The Parenting Coordinator as Peacemaker and Peacebuilder

Abstract

Parenting coordinators serve as case managers in high‐conflict families with the goal of protecting the children from parental conflict. Parenting coordinators are peacemakers and peacebuilders who identify and help set up structures in the family to support peace between the parents. The family court should promote and develop equipoise in litigants and professionals. Because parents who continue in conflict postdecree often have difficulty empathizing with their co‐parents and with their children, they might benefit from meditation training to increase mindfulness, empathy, and compassion. Self‐compassion training could also increase well‐being and more effective co‐parenting and aid in building peace in the family. Key Points for the Family Court Community: Parenting coordination is a child‐focused intervention with high‐conflict parents that can help protect children from their parents' conflict. Parenting coordinators are peacemakers who resolve disputes between the parents and facilitate negotiation and communication between them and help them make decisions. Parenting coordinators are also peacebuilders who help identify and build structures and processes in the family system to strengthen interparental peace. Equipoise can be developed in litigants and professionals through mindfulness and compassion training. Family court judges can work with parenting coordinators in a team approach, in a manner similar to what occurs in problem‐solving courts, to benefit the families and the judicial system.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 8 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.