AI and Co-Parenting: An Eye-Opening Conversation That Will Change Your Approach

Kate: [00:00:00] Welcome to the AI Grapple Podcast. My name is Kate Vandervoort, founder and CEO of Social Mediology and the AI Success Lab. Today, we are diving into a fascinating conversation about how AI is transforming co parenting. My guest is the amazing Tiffany Rochester, a clinical psychologist and co parenting coach based in Western Australia.

She's the founder of Co Parenting Companion, an evidence based service that helps separated parents raise children with empathy, integrity, and practical strategies. In this episode, Tiffany shares how AI can take the stress and conflict out of co parenting, from rewriting emotionally charged emails to creating boundaries with digital tools.

She also unpacks the risks, why AI's default tendency to agree with you can be dangerous, and how using the wrong prompts can escalate tension [00:01:00] instead of easing it. We explore whether co parenting apps are still relevant, and how AI can help parents see beyond their own perspective, and the power of using technology to respond, not react, in high stakes conversations.

If you are navigating co parenting, or any challenging relationship or just curious about AI's role in emotional intelligence, you don't want to miss this one. Let's dive right in.

Hi, Tiffany. Welcome. It is so great to be with you here today.

intro music: Thank you so much, Kate. I've been really looking forward to having this conversation.

Kate: Me too, both personally and professionally, this conversation is very interesting to me. Before I dive into some of the questions we're going to grapple with, I'd love to hear a bit about you, what your work entails, how you've kind of got to where you are and maybe what that chat GPT moment was, the moment where you realized AI could actually Have a significant impact in the work that you do.

Tiffany: Yes, so I am a co parenting coach in Borloo, um, on Mojak Noongar Boodja, which is Perth, Western Australia. And I've been working at the, the Quante end of family dynamics for, for over 20 years now. Um, And I started out working with the families of serious repeat juvenile offenders and I thought that that was a tricky population that were experiencing huge amounts of trauma and judgment and in desperate need of nurture and care and compassionate support.

Um, around a decade later, I found myself working with many families that were locked in the family court system. And They were coming to me at that point for mandated reportable therapy, which means you're coming in to see somebody who's been, you've been told by the magistrate you need to go and see and that they have to, um, behave in certain ways because there's going to be a report that then goes back to the magistrate, which oddly enough doesn't set people up for great therapeutic outcomes, um, at all and doesn't set a nice, safe relationship up, um, to be able to do the work that somebody hopes that we might be able to do.

And what I learned in that space was that. The families of the young juvenile offenders had nothing on the level of, of trauma that some of these families were going through and these children were going through. And what was really clear to me was that we were being brought in as a compassionate support far too late in the process.

And that whole system of being under the microscope in a legal context for solving people problems. Was entirely the wrong solution. [00:04:00] And so it was time to pivot and to be there from day one, to be able to support people who need to leave an unhealthy relationship and want to do it in a really healthy way to set up hopefully a strong co parenting dynamic so that you'll grow up across two homes.

A two home family is possible for a lot of separating families, but it is not possible for all families. And so when we were looking at how to set up our business, we wanted to look at how to be able to serve parents that were able to work on their foundations together to make that transition and also to support the parents who are needing to co parent solo to do the best job that they could with a co parent that they had rather than the one that they would have.

Then in terms of the AI perspective that I first of all have to thank my son. He has been And has had an absolute hyper focus for AI since before I even knew that it would have any possibilities. And before ChatGPT hit the market and, and wowed us all, he was already playing with training language models to be able to write in my voice.

And that blew me away, this, this concept that maybe, maybe some of the kind of the grunt work of writing stuff could, could be done with. Some kind of tech support running our own business, or I keep saying our, our, and we do have a small team, but at that time it was just me. Uh, means that not only do I get to do the service provision that I absolutely love, but to reach people, I also have to market.

I have to get out on social media, I have to write blog pieces. I love writing to my mailing list and all of that takes an enormous amount of time. So my first interest was looking at, can this make some of the. Running the business tasks a little bit easier so that I can spend more time doing the delivery with the families that actually really need that support.

So yeah, that was my, my starting place and just another plug for my son, because I am a proud mom. He is now just about to start his degree in, uh, computer science with an advanced AI specialization. So I think he will continue to help keep me on track with the latest developments. Oh, that's amazing.

Kate: How lucky are you to have an AI specialist in your home?

Yeah. You need to rent him out to others who are only just starting to have their AI awakening. Um, so look, thanks for bringing us up to speed on how you got to hear such an important role that you play and such an important gift, I guess, that you bring to the world. For legal reasons, I can't speak about my own experience with some of those systems.

However, what you say really resonates that had, you know, if things could be dealt with earlier, then things could be really different and the system is severely broken. So. One of the things I'm so passionate about with AI is that I really believe if we lean into it in responsible, human focused, ethical ways, it's got the potential to solve some of the greatest challenges that we have as humanity, personally, professionally, and for the whole of humanity, and I think this is one of those areas.

Where we can see some really tangible difference made with the support of AI. So I'm very much looking forward to uncovering what that actually means. So you've been helping parents to navigate co parenting and obviously doing that with an enormous amount of integrity and empathy, but how do you see AI as, um, I guess helping to ease some of the emotional and logistical stress and I guess the rollercoaster of that whole?

