The marriage ends. The parenting doesn’t. You will be in each other’s lives at every school pickup, every birthday, every graduation, and eventually at weddings and grandchildren, whether that idea comforts you or exhausts you today. Co-parenting coaching is how you make that long future workable, so your kids grow up between two homes instead of between two fronts.
I’m Cherie Morris. I’m a divorce and conflict coach, I hold a J.D., I’m a CDC Certified Divorce Coach, and I teach other coaches as an instructor in the CDC High Conflict Divorce Coaching certification program. I work with the whole family system, which in co-parenting means both parents whenever possible, because a plan only one of you follows isn’t a plan.
You don’t have to be friends
Here’s the reframe that changes everything: the goal isn’t friendship. It’s a professional relationship with a shared purpose, and the shared purpose is your children. Professionals don’t rehash history in the hallway. They communicate clearly, keep commitments, and leave the meeting without needing to win it. You don’t have to like each other for your kids to thrive. You have to cooperate that well, and that’s a learnable skill.
What we build together
We make the invisible things explicit. A schedule that survives real life instead of collapsing at the first sick day. Communication that stays about logistics instead of sliding into old arguments. Boundaries about what gets discussed, where, and when, so the kids never become the messengers. And one habit worth the whole price of admission: write every message as though it will be read aloud someday, and respond, don’t react.
When the other parent doesn’t make it easy
You can be the only one who showed up wanting this to go well. That’s discouraging, but it isn’t wasted. You can’t control another person’s behavior, and you can stop feeding the pattern that keeps it going, which changes more than most people expect. And if things have escalated past difficult into constant battle, that calls for different tools. That’s my high-conflict divorce coaching, and I’ll tell you honestly if that’s where you are.
What your children actually need
It’s not the divorce that harms children. It’s the conflict around it. Kids are resilient about addresses. What they can’t absorb is tension at every handoff and a knot in their stomach about mentioning one parent to the other. A working co-parenting relationship is the single best gift divorced parents can give their kids, and it’s never too late to start building it.
“Cherie has helped us break poor communication habits. She has coached us on how to be effective co-parents. She always has our children’s best interest in mind and keeps us focused on logic and resolving core issues.”
— June M.
Start with twenty minutes
A Discovery Zoom is free, it’s twenty minutes, and it’s enough to tell whether coaching fits your situation, whether you come alone or together. If I’m the wrong person, I’ll tell you that too.