Transcript 0:00 It is a pleasure to see you all here. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to join us in this presentation. My name is Vivara. 0:07 I am the program manager here at the institute, and today, with great honor, I am delighted to welcome Ms. 0:13 Elise Salley, our esteemed speaker, who will present on the topic of harmonizing family relationships, mastering mediation in complex family conflicts. 0:24 Elise's experience in family mediation and in resolving and managing family conflicts is extensive. 0:30 She is a Florida Supreme Court family mediator, a guardian ad litem, a collaborative professional, and a licensed and board-certified behavior analyst who has dedicated over ten years to serving children and families in Florida. 0:46 She holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, a Master of Arts in Exceptional Education and Applied Behavior Analysis, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. 0:59 And without further ado, let's invite Elise to take center stage and lead us through this engaging exploration of ma- managing family conflict. Elise, the platform is now yours. Thank you. 1:10 That was such a nice introduction. That was even more than I was expecting you to do. So I don't have to introduce myself at all now really. And I'm also really happy that we have Deborah and... It just says P's iPhone. 1:23 What is your name? Josh Brockenbeck. 1:27 Josh, I'm really happy that you guys are in here because I have a lot of questions throughout this presentation, and I really like to do interactive webinars if you guys are not opposed to answering questions and talking whenever you feel that there are questions. 1:41 And anyone who's watching on LinkedIn or Eventbrite, if you are able to type in questions somewhere, feel free to do that, and I will answer them throughout. Okay, you guys are seeing the PowerPoint, correct? Okay. 1:54 So harmonizing family relationships, mastering mediation and complex family conflicts. I'm happy to do this one. 2:02 This, uh, introduction she already gave me, which was beautiful, aside from that last line there, which is assuming why Francis chose me for this presentation is because I am also a single parent navigating my own complex family conflict, and it has been a really, really ugly one. 2:19 I'm representing myself in a paternity case, which has lasted over two years at this point and has gotten almost nowhere. We're at about a hund- uh, two hundred and eighty docket items. We have a guardian ad litem. 2:32 We have a social investigation. They're trying to do a vocational assessment, and it just seems to be never-ending. 2:38 So that is something that I have learned so much from and why I started Serenity Mediation because I want to help as many other people avoid what I go through because no one should have to go through this. 2:51 I mean, especially representing yourself. Luckily, I just... I have the ability to be able to do so. 2:58 Even though it's not my field, I'm able to and willing to learn about it enough that so far I've been able to keep my head above water in court, but it is a, a difficult process. 3:09 So I wanted to go back to really basic stuff. I like to break things down when I talk about things. 3:15 So I came up with some definitions, and this is something that we commonly do in behavior analysis, is that we want to define something, and we want to define it in such a way that everyone agrees on it. 3:26 So I was thinking for a relationship, when it comes to an interpersonal relationship, that's between one person and another person or other people, that's any sustained or repeated interaction between living things. 3:38 It's not just, it's not, not just human beings. And then intrapersonal is the same thing, except it's with yourself. 3:45 It's your self-reflection, your self-esteem, everything that comes with knowing about yourself and listening to yourself. So I wanted to also talk about some factors, right? 3:56 So is there a set duration that makes something a relationship? Is there a set frequency? Do both individuals need to be aware of the interaction? 4:05 So like today, I do have a couple people on the screen that I can see, but for everyone who's watching, you may feel like I'm looking at you, I'm talking to you, and for this short period of time, you may feel like we're having some sort of relationship. 4:19 However, unfortunately on my end, I'm looking at a camera and talking to a screen. So I don't feel like I'm having a relationship with a person right now. So different things to consider in relationships. 4:31 What, what actually makes a relationship? And then also all friendships are relationships, but not all relationships are friendships. [laughs] And that can go as far as any type of relationship. 4:41 Like all romantic relationships are relationships, but not all relationships are romantic. 4:48 And then a type seen in family law, I really liked this picture because not only is it a human DNA strand, it's also sort of the infinity symbol. 