title: Parenting Coordination: Applying Clinical Thinking to the Management and Resolution of Post-Divorce Conflict.
abstract: There is a small but significant number of parents who remain stuck in a high level of conflict with each other after the legal conclusion of their divorce. Exposure to chronically high levels of parental conflict is a strong risk factor negatively affecting both children's short- and long-term adjustment. Parenting coordination is a nonadversarial, child-focused dispute-resolution process designed to help divorced parents contain their conflict to protect children from its negative effect. Parenting coordination is a hybrid role combining different skills and conflict-resolution approaches. In high-conflict divorce, each parent's internalization of relationship patterns constructed from past experiences contributes to the intractable nature of the interparent conflict. A case presentation illustrates how this clinical perspective enhances the parenting coordinator's ability to work with parents to manage and contain their parenting conflicts with each other.
authors.affiliation: Brooklyn, New York.
authors.forename: Steven L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Demby
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004243:Divorce / Q000523:psychology*; D054541:Family Conflict / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017008:Negotiating / Q000523:psychology*; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: child custody; conflict resolution; coparenting; high-conflict parents; parenting coordination