The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

What the fuck is a "meaningful relationship" anyway?
We use phrases like meaningful relationship, substantial time, shared care, attachment and best interests so often in separated-parenting conversations that sometimes we stop asking what they actually mean.
And that matters, because somewhere along the way, "children benefit from healthy relationships with both parents" can quietly become "children need equally strong relationships with both parents" - and then "more parenting time creates a 'better relationship' ."
But are those actually the same proposition?
In Episode 2 of When Children Resist or Refuse Danielle explores the assumptions hiding inside familiar family-law and separated-parenting language.
We look at the difference between a parenting arrangement and a parent-child relationship; why attachment and relationship history cannot be reduced to a percentage of nights; what research can - and cannot - tell us about quantity of parenting time; and why a child can love a parent without wanting to live with them for a particular amount of time.
We also ask a question that will keep appearing throughout this series:
Are we protecting the relationship - or are we protecting the parenting schedule?
Because a Court can allocate parenting time. It cannot allocate emotional intimacy.
And apparently the sophisticated critical-thinking methodology for this entire discussion is now:
TABLE. Stop. Define the fucking thing.
This episode also continues the countdown to the Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™ turning ONE on 27 September 2026, with more information about the birthday celebration and limited-time offer coming soon.

This podcast provides general educational information and is not a substitute for legal advice or individual coaching specific to your circumstances.
Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000.

Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching
1:1 Coaching
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching
The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1
AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle
Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to

The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching.  You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au
About Danielle Black Coaching:
Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems.
Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes.
Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au

This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

What does it actually mean when a child says they don't want to spend time with the other parent?
In the first episode of our new series, When Children Resist or Refuse: Why don't they want to go?, Danielle Black unpacks one of the most difficult - and most misunderstood - issues in post-separation parenting: children who resist or refuse time with a parent.
Because a child's refusal tells us that something is happening. It does not, by itself, tell us why.
Is the child frightened? Is the parenting arrangement simply too much for them? Are they struggling with transitions, neurodivergence or sensory overload? Was the relationship with the other parent ever particularly strong? Has something happened to rupture it? Could family violence, coercive control, harmful parenting or boundary violations be relevant? Is the preferred parent contributing to the problem? Could there be alignment issues or inappropriate parental influence?
And why do these cases so often collapse into the deeply inadequate binary of abuse versus parental alienation?
In this episode, Danielle explores how we can move away from labels and towards something much more useful: understanding the individual child, their history, their relationships and the evidence actually in front of us.
Danielle also looks at the assumption that more parenting time automatically creates a better or more "meaningful" parent-child relationship - and why the research is considerably more complicated than that.
This episode also introduces the newly expanded Module 13 of The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™: When Children Resist or Refuse Contact, including substantial new research and practical frameworks for parents navigating exactly these issues.
And there's some news.
The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint turns ONE on 27 September 2026! 🎂
To celebrate, Danielle will be announcing a significant, limited-time Blueprint Birthday Discount closer to the official birthday. More will be revealed over the coming weeks.
The Danielle Black Coaching Team is also getting ready to launch their newest program, Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract.
If you want to make sure you don't miss either announcement, head to our website. You'll find separate newsletter sign-ups on the home page for Blueprint Birthday Discount updates (general mailing list) and Claim Your Name™.

This podcast provides general educational information and is not a substitute for legal advice or individual coaching specific to your circumstances.
Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000.

Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching
1:1 Coaching
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching
The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1
AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle
Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to

The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching.  You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au
About Danielle Black Coaching:
Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems.
Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes.
Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au

This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

Is nine nights/five nights becoming the new default parenting arrangement after Australia’s 2024 family law reforms? 
Danielle Black examines the rise of 9/5 recommendations in family reports and final outcomes, why mathematical ‘balance’ is not the same as a child-focused assessment, and what protective parents should ask when expert recommendations do not clearly connect the evidence to the proposed parenting schedule. 
This episode explores equal parenting time, attachment, child development, family violence, report writers, expert evidence and the difference between a recommendation and a court order.

This podcast provides general educational information and is not a substitute for legal advice or individual coaching specific to your circumstances.
Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000.

Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching
1:1 Coaching
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching
The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1
AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle
Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to

The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching.  You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au
About Danielle Black Coaching:
Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems.
Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes.
Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au

This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

When parenting arrangements cannot be agreed upon, many protective parents believe they have only two options: give in to what the other parent is demanding or begin family court proceedings.
But those are not the only paths available.
In this episode, Senior Coach Brigid Morgan shares her lived experience of navigating shared-care parenting without formal court orders in a high-conflict post-separation dynamic. She explores the certainty parents may hope court orders will provide, what orders can and cannot realistically achieve, and how a workable arrangement may sometimes be maintained through established care patterns, clear communication boundaries, parallel parenting and careful documentation.
Danielle then joins the conversation to address one of the most difficult questions protective parents face: what happens when the other parent refuses to agree to arrangements or safeguards that you believe are necessary for your children?
Together, Danielle and Brigid discuss:
Why parenting orders are not always the “golden ticket” they can appear to be
The false choice between acquiescing and immediately commencing court proceedings
Parenting plans, established arrangements and the importance of 'status quo' precedents
Parallel parenting when collaboration is neither safe nor realistic
Protective measures that may be implemented without court orders
Holding firm when faced with anger, accusations or threats of legal action
The difference between avoiding conflict and protecting your children
Situations in which formal orders and urgent legal advice may be necessary
This episode is not an argument against parenting orders. It is an invitation to question the assumption that court is automatically the only alternative when agreement cannot be reached - and to understand that parenting without orders does not necessarily mean parenting without boundaries, structure or protection.
This podcast provides general educational information and is not a substitute for legal advice specific to your circumstances.
Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000.
Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching
The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1
AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle
1:1 Coaching
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching
Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to

The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching.  You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au
About Danielle Black Coaching:
Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems.
Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes.
Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au

This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.

This is the final episode in the six-part Good Girl Contract series: Your children are not doomed by what they have experienced (and neither are you). But what happens next matters.
In this episode, Danielle speaks directly to protective mothers about the work their children actually need from them: protecting while they can, modelling healthy boundaries, accepting their children’s boundaries in return, and becoming a parent their children do not have to emotionally manage.
This means confronting some difficult truths. Your children will eventually determine the shape of their relationship with each parent. They may continue to love, seek approval from, or maintain a connection with a parent who has caused harm. Their relationship with that parent is not yours to design - and their love for you should never depend upon managing your feelings about it.
Trauma matters. It shapes our nervous systems, our relationships and our responses. But trauma cannot become an indefinite exemption from responsibility for what we transmit to our children.
The work is not to become a perfect mother. It is to interrupt the Good Girl Contract so our children inherit something different.
And that requires more than boundaries. Our children need to know us as a specific person - not simply as Mum, protector, organiser, provider or function. They need to know our preferences, our edges, our contradictions, our pleasures and our name.
Because the Good Girl Contract was never designed merely to make girls and women "good." It was designed to make them interchangeable.
This is where that transmission ends.
This ends here. This ends with us.
Support: If you are in Australia and need to talk to someone, 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24/7. In an emergency, call 000.
Explore the supports offered by Danielle Black Coaching
The Post-Separation Parenting Blueprint™
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-post-separation-parenting-blueprint-1
AI Danielle - Your 24/7 Digital Coach
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/meet-ai-danielle
1:1 Coaching
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/1-1-coaching
Claim Your Name™: Burning the Good Girl Contract
👉 https://www.danielleblackcoaching.com.au/the-contract-you-never-agreed-to
The music you hear in this outro is 'Calm is Credible' - an original track created exclusively for the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast and Danielle Black Coaching.  You can listen to this song, or download free, by visiting danielleblackcoaching.com.au
About Danielle Black Coaching:
Danielle Black is a respected authority in child-focused post-separation parenting in Australia. With over twenty years’ experience across education, counselling and coaching - alongside her own lived experience navigating a complex separation and family court journey - she supports parents to think strategically, build capacity, and protect their children’s safety and wellbeing within complex legal and relational systems.
Through Danielle Black Coaching, she leads a growing team of specialist coaches and a structured support ecosystem designed to provide professionally held, evidence-informed guidance for parents navigating high-conflict separation and family court processes.
Learn more at danielleblackcoaching.com.au

This podcast is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please seek independent legal, medical, financial, or mental health advice for your situation.