The goal of coparenting coaching is to learn how more effectively address issues with your coparent with cooperation and respect, and to help kids adapt to parental divorce and separation. The ultimate goal is to help the children live happily with each of their parents in each of their homes. During sessions with your parenting coach, you will learn specific skills unique to blended families and stepfamilies, including:

• Assessing anxiety and discomfort in your children

• Teaching your children to be honest about their thoughts and feelings

• Putting the needs of the child over the feelings of the parents: Prioritizing what the child needs, rather than what the parents want

• Talking with your coparent respectfully and professionally

• Communicating effectively between coparents, and between parents and children

• Managing conflict though open, honest and calm discussions

• Setting appropriate boundaries

• Respecting each parent’s right to make decisions on his/her own parenting time

• Recognizing and accepting parenting style differences

• Identifying and improving the way you react to the other parent

• Modeling effective problem-solving for your children.

There has been a lot of attention in recent years about ‘high conflict personalities’ (HCPs), especially related to divorce and blended family situations. Many times, each co-parent will see the other one as ‘high conflict’ (or ‘narcissistic,’ or ‘borderline,’or ‘personality disordered,’ or any number of other accusatory ‘diagnoses’ made by a former partner who is understandably distressed at the change in relationship dynamic). In most situations, these labels are used in frustration when parents find themselves unable to effectively express their points of view to one another. A parenting coach can help reduce judgment and name-calling, and instead facilitate understanding (rather than anger and scorn) between the parents. Understanding and effective communication is the first step to agreeing on a fair solution. And most importantly, focusing on solutions is in the best interest of your shared children, because it frees them from the tension that comes from being in the middle of parent conflict.

There are lots of potential conflict areas in a shared custody (known in Florida as “timesharing” or “shared parental responsibility”) situation. A parenting coach can help coparents reach agreement on any area of conflict. The most common disagreements include:

• Where the children will spend holidays

• What schools the children will attend

• How medical/healthcare decisions will be made

• Which parent has financial responsibility

• How schedule adjustments or “makeup timesharing” will be handled

• Transportation issues

• How to make transitions easier on the children

Coparenting refers to multiple parents (or parent figures) working together to assist in a child’s upbringing. Any time more than one parent is involved in a child’s life, some degree of co-parenting is taking place. Some parents choose to work closely together, with frequent communication collaboration on most areas of a child’s life (such as bedtimes, homework procedures, household rules, discipline techniques, religious upbringing, approaches to ‘screen time,’ etc.). Other parents find it too difficult to cooperate with the other parent to this degree, and instead tend to make most decisions independent from input from the other parent (parallel parenting). The degree of collaboration between the parents may vary from time to time. Regardless of where parents fall on the cooperation continuum, a parenting counselor can coach in effective problem-solving.

Not at all. People attend coaching sessions to assist them in learning skills and/or overcoming problems. It is very common to have a variety of struggles when raising a child in a divorce, remarriage, or never-married situation.

Many people, especially those who have re-partnered, feel concerned about “attending therapy with my ex.” You can be assured that for this type of coaching service, there is absolutely NO processing of divorce issues or prior relationship baggage. When/if those issues come up, your parenting coach will set boundaries to stop the topic and advise the person bringing it up to address that issue privately, in another setting. Co-parents are there for one thing: to learn how to coparent effectively.

Absolutely! Even though ideally both parents would be committed to learning the skills necessary to cooperate more effectively, just one parent who is committed to reducing conflict will likely make a difference in the interactions. Ultimately, the only person that you can control or change is yourself.

Absolutely! Divorcing coparents have the right to decide on their own how they will work out the details of parenting their shared children. Your parenting coach can help you cooperatively create a parenting plan to work out timesharing, allocate responsibility of expenses, and many other aspects of divorce to help ensure the least possible negative impact on the children. While your parenting coach cannot give legal advice, he or she can refer you to family-friendly attorneys who can provide counsel. If coparenting coaching fails to assist you and your coparent in reaching an agreement on any of the issues, we can also refer you to low-cost, family-friendly mediation.