Tiffany: Yes, there are so many ways that AI can support and help and just take that grunt work out of some of the tasks and take some of the emotional loading out of the task. So. For, for anybody who's walked the road of, of separating, particularly in the context of raising children, there are so many demands.

The finances are strained and stretched. There's the emotional turmoil of what on earth is the right steps for, for our children? How do we do this? How do I show up for my kids when my heart is hurting? And then we add on top of that, how do I communicate in a way that is going to. Keep my co parent's defenses down so they can hear what I'm going to say.

How do I do that when I am so lost in anger, grief, betrayal, or whatever it is for that person's situation. And then we have the, how on earth do I get myself into a headspace where I can read and process and respond if my co parent is communicating to me from, from their, their own emotional space or. Or just if one or both people have really struggled with communication skills in the context of confrontation, conflict, trying to find a pathway forward.

Unsurprisingly, often at the point of a relationship separation, there have been some communication issues, often for some time. Now, ultimately, obviously, we don't do all of our communication online, so, so we do want people to figure out how to ground themselves, how to soothe themselves, how to be able to tune into the values of who they care to be and how they want to show up in the moment and then to thoughtfully respond, but all of that takes time and space.

We need a chance to be able to recover, a chance to be able to just, um, breathe and discover who, who you want to be in the next chapter. And so we need some strategies, some shortcuts to help right at the start so that you can buy yourself some breathing room to get there. So shall I share some of the ways that I might talk to people, I'm, I'm getting a nod, lovely.

So. No matter who's listening to this particular episode, everybody will have received an email at some point that just punches them in the guts where they're just like, I don't, I like, I just, I don't want to read that. I don't want to engage with that. Sometimes, you know, they're, they're very, very, very long.

And you're thinking like, I don't, I don't, don't even want to read that. I don't, I can't engage with that. Um, I have children to feed. I have a job I'm trying to do. So one of the things that I suggest straight off the bat is copy and paste that. into your chat GPT or into your applaud or alarm or your, your AI of choice.

Do de identify it, particularly if you're using the free accounts, because, uh, you don't want that stuff going anywhere else. It's your personal business. And then a prompt that I might use would be something like, could you please tell me the key points and take all of the emotional heat out of this so I know what it is I have to respond to.

Now I would later suggest that you do go back and have a decent read in case AI has missed something for you. But it just gives you a different way to be able to access the important information. Or you might use a prompt like, can you tell me the important parts I need to respond to? Because that just helps pull out the key pieces of information from all of the emotional language that might be in there, um, all of the stuff that might trigger any of your emotional patterns.

And

Kate: how often do when you, sorry to interrupt you, but

Tiffany: go

Kate: ahead. How often do we. Read an email and react before we've finished reading the email and already formulated a response that maybe is not fully informed with the whole context. And I love that about what you're saying is before you even read it to actually have an objective third party pull out the salient points in a non emotive way and present that so that you can digest the overall intent and outcome of that communication before, you know, diving into those, those details.

Tiffany: Exactly right, exactly right. And, and not only can we be guilty of writing our response before we fully digested the information, [00:12:00] but even worth hitting send before we've given ourselves 24 hours to reflect on if this is actually the way that we want to respond back. Which gives us another way that AI can really help.

Um, so the prompts that some of my co parents find most enjoyable and helpful are things like, could you please change this email into iambic pentameter? Could you rewrite it as a limerick? Could you pop it into emojis? Now from a, from a science perspective, what we're looking at is a skill called a diffusion, which is about being able to create some space and distance between the words on the page and the reaction that you're having.

We're just creating a different way of being able to look at it. So that it loses some of its emotional sting so that we can bring our prefrontal cortex fully back online to be able to respond in a way that is useful for what we want to do going forward. I think it's a really important aspect to look at is what are the steps that I need to take to get the outcomes that I want to get rather than how much do I want to fight for whether I'm right or wrong in this particular context.

So then once we've got those key points out. And then we've been able to get some distance from the emotional stuff by having a really good laugh. Um, it's great if you can have a laugh. It's not about being disrespectful to this person at all. It's just about creating that space so you can be your whole person responding back.

And then we can say, can you help me write my reply? And the things that I like to do myself is I just do my mind dump of what I really want to say. Um, and then say, could you help me write this in a way that is kind, firm, compassionate. And then see what comes back after that, of course, AI, they will never write in our own voices as well as we do, and it will not get all of the nuances right.

And I know later on this conversation, we're going to talk about some of the other risks of using AI. So it is important then to tweak it and polish it. And you can run it past AI a couple more times to do a check for tone, um, and a check for any other way that you might be still putting yourself at risk.

And one of my favorites is to get it to then. Give you feedback as though they're reading it from the perspective of your co parent or the recipient. So you might give them a couple of sentences about your co parent, um, want to talk more about that in a minute. You might just say, uh, what, what would be the likely ways that somebody reading this might respond.

You get your checks on that.

