Our interview today is with Suzanne Winlove-Smith, a mediation strategist with the Ottawa Courts.

Suzanne is with us today to see if we can uncover much more to what is underneath this escalating issue facing society worldwide with our teen deaths due to drug overdoses.  In her work with kids, as she lovingly calls them, she sees the stresses and level of pain that these young people are experiencing.  In her words, “there is an epidemic of anxiety out there”

Here is an outline of some of the topics covered in today’s conversation.

1. When getting married, no one thinks about it ending in divorce
2. Divorce brings up so much fear in couples
3. It is the death of their hopes and dreams and these need to be grieved before moving on
4. When it gets to the courts there is already so much anger causing people to behave badly
5. Children are often forgotten and will make up their own stories about it all being their fault
6. Adults forget that their kids hear and feel things that may not be spoken
7. Adverse childhood event studies have shown 4 or more can lead to addiction
8. More education and understanding about relationships and divorce
9. Adults need to take a stand and become Hero’s to their kids by modeling better behaviour
10. More discussions about these hard to deal with topics – we don’t always have to have the answer but listening can be healing.