Co-Parenting Therapy
Co-parenting therapy is designed to help parents put their anger and hurt aside and move forward in a civil way for the wellbeing of their children. Rather than being controlled by the past, people can use co-parenting therapy to find balance in their lives while remaining the best parents they can be.
Divorced or separated parents often find themselves stuck in the same issues they had when they were in their relationship. Arguments and power struggles can negatively impact both the parents’ and child’s mental health and their future relationships. Co-parenting therapy helps parents set healthy boundaries and learn conflict resolution skills aimed at moving forward from past conflicts and focusing their current relationship on co-parenting and making decisions based on the best needs of the children.
Parents can also learn communication skills to support them in reducing conflict. Healthy communication techniques help us learn to ask for things more effectively, explain ourselves more clearly, and coordinate plans more smoothly. Co-parenting therapy teaches effective communication strategies that are useful for communicating about children without prying into each other’s personal lives, scheduling timesharing and events that focus on the children, addressing problems without blaming each other, and exchanging information without stirring up the past.
Co-parenting therapy also helps parents develop new parenting strategies that benefit their children and reduce conflict. These strategies include increasing consistency between both households, arranging timesharing and pick-ups/drop-offs in ways that work for the children and both parents, and reducing stress by having supplies, uniforms, etc. at both households.
Children whose parents are split might also try to play parents off one another. They might strategically choose who they ask for things or say that one parent should allow them to do something because the other parent allows it. They can show distress at going from one house to the other or exhibit negative emotions and behaviors. It is also common for children to side with one parent or emotionally punish one parent. These issues can be solved when both parents reduce conflict between each other and implement appropriate, consistent parenting strategies as a team.
Co-parenting does not have to be an excruciating experience that ruins your chance at happiness or stresses out your children. When both parents make a commitment to communicating for the sake of parenting, they can parent in a way that is effective for everyone. Research has shown that conflict between parents is harmful to children and parent-child relationships. Even those parents who are skeptical of co-parenting therapy can benefit from having an objective professional mediate between parents and teach them to co-parent in a healthy way.
Our practice does not bill insurance for co-parenting therapy.