Should children of divorced parents choose their own parenting schedule? While children should be heard and their concerns taken seriously, they should not be responsible for deciding where they live or how much time they spend with each parent. Learn why consistency, avoiding loyalty binds, maintaining strong relationships with both parents and extended families, and allowing adults—not children—to make parenting decisions are essential to healthy post-divorce adjustment.

Loyalty binds happen when a child feels torn between their parents. They may feel like they have to choose sides, protect one parent’s feelings, or hide how they really feel to avoid upsetting someone. Even without words, children pick up on tension — and it can leave them feeling stuck, guilty, or anxious.

Parenting after divorce is difficult, and a coparenting challenge occurs when your coparent has a different parenting style. Learning to avoid conflict with your coparent means respecting that your child can have different rules and expectations in their other home, and still thrive.

Co-parenting coaching and psychotherapy serve different purposes. While psychotherapy between couples strives to bring the individuals emotionally closer, the goal of coparenting coaching is to help coparents become better parents to their shared child, while maintaining a healthy boundaries with one another.