Kate: In business we use, um, I often teach businesses the lever prompt, which is give this output a score. So in this context, it might be, um, give it a score, you know, a reaction score out of 10, how high do you think this email would be as a reaction? And it might say, well, it's still at a six based on what you've said.

And then you can say, great, could you please rewrite it and dial it down to, I want to say a five because you still want impatch, but maybe a three. Yes.

Yes. And I love that lever.

Kate: Yeah. That lever prompt works really well in that kind of context because you can get the AI to bring it to the level that you know, even though your intent might be a little stronger that you know is going to be more useful.

Tiffany: I really love that, Kate. I'm definitely going to take that prompt and share that with our community for sure. Um, and I think before, before AI was really huge, Grammarly was, was one of the, and Grammarly is still a very useful tool. Um, I remember some feedback from one of my parents years ago, and they said, look, I just keep, when it says that I've got an aggressive tone or this or that, I just keep accepting the changes and accepting the changes.

And then at the end, it tells me that it still says the same thing that I said originally. I'm not sure that it does, but I seem to be getting the results that I want when I send them. And so I just, I really love that. And it is a great learning tool for just figuring out, Oh yeah, what is the way that I could put that?

What is the way that might actually come across in a better way for when we are having those phone conversations or face to face

Kate: conversations. And from a therapeutic perspective, one of the other things I do in a business context is that when I do that lever prompt, I ask AI to give the reasons why.

And so from a therapeutic perspective. It's almost like a mirror back to, well, the way that you're describing this absolutely clearly reflects how you feel. Um, however, from a third party perspective, you know, that could be taken in different ways. And so then it actually becomes a learning tool as well, because you ask for, you know, what did you do to take it from a six to a three?

Um, and then you actually get some reflection space in there as well.

Tiffany: Yes. And, and what is really powerful about adding in that kind of prompt that tell me your reasons, show me, show me you're working out, uh, this is something that again, I've got to thank my son for is that, Hey, I is. It's trained to be lazy, and so if we don't ask it to show it's working out, it will take shortcuts.

And that makes sense, because if we look at the amount of computing that happens in the background in order to get us these answers, it's a, it's a truck ton, like we've got to be watching out for that, and not as much as mining cryptocurrency, but still getting up there. So yes, if we want AI to work hard for us, you're absolutely right.

We have to ask it to show it's working out.

Kate: What I love about what you're saying is, um, in my experience, when I feel activated about a particular situation or a person or a conversation or something that's unfolded, I go to my friends and I love my friends dearly, and I have one friend in particular who's really good at being objective, and we have a saying that, you know, I'm gonna give you a bit of a slap in the face with a wet fish.

It's like, that's when we know, you know, we're saying something the other person might not like, but it's coming from love and it's some. But AI does that really well. And a lot of friends will actually just reinforce your own experience and do the sympathy and the empathy. You know, sometimes unfortunately stack that on so much that we actually can't see clearly or from anybody else's perspective.

And I love how you've approached that in that it really helps people to step out of that and to be able to have never ending conversations if you want to, that are not going to wear your friends and your family out.

Tiffany: deescalate that. It's true, but that comes with a really, really important caveat, particularly for people who don't have a long history of using AI or haven't done a lot of research into how to use AI for prompts, because the prompt that you use to get that objective feedback makes a huge difference to the feedback that you're going to get.

And it can also, in the same way that. Um, you're completely right that often our networks, they wrap around us and they can wrap around us with a very unhelpful narrative. They can reinforce stories that aren't going to help us actually bring our best selves forward to the battle, particularly for people who are in any kind of family court or adversarial mediation process.

The steps that those people need to take to be able to get through that process to the outcomes that they want are often very different from what their friends who have not worked, walked that road, um, are advising them to do. So we always, I mean, we always need to be judicious about where we're getting our advice from and who has skin in the game to actually have those opinions.

Um, but AI can do the same thing and, um, all of the large language models predisposition to tell you that you are right. And that you are really good at what you're doing and to make you feel really good about all the choices that you're making. So if we give leading prompts to AI that suggest that we want it to give us a particular perspective, it's going to work hard to do that.

So using far more neutral prompts are going to help get us clearer answers from the AI.

Kate: And you're absolutely right, because I forget in my own little AI bubble that people are still having their first moments and some may hear this podcast and that's their first experience of, of using it. See, I've already gone to thinking about a make.

com automation where an email comes in, it gets quarantined for 24 hours. It goes to ChatGPT with a really, that prompt, you know, kind of framework that you're talking about that. Uh, pulls out, obviously it filters back emergency com, you know, communications, but that it then presents you with a different version of that.

It doesn't even let you see the original until you're much further along in a, a staged automated journey. But of course, it's not where people are starting. And when they're in trauma, they're not necessarily thinking about, and I say they only because I've obviously had some experiences in that, but not always thinking about all of the nuances that we're talking about.

Tiffany: Of course, when you're in trauma, you're in fight flight. So you're seriously just looking at how do, how do I not die right now? It's very hard to have that broader perspective because not all of your brain is online. That's not your fault. That's your biology. And so my goodness me, it is why, it is why you want to be.

