Overview
Hi, I’m Marcy Hahn. This is Divorce: What to Expect. In today’s episode, we are going to cover parenting coordinators. Parenting coordinators are professionals who are appointed by the court for a specified term to help parents deal with conflicts regarding their kids after divorce. The divorce ends your marriage, but it does not end your obligation to constructively co-parent with your former spouse for the benefit of your kids. And parenting coordinators are like highly trained conflict resolution specialists who can really help parents, especially those who come from a high conflict situation, to constructively co-parent and minimize conflict for their kids.
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Co-Parenting and Child Support
There’s a good story I like to tell about the benefit of a parenting coordinator.
And it’s the story of an orange. So there was a morning where a mom was getting the kids ready for school. And her two kids said ‘Mom, I needed an orange for a school project.’ And there was only one orange left in the refrigerator. So mom looked at the two kids and looked at the orange, immediately cut the orange, and half gave half to one kid half to the other and sent them on their way. After school kids come home mom says, ‘How was your day?’ They both say it was terrible because we both failed our assignment. And the mom said, ‘Well, what happened?’ Well, one kid needed the orange for the juice, for a recipe for school, and the other kids needed the rind for a school project. So neither of them got what they needed. But there was a solution that could have met both of their needs, even though there was only one orange. And I like to say that parenting coordinators can really help when there are limited resources and differing opinions about how the orange should be divided.
One of the things that parenting coordinators are able to do is really help you if you have a dispute about where you should go to school, which doctor should they see, which therapist should they see? What extracurricular activities should they be participating in? And parenting coordinators can be particularly helpful in cases involving children with special needs. Because children with special needs often require special education plans and other special therapies etc. that can create a lot of conflict if the two parents are not on the same page with respect to the treatments that are needed.
So how does it work? It’s really a four-part process. A parenting coordinator is appointed to your case, by the court; they will interview you, they will interview your kids and gather facts about the situation to really understand what the issues are and what the varying perspectives are about the conflict. Then they’ll meet with you and educate you about what they’ve learned and what their observations are and facilitate communication between the parties. Many times the role of the parenting coordinator ends at that point because once the parenting coordinator gets you to really focus on the dispute and what’s going on. Lots of times parents are able to come up with a solution on their own that they can both agree to. If they can’t do that, then in most instances, the parenting coordinator is empowered by the statute appointing them to issue a written decision to the parties. And then that written decision becomes an interim order of the court. But the parties have the opportunity then if they disagree with the written recommendation of the parenting coordinator to appeal back to the judge that entered their divorce judgment. And parenting coordination is becoming very popular.
It’s a great tool for not only resolving conflict, but for helping you manage your resources. So lots of people when they’re going through their divorce, of course you’ve hired a lawyer your spouse has hired a lawyer it’s very expensive process with respect to parenting coordination and parenting coordinator fee is only one person that you’re having to pay. And you’re typically dividing the cost of the parenting coordinator between the two of you. So it’s also a very affordable way to resolve your conflict. And even if you’re in a state where parenting coordination is not a specific statute, the appointment of a coordinator is very likely to be within the common law powers of the judge that’s assigned to your case. So it’s certainly something that you should ask your attorney about.
The other thing I would say is if you’ve decided to do a collaborative process, or you decided to go through a divorce in a mediated process, another tool is to use the parenting coordinator. Sometimes it can be really helpful to have a parenting coordinator help you through the initial process, help you decide what should our parenting schedule look like, and be a neutral sounding board and a neutral facilitator to really help you make those decisions in the first place. So what are the benefits of parenting coordination? There are many. It reduces conflict between the parties, and you’re going to spend less time in court; it improves your communication between the parties, and it often allows the parties to resolve their disputes without having to go back to court. And it’s really better for the kids. The parenting coordinator is going to have a focus on what is in your kid’s best interest. And it can save you time and resources to use this neutral third party to help resolve your disputes, rather than having to go back to court and fight about it.
Tune in to the episode to hear deeper insights about parenting coordinators and how they could be the right solution for you and your family.
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