4:56 So as we move along, people pr-progress, we're seeing all different types of relationships, right? 5:01 We're seeing different types of gender identities and anything, and basically we just want people to be happy with themselves. As long as they're not harming themselves or others, then have at it. 5:13 [laughs] So we're seeing a lot of, a lot of new relationship styles coming into family law and with adoption too now. 5:20 I know at least in Florida, we're able to adopt as single parents and also as parents of similar genders. Pretty much all of us have been in a romantic relationship that's ended, correct? 5:31 Because otherwise it would be people who have been with their first partner and are still with their first partner or people who have chosen to refrain from romantic relationships. 5:42 So any of those people, congrats to you. The rest of us, we know exactly what it feels like to be in a relationship that ends. So this is a very, very common thing. Okay, so conflict. I am in... 5:55 Like she was saying, I'm doing a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. 5:59 So this is the definition that we came up with in one of my classes that I really liked, and I changed a few things from itBut we came up with, "Conflict is an inevitable and unavoidable part of life precipitated by a lack of agreement. 6:13 Because conflict can result from basic emotions like fear and anger, prior to activation of the frontal lobes, it is not limited to human beings, but spans a range of species. 6:24 Conflict occurs when views are incompatible and needs are not met. Conflict in and of itself is neutral. The processes and outcomes are what determine its climate." 6:34 And I really like that last sentence because that's not something that we think about typically. We usually just associate conflict with being a negative thing, right? So we've got our second poll now. 6:44 Have you been in a romantic relationship that you consider to be complex? Again, we have 100% of people who have been in a romantic relationship who they've, they've considered it to be complex. 6:56 So if you're not opposed to it, do you wanna share what made that relationship complex to you? You don't have to share if you don't want to. Just tell me you don't want to. Just the high emotion I think. 7:09 You know, um, of course, you know, every relationship's gonna be complex, but on certain romantic ones, um, yeah, so emotional blackmail is what I'd call it. Thank you for sharing. 7:20 I would say, uh, difficult communication, uh, uh, was the catalyst for, for, for me, for the bad relationship. Okay. So we've got emotional manipulation, blackmail, and difficult communication. 7:39 So let's examine some roots when it comes to complex relationships. We just saw that these are very commonplace, so how can we improve them? 7:48 When I think about improving things, the first thing that I go to is how can we prevent them? How can we prevent the problems from even starting? 7:55 It's a lot easier to be proactive than it is to be reactive, and it seems like we're kind of in a, a position right now where we're just in a snowball effect of, let's sue each other, let's call the police on each other, let's stop communicating. 8:09 I mean, we've got a ton of virtual communication that happens now, and there's no tone in that communication, and it's so easy to just write something out that you're feeling and just click Send, because it doesn't even feel real. 8:22 It doesn't even feel like talking to a person. Just like speaking to this camera, it's just not the same as it is to talk to a person one-on-one. 8:30 How can we prevent them from re- resulting in litigation like what I'm going through? And also, what do we receive from romantic relationships? I wanna talk about Maslow. So this is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 8:44 He came up with this in 1943, and it is a, a hierarchy which builds upon itself. 8:50 So I found out when I was researching for this webinar that it has been updated since, but this is the original one that I wanted to discuss first. So we've got our immi- immediate physiological needs on the bottom. 9:02 Those are like our unconditioned motivating operations, so things that we're not conditioned to know that we need. We just know that we need them innately. So temperature regulation, um, food, thirst, things like that. 9:18 Um, and then safety is upon that. Then love as far as affection and belonging. Esteem, respect. And then at the top is self-actualization. 9:29 So one of the issues with this pyramid that, um, the authors of the next one that I'll show discussed is that it... 9:36 The way that it builds upon itself is saying that you would have to accomplish each one in order to move up, which is not totally correct, right? Because our needs of these things change throughout the day. 9:48 It's a very fluid process. You're not always meeting your hunger. 9:53 And then one of the issues that I was thinking about with this is what if a person's needs, especially those bottom two tiers, what if those are met by another person, by a partner, like a romantic partner? 