In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through parental separations and divorce.  We next focused on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns of decision making......

Anyone who has launched a business (or practice) kicks it off with exuberance and dreams of freedom and unlimited potential. It starts with a great idea coupled with boundless enthusiasm about the future. We put in the effort to develop protocols, policies and procedures so we can have an efficiently run business and off we go to fulfill our life's purpose.

As a member of a Foster Care Review Board, I listen as parents whose children have been removed from their homes as a result of abuse or neglect explain how much they love their children and that there was no way they'd ever abused them. They point to smiling pictures of their beautiful children as proof of their stellar parenting.

Survivors of child abuse take different approaches to their handling of, or lack of, their personal experiences. Some survivors want to shut out their bad memories and never talk about those experiences again. Some talk a little and still struggle with their current afflictions, which they likely have as a result of the child abuse they endured on a regular basis. Some feel an overwhelming need to somehow make sense of the abuse and make it “mean” something.

Why do we like to win, whether it is a tennis match or an argument with our spouse? Natural selection favored those who survived and reproduced. One of the ways that humans survived, and thus were able to reproduce, was to prevail.

As we head into the final stretch of the election season, most people are arguing over Democratic versus Republican policies and statements. But we believe we need to spend just as much time watching out for traits of high-conflict personalities. Politicians with these traits are highly ineffective, often increase conflict in our nation, “split” the country emotionally in half and may ultimately get kicked out of office.

With last week’s shooting deaths of two African-Americans by police and five police officers by an African-American man, there is much talk about our divided nation. What (or who) is dividing America? Are we more divided than ever before? Or does it just seem that way? And what is to be done? There is no one cause and no one easy answer. But surprisingly all of the following are part of the problem. And we all must be part of the solution.

In prior articles, we wrote about the natural desire to prevail against perceived rivals and the potential use of game theory to understand obstacles in the current legal system as it takes families through parental separations and divorce. We next began to focus on how the legal system begins to trick people into self-defeating patterns of decision making.

Whether you're in a dispute with your brother, classmate, work colleague, spouse or even someone you don't know, conflict is stressful. We talk about healthy and unhealthy conflict, and yes, some conflict is healthy, but conflict is always a distraction from work, life, family and other important things we all have to do. 

“The other side wants . . .!”  In prior articles we focused on the fact that while people are rational, they can be tricked and on two of the tricks in the traditional family law legal system: legal outcomes are goals; and divorce is a zero sum game.

In Part 1 of this series, we noted that this is a trick question because it distracts people from their life goals and focuses them on legal outcomes, as though they are goals. It is also a trick question because it re-frames a non-zero sum game into a zero sum game.

If YOU don’t advocate for your child, no one will. There, I’ve said it. — Did you hear the bubble bursting? That was your idealism being shattered, and not a bit too soon. Parenting in the naïve belief that the world will automatically and spontaneously serve your children’s needs.