Today's guest is Karen Bonnell!

From her website: Karen has over 30 years of experience working with couples and families facing transition, loss, growth and change. A graduate of the University of Michigan, she served on the faculty of University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University & Seattle Pacific University before beginning full-time private practice in 1984. In 2021, she brought her psychiatric nursing career to a close, and now focuses strictly on coaching and mediation. She regularly writes for, speaks to and trains health care and legal professionals.

Karen’s work as a Collaborative Divorce Coach spurred her determination to write “The Co-Parenting Handbook” with Kristin Little, Child Specialist. Parents learn the best ways to support their children, strengthen their co-parenting, and discover the necessary tools to skillfully create a two-home family.

“The Parenting Plan Workbook” followed with contributor Felicia Malsby Soleil, JD. Karen and Felicia built a workbook and four-plus hours of coaching seminars (The Parenting Plan Workbook Video Series), which provide valuable access to the mechanics behind writing a strong, child-centered parenting plan.

And most recently, Karen and Patricia Papernow, PhD released the newest handbook for parents ready to date and hoping to one day successfully create stepfamily, “The Stepfamily Handbook: From Dating, to Getting Serious, to Forming a ‘Blended Family’”.

Quotes:

"Teens are looking to get rid of the parents they've got; they're not shopping for more!"

"A second-time family is a very different architecture than a first-time family."

"If we don't do this well, the people who are going to suffer are the kids."

"The truth without compassion can be abusive."

"Stepparents are additive, not substitutes."

Resources:

The Stepfamily Handbook https://www.amazon.com/Stepfamily-Handbook-Getting-Serious-Forming/dp/172085520X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542034223&sr=8-1&keywords=the+stepfamily+handbook&dpID=41lRp0ntBjL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

The Co-Parenting Handbook https://www.amazon.com/Co-Parenting-Handbook-Well-Adjusted-Resilient-Separation/dp/1632171465/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501711469&sr=8-1&keywords=9781632171467

The Parenting Plan Workbook https://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Plan-Workbook-Comprehensive-Child-Centered/dp/1632171457/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501713041&sr=1-1&keywords=the+parenting+plan+workbook

Karen Bonnell on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/karenbonnell

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