The Relationship Recovery Podcast · Tiffany Denny, Kierstyn Franklin

Navigating Co-Parenting During the Holidays: Strategies for a Joyful Season

·30 min·1 clip

They say the season highlights grief, stress, and loneliness, but those emotions still have to be managed.

1. The Relationship Recovery podcast focuses on co-parenting during the holidays, with Kirsten Franklin and Tiffany Denny naming grief, stress, loneliness, and schedule conflict as the main pressure points. 2. Kirsten Franklin and Tiffany Denny host the show as The Relationship Recovery, and they say they help people around the world navigate and heal from relationship turmoil. 3. The episode asks how parents can keep holidays meaningful when co-parenting is cooperative, tense, or high conflict. 4. The hosts open by describing how holidays can trigger grief over how things used to be, frustration with current dynamics, and loneliness. 5. They say it is important to feel those emotions while managing them so they do not spill over onto children or the holiday experience. 6. Kirsten describes a personal holiday shift: her family now celebrates Christmas on the 23rd instead of Christmas Day. 7. She says that choice came after a cousin asked what Christmas really means and suggested they could have the feeling and magic on the 27th. 8. Kirsten links that scheduling change to blended-family realities, saying children with multiple households make every-other-year holiday plans difficult. 9. She explains that her blended family now accepts that some traditions happen on other dates because not everyone can be in the same place on the same day. 10. She says her two younger children struggle when their older brother is away, which led to conversations about why he misses certain events and how to explain that it is not personal. 11. Tiffany says her own experience with a high-conflict divorce made her especially sensitive to missing Christmas Eve or Christmas Day with her children. 12. Both hosts emphasize that kids need space to feel sad or frustrated when a sibling or parent is absent. 13. The episode names OurFamilyWizard as a tool Kirsten recommends for high-conflict communication because it keeps messages clear, neutral, and documented. 14. Tiffany suggests using short, business-like replies such as, "Thank you for your message, I'll follow the plan outlined in our agreement." 15. The hosts say sticking to the parenting plan reduces last-minute arguments about holiday requests and keeps expectations black and white. 16. They also recommend brief interactions at drop-offs and, when needed, using neutral locations or a support person to reduce the chance of escalation. 17. The tone stays conversational and personal, with the hosts trading stories, examples, and quick questions about their own family arrangements. 18. The format mixes practical advice with promotional details for the holiday class, the free PDF guide, and a membership library. 19. Listeners navigating divorce, blended-family schedules, or holiday loneliness may get the most value from this episode. 20. Listeners who want a deep legal breakdown of custody law may want to skip it.

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