Episode Details

The wisdom teeth came out. One parent paid her half. The other did not, and told the child he had. Now the child is angry at the parent who paid, and correcting her would put the two of them on opposite sides of a story neither of them chose.

Jeanine Mouchawar is a parenting coach for parents of preteens, teens, and young adults. Her work is about helping a parent become their child's go-to person, the one the kid actually brings things to, and roughly a third of her clients are single mothers, many out of contentious divorces. This was a first meeting: she and Lisa had never spoken before the recording, and it opens with Jeanine pointing out that co-parenting friction is not exclusive to divorced couples, since married parents disagree about how to raise children too.

The rest is for people whose situation is further down the scale than that. Jeanine's starting point is expectation. The thing draining her clients is the assumption that the other parent will eventually put the children first, and the energy that assumption costs every time it turns out to be wrong. Her redirect is toward the house you control: safe, calm, consistent, clear. She walks through what to say when a child brings home a lie about money, why stating your own truth beats disputing theirs, and gives a plain sentence structure for validating a feeling whose cause is fabricated. The feelings are real even when the facts behind them are not, and that part cannot be argued with.

She also gets into the situations Lisa raises from client work. A therapist who appears to be taking the other parent's side, and why validating a child's distress is not the same as agreeing with what caused it. A teenager who has started using the ex's tone and vocabulary, and how to redirect that in the moment without treating your own child as the enemy. And the child who is afraid of the other parent, where Jeanine's first move on re-entry day is not the usual how was your weekend, what did you do, but something slower: I'm glad you're home, and then, how are you feeling. She closes with a free guide of five questions built to open a conversation with a kid who has stopped talking.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Where your power actually is when you can't control what your ex tells the kids
• What to say when your child repeats something untrue about you
• A one-sentence formula for validating a feeling that was caused by a lie
• Why asking a curious question beats correcting the record
• Why validating a feeling isn't the same as agreeing with the story behind it
• What to do when your teenager starts sounding like the person you left
• Why "how are you feeling" beats "what did you do" on the day they come back

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Co-parenting friction isn't exclusive to divorce
3:00 Jeanine's work with parents of preteens and teens
5:00 The expectation that drains you
9:00 When your child repeats your ex's lies about money
13:00 When the therapist seems to be taking the other side
15:00 A one-sentence formula for validating a feeling
19:00 Getting curious instead of defending yourself
21:00 When your teenager starts sounding like your ex
25:00 The scared child, re-entry days, and what to ask first

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Jeanine Mouchawar's website and free resources: https://www.jeaninemouc