Um, you know, seeking supports from people who are experts in human behavior and child development rather than the letter of the law so that, so that you can bring all of your brain back online to be able to be who you want to be for yourself and your kids.

Kate: Yeah, absolutely. Now, we are absolutely going to get into some of the challenges and limitations, but before we do that.

Thank you Um, and you obviously see firsthand how this technology is making a difference every day. Have you got particular success stories or examples where it really helps to reduce conflict then improve that communication?

Tiffany: Yes. Yes. So the, the feedback that I get from my clients all the time is that bringing AI in as a support in the ways that we've talked about is a complete and utter game changer.

Yeah. So. One of the biggest things that it does is it brings far more time back into their lives to be able to show up to work, to be able to be present with their kids, to be able to do. The things that they actually care about, knowing that they're not ignoring or dismissing the things that need to be sorted out with their co parent, they've just found a far more efficient way to do it.

So the biggest change that I hear from so many of my clients is I have so much time back in my life. The other thing that I hear so often is can't believe I got to laugh about it. I can't believe I got to take so much of the emotional energy out of it. It's not keeping me awake at night anymore. I'm not stewing about it.

It's not heavy in my guts. And, and if you think about that, just the amount of space that opens up to live, and so I see that over and over and over again across so many of our clients. I think. There are, there are loads of nuanced ways that I've watched and supported my clients to use it, but that overall would be the biggest thing that we see is it just takes so much of the pain and time out of it so that they can actually do the things that they would like to do.

Kate: So Tiffany, I know that up until now, you know, there's been these co parenting apps that people use that have been really effective [00:23:00] in doing some of what we're talking about to a level. But not nearly in the hyper personalized way that we're talking about, that AI brings to it. So do co parents still need to use an app?

Does AI replace that? What are your views on apps and tech, tech for co parenting?

Tiffany: Yes. So, um, I, I used to be, I used to be a fan of co parenting apps and I'm not anymore. Um, and. Uh, the context in which I was a fan of them was when I was working with, uh, those who were in that mandated reportable, um, therapy space.

And, uh, the reason that I found them to be useful there was because, um, you could provide other people with access to your, your communications. Um, so, so your lawyer or your therapist or your coach. And that seems sensible for that very small percentage of the population that are at the point of going to trial where a magistrate is making all of the decisions.

So we're talking about 3 percent of the separating population. Apps are good for that. And I really wouldn't recommend them for anybody else. There's several reasons for that. One is, is that the majority of apps on the market require you and your co parent to decide that you're going to use. The same app and that they generally the, the, to get all the, all the bells and whistles of the apps and there's a subscription fee.

So then two people who might not be communicating at their. Upmost best with each other have to agree on a singular app, which means they might be fighting over the different apps and which one would be best. And then they have to both agree to spend money and then they both have to learn that new tech.

It's, it's a lot like, like there are, there are so many problems that you do need to solve when you're transitioning to two home that agreeing on an app, I think is not one of them. The other thing is there are plenty, there are plenty of free workarounds. So this isn't something else that you need to spend money on or something else that you have to learn.

One of the things that I have on our website is our very short mini course, six steps to co parenting success is completely free and every strategy, every one of those six steps is completely free to implement and. All of those show how to use AI, how to use Google calendars, how to use specific settings on your inbox and on your phone to be able to put beautiful boundaries in place that support healthy communication.

And there's no need to have an app for any of it, which means that there is no need to get an agreement. So for every single one of those six steps, you do not need your co parent's permission or agreement to implement them, and you can have them in place by sundown. Unless it is literally like 15 minutes away from sunset, in which case, please do it tomorrow.

Um, and, um, and then there is another reason why now, particularly, I'm really concerned about apps, um, compared to using the readily available workarounds. And that is because of. The level of sophistication that is involved in, in AI and how quickly it can go offline or wrong. So there are now, of course, very sensibly comparing the apps that are, that are using harnessing AI as, as part of their setup.

And you would know far more about this side than me Kate, but that involves training the bots that are going to respond. Now I've, I've trained a bunch of bots for, um, helping me out with. Looking at how to put things on Instagram or Facebook and they're lovely, they go offline really, really fast. And I am good at training my bots and, and better than that, as mentioned, I've, I've got tech support in my home and we still watch how quickly they go offline.

Now, the people who are setting up co parenting apps, they're, they're wonderful, well meaning, fabulous people who are really hard committed in this space. They often come from a legal background, which means, um, that's great. If you're going to go through a legal process, you might want an app that has that legal focus.

Uh, if you're trying to say add a legal process, you probably want to look for one that is not developed by lawyers because that will have a different nuance. Um, but all of them are small companies that are trying to fund themselves, fund their own R& D. And problem with that, when we look at the sophistication of AI is they can't keep pace.

With where Chachi, BT, Claude, Lama, What's that new one? Deep Seek? Go to Deep Seek for parenting advice. Yeah, I, I, look, I have, I, I am not planning to explore that one just at the moment. So, You

Kate: might get some rather biased parenting approaches in that.

Tiffany: So which matters, right? We have to look at the ideology that is informing the training of the, of these models.

