:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2292"},"modified":"2025-11-02T20:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T03:22:10","slug":"conflict-resolution-or-just-ignoring-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2292","title":{"rendered":"Conflict resolution.. or just ignoring it."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A bit ago, my three boys spent the first weekend with their Father since the &#8220;Bonnie&#8221; incident.\u00a0 (And yes, that&#8217;s her real name.\u00a0 I&#8217;d post her last name too if I knew it, cuz I&#8217;m just that kinda bitch!) and they said they had a fine time.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?attachment_id=2407\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2407\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2407\" title=\"arguing\" src=\"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/arguing.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"358\" height=\"268\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/arguing.jpg 259w, http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/arguing-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 358px) 100vw, 358px\" \/><\/a>And I was so relieved.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I love my boys and want them happy.\u00a0 But changing the custody would have been a true pain to go through a fight in court over.\u00a0\u00a0 And they need to learn the hard lesson of &#8220;sometimes life is difficult&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They don&#8217;t need a lesson that &#8220;life is horrible&#8221; but the occasional &#8220;life is difficult&#8221; can only make a person better.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Lord.. I&#8217;m probably tempting Fate just typing that!\u00a0 What little &#8220;difficult&#8221; is Fate going to drop in my lap now!&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">According to the kids, Bonnie was there and politely pretending that nothing had happened.\u00a0 Well, she did have 12 days without the reminder of their presence so\u00a0 maybe that helped.\u00a0 They spent the entire Father&#8217;s Day out of the &#8220;Mancave&#8221; at the YMCA, the movies and to listen to Jazz at Descanso Gardens. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">So they arrived Monday at my work (remember I work out of a home.. so they come with me the entire summer they have it off.) around 10:30 am in good spirits.\u00a0 And quick with hugs and &#8220;can we watch t.v.!&#8221;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Crisis averted.\u00a0\u00a0 But it gave us all a lot of learning points.\u00a0 They learned Dad won&#8217;t stick up for them but Mom will.\u00a0 They also saw Dad make the effort to attend their graduations, which they didn&#8217;t think he&#8217;d do after the blow up.\u00a0 And when Evan&#8217;s sunburn blistered on his shoulders, they got to see me talk to my Ex in a concerned parent to parent voice and be heard, not ignored or dismissed.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">What I learned was to make it a point to try to normally talk to the Ex in front of the kids whenever possible so when they see us together its not as combatants.\u00a0\u00a0 My gut says this is important and I agree. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Because teaching conflict resolution is the most difficult for a parent to do.\u00a0 Mostly due to the fact we are rarely there when our kids are critically faced with it.\u00a0 Teachers usually are and they&#8217;ve been so &#8220;lawyerized&#8221; they cannot &#8220;do&#8221; anything to encourage proper discourse in a conflict.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But that is the one plus of having divorced parents!\u00a0 Lots and lots of example of handling conflict!<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bit ago, my three boys spent the first weekend with their Father since the &#8220;Bonnie&#8221; incident.\u00a0 (And yes, that&#8217;s her real name.\u00a0 I&#8217;d post her last name too if I knew it, cuz I&#8217;m just that kinda bitch!) and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=2292\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twirling-my-skirt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2292"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3080,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292\/revisions\/3080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}