COPARENTING COUNSELING PURPOSE AND REVIEW

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 16:41:37 GMT

Coparenting Counseling is often court ordered in cases where there is concern that a couple’s communication skills, knowledge of child development needs or ability to prioritize their child’s emotional needs above their own distracting emotions may adversely affect their ability to resolve problems in a manner that is in the best interest of the child’s physical, emotional and spiritual well-being without professional support. In some cases, participants quickly recognize the benefits of the counseling and learn new ways of thinking about their roles and how to best manage the feelings that are often hard to ignore when going through a separation or divorce or just simply marital discord. In a few sessions, professional counselors can often untangle the complex obstacles that lead to so much conflict, and typically provide some coparenting specific psychoeducation around the importance of harmonious encounters and help the individuals recognize the types of behaviors that are helpful and courteous when transitions are inevitable or in process or when dealing with difficult conflictwhile remaining in place.

Some individuals appreciate the opportunity to receive feedback about their grievances and concerns and others feel embarrassed for having these services imposed on them when they are of the belief that the “problem” lies within the other party and is not necessarily an interpersonal problem. In any event, while the coparenting counseling is an intervention that comes into play “after the fact”, it is never too late to become a better parent, a better coparent, and a better person. There are some situations in which coparenting counseling may not be effective or indicated as the best approach for reaching the desired outcome, and in some cases may be harmful to a participant who finds the experience to be a continuation of toxic encounters that are not being remedied or attended to through goal setting.

There are many ways to learn about how to become a more effective coparent. One might think of coparenting counseling as experienced based learning or working with a coach to improve your skill set to adjust to changes in your child’s life or in your own life that are affecting the child.

Unfortunately, the situations that turn parenting into coparenting often are accompanied by fresh wounds that have yet to heal. In coparenting counseling, it is important for a counselor to provide structure in a safe setting, where individuals feel respected.

What coparenting counseling is not

In individual counseling, the counselor demonstrates empathy for the individual and holds the space for the client’s emotions, however, in coparenting counseling, that is both challenging for a counselor and potentially confusing for the coparents when one or both of the participants are feeling beaten up by another coparent, or feel they are being unfairly accused of poor coparenting behavior without the ability to properly defend themselves to the other as if they were in a court room. The therapeutic milieu is not a litigious environment, and a coparenting counselor is not there to serve as a referee for a civil dispute. A coparenting counselor is not a mediator. The counselor is there to help the individuals to learn skills to help them be a better coparent.

This may include subjects that cover boundaries of topics that should and should not be discussed with a child. This may help the couple to find more effective ways to handle pick ups and drops offs and this may encourage much needed communication that is part of sharing important information with the other parent that they are entitled to know related to health care and education. If a couple is in the process of getting a divorce and they each have their own lawyer, it is assumed they are working with their lawyers to resolve their property settlement agreement and custody issues. If coparents are in the process of dividing up marital property and find that even with the support of their legal counsel, they are lacking pertinent information that impacts their ability to make progress in setting up their independent domestic institution, then by all means that is certainly a topic to bring up in coparenting counseling. However, coparenting counseling is not intended as a forum for legal discovery or a mediation service where individuals are expected to produce documentation of their property settlement agreement/furniture/etc. wish list that is being handled by their legal counsel. It is a place to introduce new ways of thinking to improving the quality of life for the child. The coparenting counselor orients the coparents to a set of guidelines to inform their behavior for the best possible outcome.

Some individuals may find it more comfortable to learn about this vulnerable new way of relating by working with another professional or taking a course on-line. Coparenting counseling that is court ordered may require a structured setting with clearly defined boundaries that allow the individuals to express themselves without being interrupted. In cases where coparents have acknowledged previous verbal abuse, specifically declaring that they have called their partner “every name in the book”, the counselor must be especially mindful to address aggressive behaviors that can trigger a vulnerable participant and compromise feelings of safely which can lead to setbacks after making great strides in life away from the other coparent.

In the world of mental health counseling, there are best practices for onboarding clients so that everyone is clear prior to the beginning of the session or no later than the end of the first session, what the expectations are, what the rules are so to speak, how goals are set and agreed upon and the subject of termination is covered as well. Clients are informed that they should let their counselor know if they are not receiving any benefit from the counseling, or if the sessions are disturbing in any way. Also, if the counselor feels that the client(s) are not making progress or have in their minds taken over their own treatment, then the counselor has an ethical obligation to bring this up as well.

To continue to serve as a counselor knowing that a client has already decided to take over their own treatment, is considered an ethical boundary issue. This impacts the client negatively because it reinforces their thought process and does not truly allow the process to occur. The cost of the counseling should be determined prior to services being rendered, and the frequency of the counseling should be agreed upon by all parties, not simply determined by one of the coparents based on a mercurial temperament or a perception of that day’s session’s efficacy in support of their agenda. Out of pocket copay arrangements and such are not part of the therapy.

