When parents of minor children separate, and have to establish appropriate parenting plans and make joint legal custodial decisions that are in their children’s best interests, it is helpful to engage the services of mental health professionals, who can serve as parenting coaches. Parenting coaches can be engaged prior to, during, or after separation and divorce. Clients who have engaged parenting coaches often have a much easier time navigating through difficult child-related issues that come up in the context of separation and divorce.
A parenting coach can help parents engage in more effective communication with their children as well. By working with a parenting coach, parents can develop skills that will enable them to engage in their own respective parenting style, while still maintaining joint focus on their children’s best interests. This will help parents establish and work towards common goals, and not undermine each other’s efforts in parenting throughout the process.
Finally, a parenting coach with knowledge of child development and attachment issues will be able to help parents develop an age-appropriate parenting plan that takes into account the developmental stage of a particular child, the possible separation anxiety a child might experience when he or she is not with a primary caretaker, and how vital it is for a child to maintain a relationship with a loving and caring non-custodial parent.
For answers to questions about parenting coaches, when it is most helpful to engage a parenting coach, and how a parenting coach can help your family, feel free to contact us and tap into our experience in working with such individuals in the context of the divorce and paternity cases that we handle.