Parenting and Co-Parenting

In families of separation and divorce, children’s psychotherapists work to help them cope adaptively with the forces acting upon their lives. Treating children in these contexts is difficult because:

Both parents usually have different views of the forces acting upon the child or adolescent and their needs.
Separation or divorce makes parents more reactive instead of proactive. Parents’ views may be affected by their own psychological experiences, issues, needs, and experiences with one another.
Both parents usually fear that the child’s psychotherapist will side with the other parent.
Both parents usually fear that the child’s psychotherapist will make custody or visitation recommendations that are not in the best interest of the child or parent.

Helping two coparents to figure out how to get along can make life so much easier. It is challenging raising children as it is, it can be overwhelming when parents are going through a divorce. Learning how to talk, compromise, draw boundaries, and come to agreements that both of you can accept not only reduces stress and bitterness, but it promotes your child’s well-being. When coparenting attempts consistently fail with things like undermining the other parent’s discipline, verbally disrespecting the parent to the child, not sharing important information about the child with the other parent, showing up late for drop offs or pick ups, the child is the one hurt the most.

Coparenting can be messy and hard. You were not given a manual on how to coparent when you separated or signed divorce papers. Having a coparenting counselor can help you learn how to talk to each other again, so that you can all move forward with less stress, find peace, and can put your child first.

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