What a Co-Parenting Coach Actually Does

What does a co-parenting coach actually do? A divorce and conflict coach explains the work, how it differs from a therapist, lawyer or mediator, and when two parents should call one.

This column usually opens with a letter. This week it opens with a review.

Jennifer and her co-parent worked with me on post-divorce negotiations. Last week she wrote this on my Google page:

“My co-parent and I worked with Cherie while navigating some post-divorce negotiations, and what stood out most was how grounded and strong she remained, even when the conversations were difficult. She put real thought into every step, helping us stay focused and constructive… She offers guidance without ever feeling authoritative or prescriptive.”

I am sharing it because of the last line. She offers guidance without ever feeling authoritative or prescriptive. That sentence is the whole job. It also answers a question I get almost every week, usually from someone who found me at 11pm and is not sure what they just found.

What a co-parenting coach actually does

Four things, mostly.

We take the thing you are stuck on and make it smaller. Nobody can solve “our co-parenting” all at once. Together, we can work on the Thanksgiving handoff, or whether the twelve-year-old gets a phone, or what happens when one of you wants to move forty minutes away. We work on one decision at a time until the decisions stop feeling like referendums on the marriage.

We prepare you for the conversation before you have it. Most co-parenting damage happens in about ninety seconds, in a doorway, in a text sent from a parking lot. So we rehearse. What you want. What you will say. What you will do when they say the thing they always say. You have had this argument enough times to know the script. That is an advantage, and almost nobody uses it.

We build the structures that carry you when goodwill runs out. A parenting schedule that matches your actual conflict level. Communication rules you both agreed to in a calm hour. A decision about what goes in writing and what does not. Goodwill is wonderful, and on the hardest days it needs something underneath it.

We work in the space between everyone else. Your lawyer has your case. Your therapist has your history. Neither of them has ninety minutes to help you decide how to answer one email. I do. That is not a small thing, and it is often the cheapest hour in a divorce.

How a co-parenting coach is different from a therapist, a lawyer or a mediator

A therapist treats. A good one helps you understand why this hurts the way it does, and often looks backward to do it. Coaching looks forward and lands on decisions. Plenty of my clients have both, and they are doing different work in each room.

A lawyer tells you your rights. I have a J.D., and I still do not give you legal advice. Your lawyer answers what you are entitled to. I help you decide what you actually want to ask for, which is a different question and usually a harder one.

A mediator is neutral, works toward one agreement, and is finished when you sign. A coach can work with you for months, before the mediation and long after it. And a coach can keep working with both of you once the papers are done, which is the part nobody plans for and everybody needs.

Why I will not tell you what to do

People keep decisions they made themselves.

That is not a theory. It is what I have watched, gently and repeatedly, for almost a decade. A decision I hand you lasts until the first time it costs you something. A decision you built holds, because you can remember why you made it while you are paying for it.

So I ask instead. What do you actually want here? What will this look like in five years? Is this a today decision or a forever decision? The questions sound gentle, and they ask a great deal. Answering them honestly is the hardest work in the room, and it is yours to do.

That is what Jennifer was describing. Not softness, exactly. Steadiness, with no agenda hidden inside it.

What happens when both parents are in the room

This is the part of my work people find surprising. I am a divorce and conflict coach for the couple, the individual and the whole family system, which means I sometimes work with two people who are no longer married to each other and are not going to become friends.

Neither of them gets an ally, and I say that gently and out loud in the first session, because it is the only way the room stays safe for both of them. I am not there to decide who was right about the years you spent together. I am there because your child has one life, not two, and the two of you are the only people who can make that one life feel steady.

In practice, I begin with an hour alone with each parent. Then we come together and build an agenda for success, and after that we move between separate and joint sessions as the work calls for it.

It is not the divorce that harms children. It is the conflict. Two parents who can get through a hard conversation without a war have already given their kids most of what the kids needed.

When to call one

You probably need a co-parenting coach if you recognize two or more of these.

You have had the same argument three times and it ends the same way every time. You feel dread in your body before a handoff. You are paying a lawyer to read emails that are not legal problems. There is a real decision coming, about school or a move or the schedule, and you cannot picture the conversation. Or you are about to sign something you have not slept on.

If that last one is you, please give yourself one more night.

None of this requires a crisis. Most of the best work I do happens in an ordinary week, with two people who are tired of the same fight and willing to try a different shape.

Warmly,
Cherie

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