10:07 If that's happening, we're gonna see dependency. We may see codependency where both people are dependent on each other for meeting their basic needs, and that can be kind of an issue, right? 10:19 And what if these needs aren't met prior to the start of a romantic relationship? 10:24 If you're not able to meet these needs before getting into a relationship, then you're more likely to be dependent on that person, and that, I think, brings about a complex relationship because it's harder to get out of that relationship if you must do so for any reason. 10:42 I do think, just a personal belief, I do think that it would be more beneficial for us to be able to meet some of these needs on our own before bringing in another person 10:53 so you have that independence within a relationship if you need it. Because, again, we see that relationships ending are very common. 11:03 And I also thought it was interesting, last night I was looking at this again, and I was thinking the bottom four tiers can be met by other people. The top tier cannot. I mean, the word self is in it. 11:15 No one else can meet your self-actualization except for you. Potentially, the bottom four can be met by someone else, but they can also be met by yourself. So let's see the updated pyramid. This was updated in 2010, 11:31 and this one's pretty interesting. You see the side? They changed it to show that there is that fluidity, that you don't need to have the bottom tiers met in order to reach the top ones. 11:41 At least you don't need to have them met all the time. So it's not like saying, "Oh, I'm hungry now, so I fall, [laughs] I fall back to the bottom and I lose my esteem and my love and everything else." 11:50 That's not quite the case. And they also did add some tiers. So we've got those physiological needs at the bottom. Self-protection, which is safety in the last one. 12:00 Affiliation, so that's like fitting in with a group of people, having a community. And then status and esteem. Mate acquisition, that's getting, getting a mate. Mate retention is keeping a mate. 12:12 And then the top one is parentingWhich is quite different from self-actualization, I would think, because self-actualization is something to do with yourself, where parenting is something that is almost nothing to do with yourself. 12:27 If you guys have kids of your own, you'll know, especially when they're young, that you spend almost no time working on yourself, and if you do, it's usually when the kids are away from you or it's when they're asleep. 12:39 So I thought it was interesting there, there was such a shift of, of thinking in this. 12:43 But they came at this more from an evolutionary perspective as far as, as living things, we are alive, and then we acquire a mate, and then we reproduce in order to keep our species going. 12:58 So this is the next thing I think about with needs, and I did kinda talk about this a little bit when I was doing my hand up and down. 13:04 So some people have these wavelengths at the top, and I'm talking about each specific behavior. In behavior analysis, it's not just... We don't group it into emotions. We go down to very specific things like eating. 13:17 Eating would comprise of picking up a, a piece of food, bringing it to our mouths, opening our mouth, putting it in our mou- our mouth, and then chewing it. So it's very, very specific that you have these behaviors, 13:30 and each one of these can be, okay, this is my, my temperature. This is my thirst. This is my hunger. 13:37 And then we've got the longer one on the bottom, and I was thinking, I don't know if you can see my mouse right here in the middle. 13:42 Some people may be, you know, more erratic with how they meet their own needs, or some people have... may have a very small slope in there. So they're just kind of... maybe they're snacking throughout the day. 13:54 Every time they start to feel even a little bit lonely, they may call a friend or text a friend, and they know how to meet those needs and what they like as far as self-regulation. 14:04 And then I also wanna do just a little bit, touch on these basics so you guys can understand what I have coming up in a couple slides. Reinforcement is something that we use in, in behavior analysis. 14:15 It's a term that we use, and it is the presentation or removal of a stimulus that increases the future frequency of the behavior. 14:25 So positive reinforcement is adding a desired stimulus that will then increa- increase the future frequency of the behavior, while negative reinforcement is removing an aversive 14:38 that will then increase the future frequency of the behavior. So let me give some examples. During mediation, the former wife makes a snarky comment about the former husband. You, the mediator, accidentally laugh. 14:53 The former wife looks at you, then makes a few more stu- snarky comments in quick succession. What reinforced the former wife's behavior of making snarky comments? Mediator's laugh. Right. 