High Conflict Parenting Divorce Course Information

High Conflict Divorce Co-Parenting Online Course Information

Our High Conflict Co-Parenting Course is in addition to the Parent Education and Family Stabilization Course which assists families in understanding about the divorce process as well as being better able to navigate the divorce process for themselves, as well as for their families. Our High Conflict Co-Parenting Course can be taken in conjunction with the Parent Education and Family Stabilization Course or taken as a standalone course. The coparenting course is an 8 hour self paced online all video course which includes a certificate. It is certified and qualified as long as you are able to complete an online course for the requirement. The course was created and is taught by a Forensic and Board Certified Clinical Psychologist who is a frequent expert witness for divorce matters for both State and Federal Courts.

Divorced and separated families all have different levels of conflict. These levels range from minimal conflict to high levels of conflict with periods of cooperation to periods of extreme conflict. However, some families are entrenched in constant conflict, and denigrate each through their children, texts, emails, phone conversations, and physical interactions. If you have a high conflict co-parenting situation, then you know the cost this conflict has on your nerves, your health, your time, your wallet, and on your children’s wellbeing.  Psycho-legal professionals and researches have clearly established that high levels of conflict between parents greatly impacts their children in many negative ways from poor grades to physical and psychological problems. Despite the many known deleterious consequences, often at least one parent in a high conflict dynamic persists in wreaking havoc for the children and their former partner.

Fortunately, our high conflict coparenting course can assist you in managing this difficult situation including learning how to successfully manage your coparenting relationship.

Purchase High Conflict Co-Parenting Course $45.00

Purchase Florida Divorce Course $19.95

Purchase Texas Divorce Course $19.98

Purchase Georgia Divorce Course $19.97

I have included some excerpts below from our course excluding the videos from the course.

Directions: To complete this course, we request that you watch each of the eight videos below. After each video there is a short exercise. We ask that you do not submit your answers to the exercises to us as these are answers to assist you in better managing your high conflict situation. You can compose these answers on your smartphone, computer, or notebook and then keep them to use later to co-parent more effectively. Once you have completed all the video presentations, and the exercises, you will need to complete the short quiz at the end of the course in order to receive your instant certificate.

Dr. D’Arienzo’s Parenting Partnership Co-Parenting Model

I have created a career around building, maintaining, and also deconstructing relationships in a healthy manner. Much of my work is involved in the divorce world, to include custody evaluations or social investigation, evaluating others custody evaluations, testifying in court, parenting coordination, mediation, and divorce therapy. Much of this work is fraught with intense conflict, as many people seeking these services have challenging personality characteristics or they find themselves in relationships with those that do. When it comes to marital therapy, a method that works is called the Gottman Method, which approaches improving relationships by rebuilding friendship, improving conflict resolution, and finding common purpose. I have found divorced couples who are friends, who respect each other, and who do not still try to control or change the other are able to co-parent well. In working with divorced couples and helping them co-parent, I recommend that they take similar steps adopting the Gottman Method and applying it to high conflict couples which I have termed Parenting Partnership Co-Parenting Model or the A$$hole Free Approach to Co-Parenting. The steps are both successive and interdependent, meaning they build upon the each other linearly; and each factor affects the other, and some factors may be stronger than others. Ideally, you want to successfully engage at each level together.

Step 1: Commitment to Co-parent: Each party must accept they are divorced, believe they are better off not being married with the other, and are eager to put their own needs aside to ensure their children’s best interests are met. It is okay at this level to not necessarily be in agreement about what these best interests are, but their must be a genuine willingness and desire to work with another person to co-parent the children.

Step 2: Maintain Open Communication: Each party must be willing to freely inform and involve the other parent about events, activities, and potential decisions about children. The parties must also be willing to talk about their own needs and wants for the children as well as ideals. These must be shared perceived or actual threat. Both parties must be open and willing to hear what the other wants for the children and they must discuss it.

Step 3: Foster Mutual Respect and Fondness: The parents must nsure the children believe that each parent and step-parent respect the other parent. Praise the other parent in the child’s view. Ensure they know that you both like one another despite being separated or divorced. Again, the view of the step-parents also needs to be supported and respected.

Step 4: Joining Forces: Co-parents must seek out and give full support to the other parent in managing the children in good times and in tough times. Yes, both parents must be responsive for this to work. If one parent reaches out for assistance, the other must be there. Ideally both parents should be present for the children both for celebrations and during more difficult times. This factor can be mismanaged, where one parent is too reliant on the other parent for assistance with the children. It is necessary that both parents do their part as a unified front

Step 5: Conflict Resolution. Remember, if there is a visible desire to co-parent, open communication, shared respect and fondness, and sense of joined forces, then it much easier to resolve disagreements. What remains vitally important for parents here is to maintain control of their own sense of anxiety, need to be in control, and need to change the other person as in the first step. When managed effectively, both parents see each other in a positive light and give the other the benefit of the doubt. Here, both parents must act like adults, share about their experiences and wants, consider the ideas of the other, understand how their past relationship continues to impact their ability to see straight and manage their emotions. You are no longer with this person. You job is to control yourself and your emotions for the betterment of your child. There is nothing to resolve about your former relationship or ax to grind. That relationship is over. The new relationship is that of a parenting partnership. It is up to you to exercise, utilize diaphragmatic breathing, see a psychologist, do yoga or take a walk, do acupuncture, or do whatever it takes to control your physiology, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Your mantra is, “Control thyself and not thy former partner”.

Step 6: Mutual Expectations and Mutual Appreciation of Individuals’ Desired Outcomes of Children: Each parent has a dream for their child. If lucky, the parents want the same things. If not, the parents must ensure and support that each other’s dreams are illustrated, and balance is found between those dreams. One may want the child to attend Harvard while the other wants them to find their way and take a gap year after college. Parents may need a third party to assist in outline a plan for them. As children move to their teen years, they also can participate in outlining their dreams as you will need their commitment to reach them as well. However, regardless of your child’s maturity, they still lack a full appreciation for planning for the future. Parents most often should offer some level of guidance to ensure the child sees their potential and is moving on a path to realize it.

Step 7:  Mutual Support for Renewed Identity of the Parents: In addition to the parent’s goals and dreams for their children to be facilitated and achieved, each parent must accept and support the new identity of the family as well as the new identity of the parent. For example, past possible traditional expectations of the mother ensuring that the children’s homework is completed, or the father being solely or possessing the majority of the financial responsibility for the family may need to be resolved, and then embraced. Both parents are free to redefine themselves, but if they are to have a relationship and involvement with the children, this redefinition should be in the child’s best interests as well. Deciding to begin using psychedelic drugs and following a Grateful Dead cover band across the United States with the children may not be in their best interest despite the wants and needs of the parent.