Parenting Coordination is an essential service that plays a crucial role in helping high-conflict families navigate the complexities of post-separation parenting. It is a child-focused management and dispute-resolution process. This involves mental health or legal practitioners with Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) or mediation training who assist parents in maintaining healthy relationships with their children while managing conflicts effectively.
In this blog, we will discuss about the benefits of Parenting Coordination in the dynamics of post-separation in the family.
Purpose and Benefits of Parenting Coordination
The primary purpose of parenting coordination is to offer a structured process for managing high-conflict family dynamics. By engaging a parenting coordinator, families benefit from:
● Practical Assistance: Parenting coordinators are expected to monitor both parents’ behaviors and ensure that they stick to court orders so that there will be few quarrels.
● Psychoeducation: Some of the identified tasks of parenting coordinators include the following: The following are the key roles of parenting coordinators; they incorporate advising on issues related to children and how they grow up, how to correct them when they are wrong, and other ways of creating a proper environment in the home for children’s development.
● Child-Centered Support: Parenting coordination underlines the candidacy of children who are at the center of the parents’ quarrel. The coordinator tries to ensure that all the children’s needs are met regardless of the process and that their emotional, psychological, and physical state is protected. Family Relief will include regular contact with children to support parents in alignment with transitions of Orders.
● Negotiation Assistance: Parenting coordinators are useful for minor negotiation issues and changes to specific parenting schedule plans. This support can be exceptionally useful for addressing the issues that concern working people on a daily basis, including schedule changes, holiday requests, and other organizational issues that can easily turn into conflicts.
● General Mental Health & Wellbeing Support: Coordinators also offer services regarding mental health problems because it is evident that both parents and children suffer in high-conflict situations. They are an authorized body to offer psycho-education and ensure that the mental health of the children is included in the implementation of plans.
● Conflict Management: Conflict pacing and dissolving are significant responsibilities of Parenting Coordinators. Due to the impersonal nature of this role, the coordinator can intervene in disputes and assist parents in agreeing on workable solutions, thus eradicating the long-term bitterness and monetary expenses occasioned by long-drawn legal battles.
● Facilitating Parental Cooperation: Parenting Coordinators have the primary role of increasing parents’ compliance and promoting the idea of shared parenting as defined by the Orders. Hence, this cooperation is not only advantageous to the children but also assists parents in improving their co-parenting relations.
● Reducing Court Involvement: Parenting coordination helps decrease the number of cases when outside legal help is needed to resolve the conflict. It also proves to be time and cost-effective, reducing the level of hostility between parents and hence enhancing favorable co-parenting. Events discussed in Parenting Coordination is reportable to the Courts thereby parents have an additional avenue for accountability.
● Long-Term Benefits: Through Parenting Coordination, the skills and the strategies used have long-term impacts. It is noteworthy that parents can further utilize the acquired means of communication and conflict-solving skills, which will inevitably improve the overall future interactions in the family.
In summary, Parenting Coordination is a complex intervention for handling severe conflict in families’ lives, essentially aiming at providing practical help, information, support, and guidance. Parenting Coordinators have perhaps one of the most vital responsibilities of ensuring that the best interest of the children is protected while at the same time promoting safety and cooperation between parents, thereby improving the family’s stability.