Absolutely. So one of the things that, uh, we taught people through in our free course and in our blogs is how to set up a shared calendar on Google. And a question that I'm often asked from people who are wary, who have had some really bad experiences. Is it safe? Can somebody hack my calendar? You know, will my co parent be able to see my private stuff rather than the stuff that I'm just putting in a shared calendar?

Now, obviously I can't answer those questions because it's not my tech, but what I do know is that Google relies on being able to have that damn well secure because they use it to be able to offer appointments to corporate clients. They use it, there's a thousand different settings that Google uses their calendars in and Google's budget.

Um, is enormous. And so I feel that there is more, more safety in unfortunately, um, trusting the, the, the big companies. I think they do have all the money, but if we can trust them and not pay the money, um, a great way to go then, um, then smaller companies that just don't have that kind of R and D budget.

Um, so for 97 percent of the separating population, I would say use your free workarounds because it's easier. Yeah. It's in. The spaces that you're already in, it's using tech that you already know and it doesn't cost you any money and you don't need anyone's permission.

Kate: It's, um, always really refreshing to hear advice that makes things simple, accessible, and doesn't cost or have some kind of monetization objective.

Because, you know, going through all of that challenge, you just don't need that extra layup. And one of the points I wanted to come back on, um, cause you very rightly pulled me up on it, is the human in the loop side of things and AI. As much, I mean, I've looked at platforms like pi. ai, which have you explored pi at all?

No, not pi. I have heard of it, but I've not explored it. Yeah. So pi is much more like a life coach and a therapist and is very focused more from a therapeutic perspective. And I know I've got some interviews coming up with some people who are developing some really interesting tech from a therapeutic perspective.

I'm interested in your views on how you find that balance, because some people Therapy is amazing. So like me, they're a talker. They process, you know, things by talking them out. I often don't know what I'm feeling until I hear myself talk about it. That's my, that's the way that I process. So for me, only having conversations with AI that's reinforcing my view is, plays a logistical role, but is not going to fulfill my human need, which is to connect with another human and get some human expertise and perspective on, on the situation.

So how do you suggest. Sorry, I am getting to the question, but it strikes me that when you look at platforms like character. ai, where people are forming these deep relationships with technology. Often to very sad and detrimental outcome. How do you as a psychologist, as a person in the field of therapy, guiding people on how to make those choices?

And at what point is it too much AI intervention, too much tech, too much or not enough of the human touch? Therapy. A very long question.

Tiffany: And a really, really important question. And I, and I just want to clarify for people who are listening that, um, in the co parenting space, um, it, it's very much a coaching program that we offer, um, whilst I, uh, certainly am trained as a psychologist, we provide a coaching service, a non mental health service.

And, and the reason that we have that delineation is because, um, figuring out how to do co parenting well is useful and helpfully separated from. The therapy that you might need to recover from the relationship ending and, and the changes in your life, it's kind of, it's too much, too much to put all into one package.

So just wanted to pop that in there for, for listeners to understand the difference between the two. So there's. There's a lot in that, I think one of the reasons that we might engage in conversations with AI rather than real people is because we carry a story about being a burden to others that I'm heavy.

If people hear my story, I am a problem or I, you know, people don't have time for me. And often those have come out of childhood experiences, either with parents who were doing the best that they could and didn't, didn't know what they didn't know or all All experiences, it can be a whole heap of reasons why those stories emerge.

And they particularly emerge as strong stories for women. So when we outsource to AI, don't give ourselves the exposure, the opportunity to learn something new, to learn that people actually do care about me, that they do want to make time for me. And worse than that, it means that all of these people who do love you and care for you, don't know that you are having this really tough time.

So they don't know how to show you that they are there for you and they care for you. So. Um, so one of the dangers of it is that you actually cut off more of your opportunities to have real connections with people. However, loads of people have been trained throughout society, unfortunately, that we should dismiss feelings, that we should distract away from them, that we should, um, jolly it up and go and look at hilarious cat videos on YouTube and they don't know how to sit with the distress of each other.

So I think one of the things that can be really useful is that if you're having a conversation with AI, where you feel heard, you feel seen, you feel validated, you feel understood, look at what it is that the AI is saying to you, look at how it is that it's holding, holding that space because we can tell our friends, I want you to know I'm having a really hard time at the moment.

I need to feel seen and heard. I don't, I don't want you to fix my problem right now. I just want you to listen while I cry because that's going to be helpful. Or if I want solutions, I'm going to ask you, or I would like you to take on the role of an objective, a perspective. I would like you to ask me some challenging questions so that we can actually get our needs met.

So, so the AI experience can be great for learning. What is it that I am looking for in my interpersonal reactions? It can give a prompt to feed into

Kate: our friends. That's right. That's exactly right. I think for years saw the world in social media prompts. I used to say I see the world in tweets, you know, when it was 140 characters or less.

Now I see the world in AI prompts and what you've just said is hysterical because it's like AI can help you get the prompt to give to your friend. I

Tiffany: love it. My mind is exploding. The other thing that I think about that, Kate, is that. As an adjunct to your therapy process, it can be really useful, an adjunct to your coaching process.