Some coparents are eager to learn new ways of adapting to a new lifestyle and recognize that it is in the best interest of their child while others feel completely resentful and hurt, especially if they have little or no access or communication with a child or even the person with whom they are coparenting. Counselors speak to advise or help coparents address issues that are troubling them and help them to adapt to something that works.

The difference between coparenting counseling and family counseling, is important to note. Coparenting counseling involves the quality of the interactions that occur between the parents and the impact the two separate systems have on the child’s development. Family therapy operates according to a system’s theory. When any part of the system changes, the entire system changes, or, if a part of the system is sick, the entire system is sick. In coparenting, we are dealing with two separate systems. There are rules that define the boundaries of how much one parent can impose on the other system. When a couple is court ordered to attend therapy, they are often in limbo on the path to becoming divorced, and there can be a lot of discomfort and sense of loss. Coparenting counseling is often provided to sensitive vulnerable populations and it is for that reason that guidelines are infused into the counseling relatively early so that the coparents recognize for perhaps the first time that “It is not about you”. Angry individuals may strike out during a session towards their partner and feel that anything goes in the safe space of therapy, but from the other side, a traumatized spouse may not be the best candidate for this type of coparenting challenge and there may be other ways to achieve the goals without face to face hour long engagements and conversations.

When coparents present for court ordered coparenting counseling as part of a stipulation for a custody arrangement, and there is acknowledgement of previous domestic abuse (verbal and or physical) and current financial hardship that is impacting housing and the coparent’s ability to provide for themselves and their child, these challenges can have a tremendous multiplier effect and negatively impact their mental health or risk of substance abuse. More than half of marriages today end in divorce; however, divorce alone does not present a risk for health and human safety. When a family unit is thought of as a system, it ideally has many common goals and interests. For example, parents want their children to be happy and healthy, they want them to love themselves and they also would hope that they would grow up to love and respect them as parents. If the discovery process in divorce proceedings is the result of behaviors that in retrospect presented a risk to the development of a child and the wellbeing of the mother, the coparenting intervention efficacy will be limited to the equal accountability of the legal system that enforced it.

When these orders are directed and enforced, they can become quite costly and time consuming but the return on investment can be priceless.

When a couple is working to raising children at any age, even those who are recently off to college, it is important that they be educated on the impact that their behavior can have on the development of children, no matter their age.

When children grow up under the care of two parents who they believe care about them, have their back, want the best for them, and are generally reliable, the research shows that this helps the children to develop secure attachment styles. There are many studies that have been published that involve children’s need to feel secure and safe. At times, parents can have marital discord, and one parent or both parents may find it nearly impossible to act as if everything is fine. Sometimes, there are issues between couples where one parent has betrayed the other in some way,which does not necessarily include physical abuse or having had a sexual affair, but perhaps some other form of disappointment that can leave one parent operating at a near dysfunctional level, possible sick to their stomach or seriously limiting their ability to even act civilly towards their partner. One does not have to be physically beat up, or learn that their spouse has actually slept with someone in order to experience enormous pain and grief, and this article is not intended to gaslight or diminish any parent who genuinely feels a sense of moral betrayal in one form or another. There are endless ways that married people can betray one another, and sometimes, this is not consciously intentional. Many times, people hurt each other without even realizing it, while in other circumstances, married people can hurt each other in ways that they did not believe would ever come to the forefront. In one form or another, a spouse’s behavior can lead to the offended spouse feeling a sense of moral or traumatic betrayed. It is very important to find a way to begin to heal from this, and it is easier said than done. But meanwhile, a couple must find a way to move on (either together or apart) and progress in life in a way that demonstrates their ability to put their children’s best interest above their own.

Feelings of pain and disappointment are part of life, and this is one subject that is addressed in the serenity prayer. An individual who feels that they have lost control over what is going on or what may have been happening around them or within their own lives, must find a way to cope by either removing themselves from the stressor or the trigger, receiving some type of mental health intervention be it therapy or medication, or simply getting support and recognizing when they are beyond the point of being able to act in a way that is becoming of a parent.

An innocent person, for example, can become so distraught over a marital disappointment that they can lash out at a parent who up until that time was treated as a valuable family member, possibly the leader of the family, the man of the house, the woman of the house, the matriarch perhaps, and they can experience an incredible sense of loss that begins to impact their ability to parent. Family members of all ages, may sense this depression, anger, or grief, and begin to notice personality changes in that traumatized parent as a result of their own response to disappointments, and in some cases, it is that very same response that can become the new focus of the hurting family when children are brought into the unexpected challenges that a married couple can face. An example of this is an emotional affair. Perhaps nothing actually happened, yet a spouse is left with a broken dream or feelings of betrayal or trust issues that cause them to question what else may be happening or what else may have happened in the past that they have yet to discover. These kinds of thoughts are not unreasonable so again, the purpose here is not to blame a hurting spouse, but it is very important to check in with yourself or a professional whenit becomes very difficult to remain the loving person that you once were.

