Five Reasons to Work With A Parenting Coordinator

A big part of co-parenting often involves making joint decisions concerning your children. It could range from big decisions, like where your kids will go to school, to everyday items, such as whether your kids will buy lunch at school or bring a bagged lunch. When making these kinds of decisions result in conflict, and you can't even get close to resolving them, a parenting coordinator may be able to help. 

What Parenting Coordinators Do

Parenting coordinators are specially trained professionals whose work focuses on helping co-parents manage their parenting plan, improve communication, and resolve disputes. The role of a parenting coordinator will vary based on what a family needs and what the court may require.

A parenting coordinator may monitor that parents are complying with their parenting agreement, to educate and offer recommendations on ways to solve issues, or to even make individual decisions for the parents based on what the court allows. A parenting coordinator is there to work with the co-parents, yet the overarching focus of their work is to uphold the best interests of the children and encourage each parent to do so as well. 

As a co-parent, you may be wondering if working with a parenting coordinator is in your best interest. If you are always in conflict and cannot resolve issues with your co-parent, consider the following reasons as to why working with a parenting coordinator may help. 

You are more likely to spend less time in the courtroom. 

When your parenting coordinator is there to help by offering guidance or even making decisions when you can't reach one together, you'll spend less time arguing with your co-parent to no end.

When there's less conflict, you are also less likely to make return trips to court. In turn, this will also help you to save money by not having to spend more on legal fees. 

It may help to reduce stress on you and your kids. 

Conflict can create a huge emotional burden for those in it or surrounded by it. Even if you're not arguing in front of your kids, they may still be quite impacted by the tension they sense.

A parenting coordinator can help you to stop fighting so much by educating you on ways to resolve conflicts promptly. While you will be glad to have stopped fighting so much, your kids will also be happy to have more peace across their two homes. 

Your kids may also learn better communication and problem-solving skills. 

Parents are the most important role models for their children. When co-parents can communicate with each other and make decisions without conflict, their kids are likely to notice. They may even learn a thing or two about positive communication skills to use themselves. 

Parenting coordinators are focused on making the right decisions for your children. 

Whether it's conscious or not, it can be hard sometimes for co-parents to separate the issues they have between each other from the crucial decisions they must make for their kids. A parenting coordinator comes in as a neutral third party, so the suggestions they make are unbiased and always in favor of the children.

A parenting coordinator will seek to gain an understanding of what is really going on within the family to create conflict. In many cases, this person will meet with both parents separately, and possibly the children, to get a deeper understanding of what might be creating and persisting the conflict. This gives them better insight as they help co-parents make the best decisions moving forward. 

You'll have more time to focus on your kids. 

While your parenting time is based on your parenting agreement, working with a parenting coordinator can take away some of the stress you used to have when it came to dealing with your co-parent. With less stress about communication or making decisions, you will be able to spend more time focused on your kids.

Working with a parenting coordinator may be a good option for families transitioning into shared parenting, but as always, the needs of every family are unique. Discuss parenting coordination with your attorney or other trusted family law professionals to get an idea of how it could impact your situation.

Summary

Once again, here are five reasons to work with a parenting coordinator:

• You may spend less time in the courtroom. 
• It may reduce stress on your family. 
• It's an opportunity to improve communication skills. 
• Parenting coordinators will help you to make the right decisions for your children. 
• Improved shared parenting means more time to focus on your children.

Tools that support parenting coordination

A parenting coordinator can help to teach you communication skills to use in co-parenting. In tandem, you may also find it helpful to use an online communication tool designed for co-parenting communication.

The OurFamilyWizard® website offers a variety of features to help parents schedule and track parenting time, share important family information, manage expenses, and create an accurate log of communication. Even the professionals you work with, like your attorney and parenting coordinator, can join the conversation on the website and oversee your communication. Learn more about OurFamilyWizard® and sign up today!