So, um, definitely, um, I, I'm not available, uh, 24 7 to my clients. Uh, for, for those that have been through our reset, they have the option to stay with us inside our membership and. They get access to an online resource library, which has like every thought I've ever had about co parenting, that they can access 24 sevens.

I'm doing the best that I can, but then where they find that that's lacking, they can check that out with AI, and then they can bring that to their coach or to their therapist and go, this is, this is where I've got to, this is the work that we've done. So, um, there are loads of ways that it can be really useful.

Um, And then I think the other reason that people often lean, lean into the AI for that support is, is money for sure. And also the fear of. Sitting down with the wrong person. And I like to think that, that coaches, psychologists, social workers, and counselors, we are like a board of cheese and there are so many delicious cheeses.

I don't like all of them. And so I will not be the right cheese for everybody. I like to think that I'm cheddar. That I think, I think that maybe I'm the right cheese for many. Um, but if you really like your stinky cheese, that's, that's not going to be me. Um, and so that's where the word of mouth referral can be so, so helpful.

Uh, it's where, it's one of the reasons, quite frankly, Kate, that I love to guest on podcasts and, and put out, uh, um, articles and things on social media so that people can really check me out. So that by the time they contact me, they already know I'm the right fit for them. Or they know that I'm not. And so they never, they never make contact with me.

They go and make contact with somebody else. That's fantastic. I don't, I don't want to take money and time from somebody. That I'm not the right fit for. So, um, I think it's okay to do a really good look for who it is that you want to spend your time and if you're going to do it, to spend your, your money on.

And if you've had a bad experience, don't judge the entire therapy coaching world by, by one or two bad experiences.

Kate: Yeah. Wow. There's so much, so much that you've just shared in there. It made me think of when custom GPTs were first released in ChatGPT. I was doing some work with a psychologist and we built some, as a pilot project, some custom GPTs for her clients where.

It was highly trained on the individual, and it meant that in between sessions, which is what you were just talking about, that you can't be available 24 7, that if they were like, I've just had an argument with my husband, or can you remind me what my goals were? I'm feeling really elevated. What should I do?

And then the outcomes that they talked about in therapy were just prompted back to them. So it's like, Oh, remember you said you were going to go for a walk around the block before you actually answered that email and people loved it. And. Yeah. Yeah, I think we're about to see an explosion of some of those tools available.

And even one of my other recent podcast interviews was with the co founder of Jamie, which is an app that's about to launch, which is like a, a bestie can be more of a romantic thing, but is more around having that bestie in your corner that you can use as a sounding board. And I think it's one of the most undervalued uses of AI at the moment that people don't realize is.

And obviously in a business context, we talk about using it as a thought partner and a strategy partner and a consultant, but in a personal perspective, you can just really bounce ideas off and get, you know, get some of that more nuanced. granular understanding of any kind of situation.

Tiffany: Yes, you're absolutely right.

And I, I just thinking about it, it's something that I reflect on often. I have a lot of, um, software engineers in my, uh, friendship, uh, network. And, [00:38:00] and we talk about the fact that we, we never saw, um, their field and my field overlapping, um, quite so closely. And yet, uh, yes, hand in hand, we can do so much more together.

It's, um, there's some really wonderful evolutions coming out and I really, really loved hearing about that one, Kate.

Kate: Well, fun fact, I'm actually a social worker by training. I have a social work degree, merging of disciplines, but yeah, I think it's one of the things I'm most excited about with AI is joining dots between silos that just have not collaborated before, that have not found the, you know, the natural places to join and connect.

And I think we've got the potential now for. Solutions that we haven't even begun to think of yet that are going to emerge out of this time. And I'm going to put you on the spot a bit because it wasn't something we talked about beforehand, but I know the buzz in AI and the business world this year is very much about autonomous agents and this concept of being able to give a voice instruction and have a whole string of tasks completed or actions taken.

I often say, you know, I want to be able on my way home from school drop off to go, Hey, Bob, or whatever my AI agents call, you know, book my local Chinese restaurant, send a text, you know, for 6 p. m. tonight, send a text to the six people who are coming. Tell me how many people I've got on my webinar tomorrow.

Send Tiffany the podcast questions that we worked on yesterday. And, you know, Order my Uber Eats for lunch and have it delivered at one and that all of that will be done before I even get back to my desk. And when you, and I've got a 12 minute drive from school to, time to, uh, it's my podcast listening time.

So. Have you got any insight into how that big shift in technology is going to play a role in co parenting and, and the work that you're doing? Because I think there'd be some exciting implications there too.

Tiffany: Yeah, look, I think, I think it will. When I listened to the, the list of instructions that you could see would be really useful, that they were.

They were the lackey jobs, right? They, they were the jobs that they don't need you heavily involved to be doing those decisions. So I, I think it was a similar thing of, you know, a draft reply ready for me to look at, um, check my emails, let me know if there's something important in there. Um, is there anything from my co parent that I meant to have responded to and I haven't responded to yet?

Can you make sure that that's on the list for me? And can you update the shared care calendar with handover details? I can see that could be useful for there.

Kate: I can see you're about to go, because I've got visions of someone in a car going. Send an email to my ex partner telling them blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that they do the whole tirade without any of that buffer so I can see where you're going, which I think is a lovely segue into what are some of the risks and challenges that we're potentially facing?