15:07 The attention provided by the laugh. That was what she was looking for. 15:10 Okay, so here are the schedules that they just talked about in that video very briefly, and for the fixed and variable schedules, that's how reinforcement is delivered, how it's given. 15:20 Is it on a fixed schedule, say, every three times you do something, or is it on a variable schedule, as in a random schedule, like an average of every three times you do something? So say we have a... 15:33 Let's just make it easy. Say we have a child who's working on math problems, and the child doesn't like math, and we find something that the child does like. Let's just say it is a... it's a piece of... it's a chip. 15:46 [laughs] So we're giving out these chips to the child for doing math problems. So a fixed, a fixed schedule, let's say a fixed ratio schedule, would be every second math problem the child does, they get a chip, 16:03 and that's gonna cause that high rate of responding that we see up to the two, up to the chip, and then you see the drop in responding. 16:10 Because the person just got their reinforcer, they don't have the need or the motivation for that anymore, so that responding of doing math problems is gonna stop because they know they're not gonna get another chip until they do two more math problems, right? 16:24 So the variable... I'm sorry. Yeah, the variable ones we see, they don't really have as much of a drop because the person doesn't know when to expect their reinforcer. 16:34 So that's why they were talking about slot machines and gambling. Those are some of the strongest reinforcement schedules that you will see because you don't know when you're going to get it. 16:44 You could get $1,000 when you pull a slot machine, and you could get $1,000 the next time you pull the slot machine, or it could be another 100, 200 times. 16:54 So that's why you see people that spend all their free time sometimes in these, uh, casinos doing gambling because they don't know when they're gonna win, but we know they've won at least once before, and that's why they continue. 17:08 So for ratio and interval schedules, that's when it's, when it's delivered. 17:12 So ratio is after a quantity of responses, like how we were talking about with two math problems, and then the interval is the length of time before the response or the non-response. 17:22 So the one that they used in the video for that one, the, um, the variable interval was pushing the elevator. And so another one is mail. You know that your mail comes every day. You don't know exactly when it comes. 17:34 It may come at 2:30, it may come at 4:30. No matter how many times you check it during that time, that's not gonna cause it to come any faster. It's still gonna come at that time. 17:44 So you're probably gonna have a pretty steady response rate of when you go to check the mail. You may check it at 5:30 because you know by that time that it's come. Okay, so these are... 17:55 This is a graph showing these schedules, and I really, really love this graph, and I hope that now that I've explained some more about schedules of reinforcement, that you can love it too, and it's showing on the, um, Y-axis, you see the cumulative number of responses. 18:09 That's why the responses keep going up because it's over time, and then the X ax- axis is over time.So these, these marks that you see on the screen on each of the lines that are either horizontal or diagonal, that's when the reinforcer is delivered. 18:25 So this red one is variable ratio. You see almost no pauses in responding. This is a variable, meaning average of certain amount of times that the person's going to be, um, reinforced. So this is our slot machine one. 18:42 Fixed ratio, you do see a lot of up and downs like this. That's a post-reinforcement pause right there. The reinforcer is delivered, and the behavior slows. 18:51 Variable interval is a slower rate of responding, but you're still seeing very few pauses in that. And then fixed interval, you really see, that's the one that they call the scalloped pattern. 19:04 So you're gonna work, work, work, work, work. This is like, um, this is the two-week pay, right? 19:10 [laughs] You're gonna work, work, work for two weeks, and then you get paid probably on a Friday, probably on a weekend, so you're gonna stop working at that time. 19:18 You know you're not gonna get paid again no matter what you do for another two weeks. We also see this as far as, um, spending money, bills, you know? We know our bills hit on a certain day. 19:30 [laughs] We get paid, all of our bills hit, and bam, we're right back down again until the next time we get paid. So just very cool to be able to see these. And this, I mean, you... 19:41 People have been doing data on this for decades, and it continues to show this time and time again, that these are very, uh, data-driven schedules of reinforcement. Okay. 19:53 Yeah, but I put reel it in for myself because [laughs] I'll just keep talking about behavior analysis, uh, to no end. So what we're discussing today, family law. 20:01 I assume a lot of us today are here as family law practitioners or mediators, and in that, we work on divorce and paternity, which encompasses time sharing, parental responsibility, child support, alimony, and marital assets. 