Forgiveness does not mean that it is acceptable for someone to continue to act poorly, but it does express a willingness to at least focus on the things that are important that you want to move toward, and less on the things that have been harmful. Focusing solely on disappointments, and anticipating further disappointments is as harmful as signing up to deploy into a war and go to battle. Would you bring your children with you to go to battle in a war in another country? No? Why would you expose your children to a battle that is not theirs to fight in their very own living room?

Emotional intelligence is a way to measure our ability to manage our emotions so that it does not cause harm to us or people who we love including our children. If someone in the family has been found to have acted in some disturbing ways but the children were not exposed to this and are not in any danger, is it really necessary to tell them how bad their mother or their father’s behavior was, and disparage that spouse by acting as if they are not a welcome family member any more, simply because you feel harmed as a spouse. What does that have to do with the continuous successful years of that spouse as a loving and caring mother or father?

There are times when an individual can feel so violated as a spouse, and feel so completely disrespected that they cannot believe they are even in the same room with someone who vowed to love and cherish them, when recent evidence suggests that they have gone rogue in some way. Maybe they have and maybe they haven’t but in general, the truth is that we are going to disappoint others and they will disappoint us, and even if they are our husband or wife, first marriage or not, we have a responsibility to not infect innocent people with our mental heartbreak and transfer our pain to innocent children, especially under the disguise that we don’t want them exposed to someone with such poor morals. It is important to be very careful not to seek support from our children by throwing their parent under the bus before them, when these issues may have no bearing on the relationships between parents and children.

Marriage can be quite a challenge, and it is during these very difficult times when we are outraged with someone that we may feel such an absence of the type of love and support that we are yearning for that it may actually feel good to tell someone how terrible this person has been to you. You must ask yourself if this is fair or warranted, because if you are not careful, without even realizing this, you may be so empty that on some subconscious level, you are willing to expose your beloved’s aberrant behavior in order to triangulate, that is to garner support for your grievance by confirming that respect that you deserved was violated in one form or another. But children are not always the best place to turn toward when we need a kind trusting spirited individual to remind us of our value and help to build usup again to help us heal. Someone may not be the model spouse, but they may be a fine parent. That sounds somewhat distorted, but there are really two different situations. Unless that person is a direct threat to the children, it is very important not to turn your kitchen table into a court room or a prison, and keep private marital conflict private. Find a way to get the support you need, and if you need to take a little time away from the group, maybe it is fine to leave your children to spend the day with the other parent who has broken your heart, and you can go have lunch with a friend get a massage or meet with a professional therapist. Children can be told that their parents are working their way through some difficult times.

Some parents may find that they would like to tell their children that there is discord in their marriage and they feel a sense of responsibility for some things that they have done that have hurt the other parent, and they are working on being a better person. This does not mean that a parent needs to admit to doing something that the other suspects, just because the other is convinced that things were much worse than they actually were. There is nothing wrong with teaching children that being a parent means that we can admit when we have made mistakes, or have been inconsiderate, and that we are taking responsibility for the choices that we have made. We do not always know exactly why we did the things that we did, but the best approach the teaching moment. It’s OK to say that Mommy and I, or Daddy and I have been having some trouble with some personal things and we are trying to work it out the best we can, but most importantly it is important that the children know WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE THEIR FAULT AND THEY HAVE ACCESS TO BOTH PARENTS AND THAT THEIR MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE THEM AND WILL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR THEM.

Children should never be put in a position to chose one parent over the other.

Children should never be made to feel as though they need to avoid one parent in order to make another parent feel please or supported.

Children are not here to make our wounds heal faster if it means that doing so requires reducing the importance or depth of theother parent’s relationship with the children in order to punish the other spouse. This does not help your children, your spouse that you are mad at and it does not help you. Perhaps temporarily you may feel justified in your recent foul language, crying spells, paranoia, or anxious and depressed moods.

They are here to be loved and deserve to feel secure. Children do not feel secure when parents disparage each other. They feel awkward and shamed. It also makes them feel that they too may be shunned if they make a mistake.

In time, you will decide if you can forgive and heal under the same roof. If you cannot be kind to all of the members in the family household then you must take responsibility for the fact that the children are being exposed to hateful behavior and make sure that that does not continue. It should be done with as much grace as possible. Focusing on creating a safe space where children are in the presence of adults who care about them, want the best for them, have their back, believe in them and love them, because when you have children, in the end, it really is all about them.

life-design-behavioral-health-llc

COPARENTING COUNSELING PURPOSE AND REVIEW

What coparenting counseling is not