Tiffany: Yeah. So the big, the biggest risk and challenge is not, is not realizing or recognizing the bias that you are using in the prompts, which changes the output that you get, um, and not remembering that. There is a bias in the, in the language model to begin with where it wants to affirm you and tell you that you're wonderful and say that everything that you're doing is great.

Um, and we have talked about both of those. I just had a thought that was really important in that space case and then it disappeared. That's what it was, is in the, um, human to human world. One of the huge risks that we have for separated parents is when they go and see a therapist or a coach. Who does not predominantly work in or have familiarity with the separated parent space.

Um, and who does not work from a family systems focus. Now, now that I know social work's part of your background, Kate, this, this would very much speak to your, your heart because I, I think, um, whilst my early training was always in family systems and how contexts go together, that's bread and butter for social work and not necessarily for psychology.

Um, the biggest risk in, in that, again, that person to person interaction. Is that the therapist or the coach can make things far worse because they are reinforcing unhealthy narratives because they don't have access to information about who the co parent is or who the children are other than through the lens of the person that's talking to them.

We have that same risk with AI. I had a parent at one point send me through, they looked at my chat GPT prompts and they said, yes, I've started to use them. And, um, and then what I can tell you is, um, my, my co parent definitely is a narcissist, um, which I hear from, did you know that 98 percent of people who are separated apparently have a narcissist parent.

So for anyone who's listening, um, it is so helpful to look at all the other reasons that those behaviors might be there. That label is, is really helpful. Um, I digress. So, um, so this person responded saying, Anne, My co parent is sending me terrible emails that tell me this and this and this and this and this and I was looking at the output that she was generating from AI and looking at it and going, well, you are not using the prompts that we've talked about.

You are using some very different prompts and these prompts are actually making things worse for you. They are making you more angry. They're making it more difficult for you to be able to respond the way that you need to, to get the outcomes that you are looking from to make things. lighter and easier for you and your children.

So we have to be very aware of our biases and the limited information AI has, and that it is only getting our perspective. And even when we try and give it the perspective of somebody else, it is still through our lens and we can be really blind to our own biases. It also. is hard coded to not be able to say, I don't know.

And so it will make stuff up and it will not tell you that it has made it up. So if, and I want to go here, cause I know that people use it in this way. If you're using it to also, um, be a replacement for your lawyer to give you some legal advice or guidance on what your, um, shared care arrangement should be, ask it to cite sources and go and check the sources.

Um, it can be very, very useful to say, did you actually go to that piece of information or did you just make it up? I asked it about a book at one point and it gave me a summary of the book and I could tell from the summary because it wasn't very sophisticated that it had read the title and made it up.

And so I did ask, have you actually read this book? Oh no, I'm so sorry. I haven't. I just thought that's probably what it was about based on the title. We have to, we have to. When we're using AI. So as you've talked about, it can be the thought partner, it can be the strategy partner, but it cannot actually do the thinking for us.

We still need to own that for ourselves.

Kate: Yeah. And, you know, I love that that's what you've really brought to this conversation amongst so many other things, but that real focus on. You know, we're all still early adopters of this technology. So those of us who are using it heavily are at the very forefront of this time of great transition.

And we know from a business perspective, you put in poor prompts, you get really poor outcomes. You don't take the time to warm up and train the AI on who you are and who you serve and all of those things. And what we're talking about here today is much more personal. And obviously there's A lot of resistance, rightly so, to people putting in a whole lot of personal context.

And so what you're getting out is AI's synthesized view of every Facebook comment and social media post that's been written about narcissists and co parenting. In your responses, and so, you know, I always say that prompting well is about 50 percent of the equation. The training part is the other 50 percent that you only get great responses here with the prompting, but you get aligned responses when it's trained to who you are, who the business is, who you serve.

So from a business context, so putting that in this context, if it's not familiar with who you are, what your family dynamic is, what your history is. Um, I'm not suggesting at all that people do that because it's a lot of personal context to be putting into. Is what is still new technology that we're still discovering what that really means and what the terms and conditions really mean about what's happening with your data.

So I'm not suggesting people do that, but it does mean that you're only getting 50 percent of the benefit. I can say not to throw a cat amongst the pigeons, but I can see huge value in platforms or really specific use cases being built in this space that has more guardrails that guide those prompts and those questions in a way that.

The human error or the human trauma that might influence the way a prompt is written is actually taken out from the outset. And I'm sure there's work, I'm sure you and your son have these conversations over the dinner table.

Tiffany: And look, and you're right, as you're well aware, there are indeed, you can go to some sites to get your prompt right before you take it back to the AI of choice.

And for those who are novice users who do, you know, they're going to play with this. And I would recommend that you play with it. I use AI multiple times every single day. Like it is part of my business team. Um, I'm very, very, very pro AI support does best when you give it a role. So if you want to ask it some legal questions.