20:17 Some of us may also do other things like, uh, dependency, adoptions, elder law, but I'm, I'm sticking with family law because that's what I know. Some strategies we can use. 20:28 Now, these are not meant for us in and of itself. They're also meant for our clients. 20:33 These are just a free-for-all of strategies of what we can use to try and have better mediations, especially when it comes to complex family relationships. So active listening. 20:43 I'm sure a lot of people already know what that is. Stop, look, listen, empathize, ask questions, and paraphrase. And then perception and reflection. 20:54 I also added reflection because I was thinking about if you guys don't already know Michael Lang's reflective praxi-practice. 21:01 He goes in, so to reflect on his own behaviors, why he does them, what are the reasons for his thoughts, you know? 21:10 And we should all be doing that as practitioners to just help understand ourselves and to help be better practitioners for our clients. 21:18 And we can analyze and improve our perception and also focus on others during that time. Effective communication. So focus on the issue, not the person. 21:27 This is something that I see come up a lot in my past dec-decade in behavior analysis is there is a, an intervention called planned ignoring when you have a problem behavior that is maintained by attention. 21:42 And so if we talk about that w- usually with ca-caregivers are the ones that I'm dealing with at the time. 21:48 And the caregivers, if I talk about planned ignoring, their first instinct is to ignore the child, and I have to come in immediately, you know, preemptively at this point, and I say, "It's not about ignoring the person. 21:59 It is about ignoring the behavior, just that one behavior that we see that's an ineffective behavior that is maintained by your attention." That does not mean 22:11 leave your child in a room and don't, don't respond to anything they say. You can redirect. You can answer other things. Even if you see them go grab something off of the, uh... out of the fridge or off of the, uh, 22:28 out of the pantry, you could say, like, "Oh, are you hungry right now?" You're not ignoring that person. You're just ignoring the behavior. So that's something that we wanna do in our mediations as well. 22:39 I mean, if we see, we do see people sometimes that are engaging in ineffective, um, communication and problem behaviors. 22:46 We don't wanna ignore that person, but we do want to potentially put some of those behaviors on extinction. So we wanna affirm responses. We wanna be genuine, right? 22:58 People are more comfortable when they work with people who feel like people. When I do guardian ad litem cases, a lot of the families that, that I start working with are, are terrified. 23:08 You know, they're, they're in that process because they're in such a contentious case that they can't go through court without a guardian ad litem, without a neutral person, and I come in and I say, "Hey, 23:20 I've been through this. I'm still going through this. I have a case with a guard- a guardian ad litem, so I know exactly how it feels to be a parent that's going through this." 23:30 And I can just see the relief that people feel when they hear that, and they're like, "Okay, this is a human being. 23:36 This is not just some court robot who's coming in to take my child from me," because that's a lot of times what we're seeing in court, especially with family relationships, is people are afraid that their children will be taken from them for one reason or another. 23:50 And then also, I, I statements are very important. This is something that I, I give out to clients actually. Prior to mediations, I give out an I statement, um, pamphlet, 24:01 and it's something that they can work on and they can fill out if they want to. 24:04 Obviously, they don't return it to me, but it's something that they can practice if they want, and it's speaking as an I statement rather than a you statement. 24:11 So I feel like such and such rather than you do this or you always do this, you never do this. 24:19 You wanna try and speak from how, what your perspective is and leave that blame off the other person.And then I was also thinking last night, the most effective way to teach is to model. 24:31 So if we're doing these things, the people around us are more likely to be doing them. And the most effective way to learn is to teach. 24:39 So if we have clients or just people in our lives who could benefit from better communication, they can see us do that, and then they can teach it to others. 24:49 And that's really what we want, not just in a mediation, but as human beings. So some more strategies. These are more focused toward mediators and people that are in the, the family law profession. 