Parenting Coordination

Parenting coordination is a problem-solving service offered to divorced parents who seek professional assistance in working together to keep their children free from the parents’ conflicts.

While conflict is a normal part of divorce, how well parents manage that conflict affects both the short-term and long-term well being of their children.

For some parents, conflict continues to create distress for them and their children beyond the divorce. Problems may arise over issues that are not specifically addressed in their parenting plan. For example, the parenting plan may say that parents decide together on extra-curricular activities for their children but may not indicate how to deal with disagreements about these activities. When a conflict arises, children often feel caught in the middle. This situation may put them at greater risk for emotional and behavioral problems—e.g., poor school performance, anxiety, uncontrollable anger, and depression.

Even parents who have been able to protect their children from divorce-related conflict may encounter problems when new situations arise—e.g., remarriage.

Returning to court with these conflicts is both financially and emotionally costly. Even more, courts are poorly equipped to provide lasting resolutions.

In all these situations, a Parenting Coordinator can support parents to resolve conflicts more readily and protect children from stress.

As a parenting coordinator, my activities are matched to the specific needs of each divorced family. I may do any or all of the following:

• help parents identify sources of conflict between them and consider ways to address them;


• facilitate communication between the parents and between parents and others who relate to the children—e.g., grandparents, school personnel, and therapists;


• use mediation techniques to deal with specific issues;


• apply arbitration procedures in certain defined areas when parents are otherwise unable to resolve a dispute.


• I will not give legal advice or provide mental health services. If such services are needed, parents are advised to seek a licensed professional in the relevant field.