Then you would want to ask it to, you'd tell it its role first. So you are a well regarded, world class expert in family law in Australia. In Australia? In Australia. And you are highly skilled at collaborative, low conflict solutions that settle well before they get to a courtroom. So that you are giving it the parameters of the advice that you want it to go back as opposed to saying you're a world class expert in highly litigious cases where it's win at all costs and spending, you know, 300, 000 per person, which happens far more times than it ever, ever, ever should.

So, so yes, giving it, giving it a role helps take that output and protects you from having to put in, as you said, all of that personal information. It is such a useful tool and it's really important that we use it in very skilled, thoughtful ways. It's one of the reasons that I was so excited to have this conversation with you, Kate, and why I'm just so excited about your podcast in, in general around these conversations in all of the different areas of business and personal life where, where people can learn how to harness this exciting stuff in ethical and, um, And caring ways.

Kate: So as you stand on the hill and look out to the next, what we can see from the hill is shorter and shorter, I think, in terms of what we can see is coming. What are you most excited about or what's the vision that you see for how AI can really transform some of the biggest challenges that people are facing around co parenting and all of the dynamics of that?

What do you see coming down the line?

Tiffany: I see that it can definitely take the emotional load out really fast. It can help you. I think it's got the potential to help us see who our co parent is trying to be rather than the story that we have made up about how they are acting and behaving. Because we see their behaviors, but then we make up the stories about what those behaviors mean and that guides the behaviors that we give back.

And that is where so many of our problems happen. I think AI has to Capacity to shortcut that process so that we can find solutions that work far more quickly and the sooner, the sooner that we can find those solutions is why I'm passionate about support right from, right from the point of deciding that, you know, that you're going to separate, you need to tell the kids that is the very, very best time to seek some kind of support and guidance because if you can get those steps in place.

Right from the get go, there are so many awful pathways you never go anywhere near and I think AI can be incredibly useful in those early days.

Kate: I love that because so many people say that AI can't do empathy, which is actually not my experience. I think it, it doesn't do empathy, but it mirrors and reflects empathy really well.

And so my experience of it might be different to other people who that it doesn't mirror that for them. It was interesting. I felt that in my body, actually, when you said it can really help us look at it from a different perspective and who that other person is, is trying to be. I imagine you could prompt really effectively for that to say in everything that I've said in this engagement, could you act as the other person and tell me how, how you might be perceiving this?

I really think that's such an, such a gift that you can put into that mix at a really challenging time.

Tiffany: I'm thinking of something that I often, um, talk with my clients about is multiple hypothesis generation. So, you know, this person's done that, your assumption is this, give me five other reasons why that behavior's occurred, because it makes sense from a shortcut evolutionary perspective to assume that the behavior is about you, and therefore you need to do something differently to change that behavior.

But we're, we're often. wrong and it's unhelpful. And so that exact prompt that you could use with AI as well as to go, this is the behavior. Give me five reasons why this person may behave that way. And then it doesn't actually matter which reason is right. It matters which reason opens up in you the kindest, best strategy for responding to them.

And we can just act as though that's right. That'll bring better behaviors out of you, which bring better behaviors out of the person that you are trying to interact with. Sorry. Yeah. There, there are loads of ways. I loved, I'm, I'm coming back to that conversation about how you've worked with that psyche in training those very specific bots.

And I really love that as an application to look at what am I learning from my coach? What am I learning from my therapist and my counselor? And how can I get the AI to prompt me for those skills that I'm trying to practice? Absolutely. I love it. Yeah.

Kate: Yeah. And I think in work, in closing, what I'm really left with is.

We talk all the time in business about human in the loop, and this is really about bringing the best of who we are as a human and using AI to do more, to be more, to increase our impact, and I really like that that's what this, love that that's what this conversation's been about, is that. How do we bring the best of ourselves and then use this technology to help us be more empathetic, to help us be more human in these really critical relationships.

So Tiffany, I could talk to you for days on this topic. And I wish I had have met you a few years ago, um, but I've really enjoyed the conversation today. You bring so much wisdom and insight into what's a really important area where I think AI can make a huge difference. So if people want to reach out and connect with you or find out more about your coaching and the courses and the membership that you provide, where would you like [00:53:00] them to go?

Tiffany: So our website is co-parenting companion au and you can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and uh, Facebook as at co-parenting companion. And we've just branched into Blue Sky. That's our at co-parent companion. And I can, uh, send you those direct links as well because we all needed a new social media platform,

Kate: didn't we?

Tiffany: I know. I think so many of us are checking it out as we, as we track some of the things that are happening, um, you know, broadly on the, on the global scale, uh. Kate, likewise, I, I think we could talk for hours and hours and, um, it has been such a joy to be able to have a conversation about, you know, looking at, at AI supports is one of my areas of hyper focus and interest.

So it's been a complete delight to have this conversation with you. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

Kate: Well, I want to have it again in 12 months time because I think the next 12 months is going to Uh, be really interesting about how we see more and more of the real tangible human impact of [00:54:00] AI.

And I'd love to reconnect with you and have that conversation multiple times as all of this transition unfolds.

Tiffany: Absolutely. Let's book it in.

Kate: Thank you so much, Tiffany. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the AI Grapple. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

We would love to hear your thoughts, so reach out with any questions or comments about the show. Until next time, keep grappling with AI and stay curious.