25:01 So when it comes to clients who are going through this, especially complex relationships, to give them time, space, and grace. You... For my mediations, because I do private mediations, they're not... 25:13 I mean, they're through the court as far as, uh, they go through the court, but they're not actually court mediations, so there is no time limit. I tell people, "You can take as many breaks as you want. 25:22 This is your process. You're paying for this, so no, you don't need to feel like you only have a set three hours with me, and then, then that's it. You can come back as many times as you want. 25:32 You don't have to figure out anything today, or you can. You can sit with me for eight hours and figure it out if you'd like to." 25:39 Okay, so we also wanna listen to people while directing them back to the topics to be addressed in the mediation. If you guys do... 25:47 are familiar with collaborative divorce, which also you can do paternity with, that is something that the, the mental health neutral does. And it is, 25:58 at least from what I saw, this training is still new to me, and I haven't done one of my own cases yet, I'm just in the process of observing them, but it's something that seems like it may be a little bit uncomfortable, even more so than in mediation, 'cause not only are you 26:13 there to listen, you're there to tell people, "I'm sorry, you've been talking about your ex-husband for 20 minutes. We need to move on." 26:21 [laughs] So in a kind way, you're having to say things like that in order to tell people, "We can't spend so much time on this." 26:28 Obviously, in mediation, there's not as much of a time limit if it's private mediation, but this is something that I'm gonna be working on for myself personally in the next few months, is how to be a little bit more directive with getting people back on topic and focusing on what's important and what they can do actually during the mediation. 26:48 Because, yes, maybe you did have a partner who cheated on you, and I'm sure you're really upset about that, but that's probably not something that's gonna be in your marital settlement, settlement agreement. 27:00 Allow for breaks to refocus or to calm. Some people need to calm down, some people need to reenergize. [laughs] Depends on the person. And then also basic needs. You want people to be able to meet their basic needs. 27:12 Um, if they don't have ways to make th- meet their basic needs at, at the time, like if you're doing an in-person mediation, it's always great to have snacks and drinks and, uh, other areas where people can be alone for little bits of time, obviously bathrooms, things like that. 27:28 Be aware of non-verbal communication. If you don't understand a person's non-verbal communication, it doesn't hurt to ask. 27:36 So if you see someone who's sitting in a way that you don't understand, maybe like this, maybe they're not looking at you, or they're rocking, or they're just doing something that you may assume means something but you aren't sure, I feel like it's, it's safer to ask. 27:50 Like, "Do you need something? How are you feeling right now? I see you're tapping your foot a lot. Are you feeling a certain way that's causing that?" 27:58 And they may just say, "Oh, no, I'm fine, I just need to use the restroom," or, "I'm cold in here." [laughs] You know, it could be anything, because we don't know what people's behaviors mean all the time. 28:09 We're all different. And let people know that showing up was a success in and of itself. 28:15 Some people tend to feel like if they don't come up with a complete resolution, that they failed, and they take it on to themselves personally. Either they do that, or they blame the other person. 28:28 So you want to let everyone who's involved in the process know that just being there is, is great. 28:34 It's showing that you're, you're trying, you're trying to do something other than pounding this person down in litigation. And provide them re- with referrals. 28:42 This is something I feel like we need to be doing more often, is that if people are struggling, which a lot of times in this process they are, we can let them know about therapists, divorce coaches, um, any other type of coaches, social workers, child therapists, anything like that that they may need probably exists, that there are other things that, that we can provide them with. 29:07 It's not gonna hurt to pr- provide people with referrals. Also, because a lot of times I feel like people do try and use mediation as a therapy session, so I like to, to refer that out rather than to let them do that. 29:20 And then here, like I was talking about earlier, it's easier to be proactive than reactive. 29:25 So these are some things that I, I like to use, whether I'm doing it in behavior analysis or mental health or mediation, if it comes up. 29:32 So I think we should be doing some of these things before people even get into these marriages, right? Because people have no idea what they're getting into as far as divorce and litigation. Um, they... right? 