The Parenting Coordinator as Peacemaker and Peacebuilder

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12161
• Author: Christine A. Coates
• Date: 01 July 2015
• Published date: 01 July 2015

THE PARENTING COORDINATOR AS PEACEMAKER AND

PEACEBUILDER

Christine A. Coates

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 sup-

port 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 com-

munication 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.

Keywords: Equipoise; High Conflict; High-Conflict Families; Mindfulness; Parenting Coordination; Peacebuilding; and

Peacemaking.

I. INTRODUCTION

My dream for families who enter the family court has been that they would find a system that pro-

vides a variety of services to help them wend their way through their dispute, whether divorce, paren-

tal responsibilities, or the many other actions that are maintained in court, in as compassionate and

efficient way as possible. I went to law school to be a family and juvenile lawyer in private practice. I

quickly realized when I represented my first client in her divorce in 1984 that the adversarial process

was usually the worst setting for hurting, angry, and desperate people to resolve their issues and find

peace. I took mediation training that same year and found my calling. I became a peacemaker, a prob-

lem solver, and an innovator. I love working as a mediator as I am able to guide my clients through

their issues; help them listen and communicate with each other; and rationally generate, evaluate, and

select options for resolution. My mediation clients appreciate my services and leave the mediation

with some measure of peace, contentment, and connection because, through their own problem-

solving efforts, they banished the dark, ominous cloud of litigation.

However, a small proportion of clients, about 10%, continue to do combat over their children for

years, and mediation and custody evaluations often are not enough to resolve the ongoing warfare.

(Johnston & Campbell, 1988; Johnston,Roseby, & Kuehnly, 2009). Because of the growing awareness

that these high-conflict families need different interventions,I participated in a team of interdisciplinary

professionals who developed the role of a case manager with high-conflict parents that came to be

known as “parenting coordination” (Coates, Deutsch, Starnes, Sullivan, & Sydlik, 2004). Because I

was involved in creating an early model of parenting coordination and was a coauthor of the first book

Correspondence: coatesc@aol.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 53 No. 3, July 2015 398–406

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C2015 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts