Parenting Coordination: Applying Clinical Thinking to the Management and Resolution of Post-Divorce Conflict

Abstract

There is a small but significant number of parents who remain stuck in a high level of conflict with each other after the legal conclusion of their divorce. Exposure to chronically high levels of parental conflict is a strong risk factor negatively affecting both children's short- and long-term adjustment. Parenting coordination is a nonadversarial, child-focused dispute-resolution process designed to help divorced parents contain their conflict to protect children from its negative effect. Parenting coordination is a hybrid role combining different skills and conflict-resolution approaches. In high-conflict divorce, each parent's internalization of relationship patterns constructed from past experiences contributes to the intractable nature of the interparent conflict. A case presentation illustrates how this clinical perspective enhances the parenting coordinator's ability to work with parents to manage and contain their parenting conflicts with each other.

Keywords: child custody; conflict resolution; coparenting; high-conflict parents; parenting coordination.