Divorce & Co-Parenting

Support for High Conflict Co-Parenting

Constant conflict between co-parents can have a long-lasting impact on the children and their developing brains.

Co-Parenting Coaching / Counselling can help:

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What Is New Ways for Families®

New Ways for Families (NWFF) is a skills training method for separated or divorced parents designed to reduce the impact of conflict on children, reduce parent stress levels, bring some calm to potentially high- conflict situations, and teach them negotiation and decision-making skills. These skills include managed emotions (giving themselves encouraging statements), flexible thinking (including making and responding to proposals), moderate behavior (including BIFF emails and texts), and checking themselves (rather than blaming others). The online classes (NWFFO) are one modality of teaching these skills.

Not Just a Parenting Class!

These skills help reduce the potential for becoming a high-conflict family AND help them reduce court hearings by learning how to make many of their own decisions and follow them. Ideally, both parents should individually complete the 12 online self-directed classes of New Ways for Families and participate in at least 3 coaching sessions. Parents, with the assistance of their coach, practice simple skills they learned through the online classes and integrate them into their own real-life circumstances. Practicing with a coach can make all the difference. They learn how to use good skills, not just that they should.

For Parents: How does it work?

Parents learn and practice co-parenting skills to manage their upset emotions, think flexibly, use moderate behavior (in front of each other and their children), communicate more effectively, and reduce blaming the other parent. Parents first practice the skills with hypothetical scenarios, then integrate the skills into their own real-life circumstances. Parents learn the detrimental and long-lasting effects that constant conflict can have on their children and their developing brains, while learning skills to last a life-time.

Real Progress: How New Ways for Families® Online Class with Coaching has helped:

Many parents simply do not have the skills to co-parent effectively. They unintentionally mess it up, they leave a detrimental impact on their children, which could be prevented, and they often end up failing at mediation and ending up in court. Many parents have had life-changing light bulb moments during the role- playing and wish they had been given the opportunity to learn the skills sooner.

Client A: Alienated Dad who had minimal contact with his son for over 12 years. Role-playing was key to his success. He realised that he would literally freeze with any confrontation with his ex-partner. We role-played some difficult situations that might present themselves in the future and Dad was able to see that if he used the skills he could stop himself from freezing and actually be able to have a decent conversation with his ex-partner.
Client B: Mom had been dealing with a pretty high-conflict ex-partner for a few years which was affecting her 5-year-old son. Learning the skills gave her the confidence to set limits, give herself encouraging statements and use the BIFF Response® method in all her written communication with her ex-partner, which reduced the back-and-forth text war that she had experienced constantly in the past.
Client C: Dad was ordered to have supervised visits with his 5-year-old son. Dad was devastated by the judge's decision, but he sought to educate himself and voluntarily signed up for the New Ways skills including coaching. Fast forward 6 months. The judge could see his improvement and Dad now has overnight time with his son and is grateful for our coaching because he was able to practice with the coach and see the error in his ways - the unmanaged emotions, the all-or-nothing thinking and his extreme behavior that got him into hot water in the first place.