Tara Fass

After the divorce, when the time feels right to start dating again, there are a few things to keep in mind.

What is going on with another person is not always obvious on the surface. Imagine if you could gather information and therefore pay more attention to the depth...

"I Wish" is a touching modern day folk tale created by Hirokazu Kore-eda ("Nobody Knows", "Still Walking"), told from the child-like perspective of two young brothers separated and longing for each other. The movie is built around their innocent hope that their parents will...

Knowing what I do for a living, an acquaintance at the gym, Naomi, told me the following story: A 9-year-old boy she knows with divorced parents -- let's call him Brian -- was asked by his mother to pick up his clothes. He responded, "Why should I? I'm just passing...

Teens are like toddlers on hormones who want and need to separate from you. Parenting them under any circumstances can be tough, but co-parenting teens who move between two households presents particular challenges. The following are a few common issues that face co-parents, and some language you might use when...

More times than I can count, true zingers are relayed to me after someone asks what I do for a living and I say I'm a therapist with a specialty in divorce and co-parenting. This morning was no exception.

A law student in his mid-twenties, call him Dusty, and...

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." - Baseball legend Yogi Berra

As New Years approaches, you say you want a resolution? How about resolving to be a better co-parent in 2012?

Here are 3 tips that might help you accomplish...

Resilient and yet vulnerable, I imagine the Bifurcated Child as a cross between a turtle with its home on its back and a bird migrating from nest to nest. It's a situation rife with possibilities for the transitional stress that occurs when these kids do their trek, back and forth,...

If your current favorite mistake is a troubled relationship and the upcoming holiday season looms as something less than heartwarming, you can take comfort in the notion that the fall/winter holiday cycle is meant to increase lightness during the darkest days of the year. Our ancestors knew that...

One of the crucial moments in any divorce -- with legal and financial as well as emotional consequences -- is the actual date on which one spouse tells the other that the marriage is definitively kaput, without hope of reconciliation. In California this is known as the "date of separation,"...

The bifurcated child -- shuttling between the homes of his or her separated or divorced parents -- is, by definition, caught in the middle. Imagine the child as a bird migrating from one place to another, essentially homeless until you provide a safe perch. How can you help this child...

Over the last two decades bird-nesting has been floated as a high-minded concept for co-parenting timeshares designed to minimize the tumult to children. The idea is for parents to move out of the family home except for their in-residence time during periods of custodial responsibility. That the kids get the...

Co-parenting plans need to grow along with the children for whom they're intended. If your kids have outgrown their plan and communication with your ex is in tatters, then pay attention. If you're losing your moorings and having trouble being your best self with your kids, that's a sign you...

Never underestimate the humble privilege to complain or the luscious succor of the perfect complaint. All intimate relationships include struggles and trying moments along with sweetness and delight. Then there are times when you want a partner to wake up just to have them be quiet and agreeable. The greatest...

Parenting is generally evolving as gender-neutral, but the "Tender Years" assumption -- the consensus that infants should be treated differently than older children in custody disputes -- lingers, even when all other factors are equal in a separation or divorce.

As a co-parenting therapist and parent plan mediator in...