Oklahoma attorney shares how divorcing parents can protect their kids from emotional fallout

Divorce is never easy, especially for children.

Colby Pearce, a family law attorney with Cordell & Cordell, says when couples separate, the way they handle custody, communication, and conflict resolution can leave a lasting impact on their kids.

Pearce joined us to explain how parents can minimize those effects and make the transition healthier for everyone involved.

Q: What’s the biggest factor in minimizing the emotional impact of divorce on kids?

“Just really working on having an effective co-parenting relationship. It's important because when, you know, I deal with very high conflict cases sometimes, and, you know, they always say there are very few winners in divorce cases, but the real losers are oftentimes the children.”

“It can affect them emotionally, it can affect their school, relationships, both current and future. So, really prioritizing the children as opposed to whatever battle you're having with your ex or soon-to-be ex is really important.”

Q: No one plans for a divorce — but what’s your advice to avoid a long, drawn-out court battle?

“In many counties across Oklahoma, the courts are going to require the parties to go to what's called mediation. That's a process where I would sit down with my client in a conference room, and the other side's in another conference room, and a mediator goes back and forth to try to see about reaching a resolution instead of having to go fight out a battle in court.”

“Just trying to communicate and then having an open mind and communicating with the other parent is really important early on and throughout the process because people don't have trust going through a divorce.”

Q: When custody decisions are made, what are Oklahoma judges looking for?

“The overarching standard is what we call the best interest standard. So the judges are really looking at what would be in the best interest of the kids.”

“The parent who can provide stability for the children, the parent who's doing the day-to-day parenting — maybe they're taking the children to their doctor's appointments, maybe they're getting them to their extracurricular activities.”

“So I tell my clients to be as involved as you possibly can… because if you do, sometimes if you do it too late, it is too late.”

Q: How can parents keep the focus on the kids, even if their relationship has broken down?

“That's the top priority, doing what's in the best interest of the kids.”

“We use co-parenting applications. Communication is important. And so sometimes people are not able to communicate either in person or over the phone. So having a co-parenting application where they can communicate in a monitored way, that can be something that can be used in court as evidence.”

“And they can't be edited like text messages can. So those are some things we use to try to reduce conflict but also promote communication.”