29:46 They just have the rose-colored glasses, "I'm gonna get married, I'm, I am pregnant, I'm gonna have a baby, and it's gonna be this beautiful Facebook picture thing." [laughs] And that's not what it is. 29:56 That's not what life is. As far as relationship questionnaires and tests, I just did one of my favorite example of each, Five Love Languages. If you guys aren't familiar with that, that's a really easy quiz. 30:08 It's just, like, 20 or 25 questions, and it's, it's, um, two choice questions, and it's something that people can share with their partners. 30:16 You can also choose the option of having it for your children, so there are different ways to take the test depending on the age of the child. 30:23 If the child is verbal, I usually just tell people to do the older one, because you can just ask some of the questions, or they can read the questionsUm, but that's, that's really something you could use for any type of relationship, and for yourself. 30:35 I mean, I, I like to take these tests for myself just to see how I score. And then personality tests and compatibility tests are another big one. 30:43 So the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, also called the MBTI, that one is free online. It is a lot longer. So that is a, a multiple choice test where I think you're rating as far as strongly disagree u- up to strongly agree. 30:59 Um, so that's something that tells you a little bit more about your, your personality, at least your personality at the time that you take the test. And then premarital and preconception counseling. 31:08 I have not seen much as far as preconception counseling, like, if that's something that actually exists in, in that name. I mean, I know anyone can get counseling. 31:19 I don't know if that's its own thing, but, um, I think it would be really important to do. And then identifying and discussing our value systems and beliefs. 31:28 They have tons, tons, tons, tons of questions and questionnaires online where you can just put premarital questionnaire or premarital questions, and it'll [laughs] come up with lists of, like, 100 or 200 questions where you're going through and you're asking your future spouse or your partner different questions. 31:44 You guys are going back and forth and answering them, and then that leads to discussion rather than just jumping into things. And then this last one I bolded because I think this is something... 31:57 If someone can invent this from watching this webinar, [laughs] then, then I've done my job today. Classes that include videos, whether they're staged or live, on family law procedures. 32:09 So before people get married, before they have children, if it's with a partner, then I feel like people should know what this process looks like. 32:17 They should know what divorce actually entails, and they should see videos of litigation and of collaborative divorce and mediation so they can choose, at least in their minds, if they're gonna go through it, 32:31 what they would want to do. And do I really want to get married? [laughs] If I had known that I would be going through this, I wouldn't change anything because I like to live without regrets. 32:43 Obviously, if I changed anything, that would change my current life, and I don't wanna do that. But I would maybe, from now on, I would know not to marry again. 32:52 You know, I would know not to have another child again, um, just because of how difficult these procedures are. I mean, they are really that difficult. And that's the end of it. And then, yes, any questions or comments? 33:07 Well, thank you, ladies. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you guys being interactive during this. Thank you also. Thank you all for joining. 33:16 One of the thing that I wanna add is that we will make this recording available on our YouTube channel for anybody who want to follow up later on, you can access this meeting. 33:29 And if you have developed any questions that you want further clarification on, you can always shoot us an email, and we will try to get your question answered as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much. 33:43 It was a wonderful presentation. Uh, I like how thorough it was, and it was very, uh, interesting information, so, uh, thank you very much for it. Thanks, Glenda. I appreciate the feedback. 33:55 I try not to get too heavy with the, the technical behavioral stuff. You did swell. [laughs] Not well, but swell. [laughs] All right. Well, thank you all so very much. 34:06 If there is no any question, we can bring this session to an end. 34:11 Uh, please be in a lookout for further webinar sessions that we will be hosting, and hopefully Elise, you will be kind enough to grace us with your time later on when we reach out for further opportunities to come and share your wisdom with us. 34:30 Of course. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. Thank you all so very much. Please have a good day. Bye now. Bye-bye. Thank you. Goodbye. Have a good day.
