Coparenting through your first transfers of your children with your coparent can be one of the most painful times of life.  You didn't expect this or necessarily want it, but there goes your child in their car and now you sit alone.  Sometimes you can still hear your child crying or laughing.... And you just sit in your car or at your home and weep.  I want to remind you it will not always be like this.  You will find hope again.  Divorce is not the final answer to your family.  Hope can be found again! As a Coparenting Counselor, one of the most difficult and frustrating issues for coparents is often transitions (drop offs/pick ups) and schedule making and changes.

Coparenting Counseling will not heal the pain and hurt YOU FEEL from your divorce. You will need to do your own recovery and therapy for that to happen (and I hope that you do!), but Coparenting Counseling can be helpful in building a new relationship with your coparent. For kids of divorce, they have enough pain to deal with just getting over their family ending. Adding constant fighting to that pain is just not fair. For their sake, I urge you to get help if you need it, so your kids learn that divorce is NOT the final word to their family, as they knew it.  There is hope for a new future and while their parents are no longer married they can get along, so everyone can move forward and have a better future.

 Perspective in our circumstances is everything, especially in coparenting.  For the custodial and non-custodial parent each position comes with its unique challenges and often times we can only see our perspective.  However, having knowledge of the other's perspective can help change our perspective.

The temptation in coparenting is to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side and all the crap is in YOUR part of the pasture. The reality is that coparenting is hard on either side of the fence as a custodial or non-custodial parent.  A custodial parent has the most physical time with the child and cares for the child in regard to the day-to-day decisions.  A non-custodial parent is one who does not have primary physical custody but can still have legal rights and should play an important part in their life.

Coparenting could be a new word for you, especially if you just entered the divorce world.  It is a critical word if you have children of divorce.  Divorced parents that have a successful coparenting relationship often find that their divorce has a smaller impact on their children than those divorces with high conflict.  But if you are getting a divorce you will want to know what coparenting is and what it is not.