When Parenting Coordination Doesn’t Work — and Why Structure Sometimes Matters More Than Coaching

Apr 01, 2026·By Cori McGuire

High‑conflict parenting matters exist on a spectrum. Most families who enter Parenting Coordination are not at the extreme end of that spectrum.

Many parents arrive overwhelmed, reactive, and uncertain, but still capable of adapting their behaviour over time. With clear structure, consistent expectations, and support in understanding how court orders and agreements are meant to operate, many parents gradually reduce conflict and stabilize day‑to‑day parenting arrangements. For these families, Parenting Coordination that includes education and coaching around communication and implementation can be effective. This article is not about those cases.

What follows describes what occurs only after good‑faith efforts at education, structure, and implementation‑focused coaching have already been attempted and have not resulted in improved participation at that point in time. It addresses a smaller subset of cases in which the usual tools of Parenting Coordination are no longer sufficient to manage the process fairly or protect children from ongoing exposure to conflict.

A question often arises in these cases: “Why can’t you just teach better communication?” In many situations, the answer is straightforward: education and coaching are exactly what occurs, and often with success.

Parenting Coordination in British Columbia is grounded in implementing existing court orders or agreements. Educational material about communication rules, emotional regulation, and child‑focused decision‑making is used to help parents understand how to participate in the process and reduce conflict. When parents are able to apply this guidance—even imperfectly—the results can be meaningful: fewer disputes, lower cost, and children who are less exposed to adult conflict.

There is, however, an important limitation that must be stated clearly. Some Parenting Coordination cases do not succeed in an education‑ or coaching‑oriented model, despite repeated explanation and opportunity. This is not a moral judgment. It reflects limits on participation and adaptation within the process at a given time.

What Coaching‑Oriented Parenting Coordination Assumes

Any Parenting Coordination process that includes education or coaching assumes, at a minimum, that:

• Parents can apply neutral communication rules

• Feedback results in some behavioural adjustment over time

• Adult conflict can be managed separately from children’s day‑to‑day needs

• Parents can tolerate short‑term frustration in service of longer‑term stability

When these assumptions hold—even inconsistently—education and coaching can be effective. When they do not, the Parenting Coordination process itself begins to break down.

A Pattern That Appears in a Subset of High‑Conflict Cases

Over many years of Parenting Coordination practice, a small subset of cases follows a recognizable pattern within the process:

• Communications repeatedly frame events as unilateral victimization

• Responsibility for conflict is consistently externalized

• Neutral communication rules are debated rather than applied

• Issues that have already been addressed are repeatedly re‑raised

• Process disputes expand, increasing time and cost

• The Parenting Coordinator is eventually characterized as biased or unfair

What distinguishes these cases is not a lack of explanation or opportunity. The same guidance is provided repeatedly, but participation does not adapt in response. At that stage, the issue is not misunderstanding. It is non‑integration within the Parenting Coordination process.

Why Continued Coaching Can Become Counterproductive

For many parents, explanation and insight support improved participation. For others, increasing explanation leads to increasing dispute.

In some cases:

• Additional explanation produces additional argument

• Expanded discussion leads to expanded grievance

• More process time increases cost without reducing conflict

Continuing to coach under these conditions does not resolve disputes. It prolongs them.

Children and Conflict: An Important Distinction

It is neither realistic nor accurate to suggest that children are never aware of parental conflict. Most children know their parents do not get along, and most are resilient enough to tolerate ordinary awareness of disagreement.

Parenting Coordination does not require the elimination of all conflict. The concern arises when children are repeatedly drawn into the conflict itself, such as when they are:

• Used as messengers or intermediaries

• Asked to validate one parent’s position against the other

• Exposed to adult narratives of blame or fear

• Positioned as emotional supports or allies

• Pressured to align with one parent

At this point, children are no longer merely aware of conflict; they are being incorporated into it. When this pattern persists despite guidance, coaching‑based approaches often fail to protect children or stabilize the process.

The Limits of Education and the Need to Manage Process Fairly

Parenting Coordination is fundamentally an implementation process. Parents are educated about how to apply court orders, agreements, and structured communication rules. In most cases, education leads to improvement over time.

In some cases, the same issues are repeatedly raised without adaptation. Communications remain non‑compliant with agreed structure, and previously addressed matters are revisited without integration. At this point, continued re‑teaching is no longer effective.

Parenting Coordinators do not enforce court orders in a coercive or punitive manner. Their responsibility is to manage the process fairly and proportionately. Where one parent repeatedly requires additional process time on issues that have already been addressed, it is not reasonable for the other parent—who is complying with guidance and structure—to absorb the resulting cost.

Where authorized by the appointing order or agreement, fee reapportionment may be used to allocate the cost of disproportionate process use. This is not punishment or enforcement. It is a fairness‑based mechanism to:

• Protect the cooperative parent from unnecessary expense

• Maintain proportionality within the process

• Encourage adaptation without escalation

When Parenting Coordination Becomes Determination‑Focused

This may involve a shift to a more limited implementation model, in which the Parenting Coordinator makes determinations only where authorized and necessary to implement existing orders or agreements, after cooperative processes are no longer viable.

These determinations do not expand parental rights or rewrite court orders. They are implementation tools used when cooperative processes are no longer viable.

Allegations of Bias and Process Breakdown

A further pattern often emerges in these cases. When determinations or recommendations do not align with a parent’s position—particularly when reasoning is grounded in child‑focused implementation rather than grievance narratives—allegations of bias may arise.

This response is not necessarily about the quality of the reasoning provided. Rather, it reflects difficulty accepting outcomes that do not resolve the conflict in the way one parent seeks.

As structure increases and options narrow, the Parenting Coordinator may no longer be experienced as neutral, but as aligned with the other parent or with the system.

At this stage, funding for the Parenting Coordination process is sometimes withdrawn. While some participation agreements allow one parent to advance costs subject to later reapportionment, this is rarely sustainable. The issue is no longer the parenting dispute itself. It is whether the process can continue at all.

Why a Return to Court Is Sometimes Necessary

When Parenting Coordination is defunded following allegations of bias, a return to court is often unavoidable. Courts are best positioned to:

• Address funding and cost‑sharing

• Clarify the scope of the Parenting Coordinator’s authority

• Determine whether Parenting Coordination remains appropriate

• Re‑establish a workable structure going forward

No out‑of‑court process can function if one party rejects both its outcomes and its legitimacy. Continuing Parenting Coordination under those conditions does not reduce conflict. It prolongs it.

A Final Word

Most parents want to do better, and many can with appropriate structure and support. Parenting Coordination also requires honesty about its limits. When cooperation is not possible, clarity, proportionality, and structure are not failures. They are protective tools.

The central question in any high‑conflict parenting matter is not who is right, but what process best protects children and treats both parents fairly at this point in time. Even when Parenting Coordination must become more limited or return to court, something important has occurred: the parents were given a genuine opportunity to try. Guidance was provided. Structure was offered. Time was allowed.

Capacity can change over time. Children, however, grow up on schedule. Choosing the right level of structure at the right time is not a defeat. It is responsible process design.

Written by Cori McGuire, a Parenting Coordinator since 2008 and a family law lawyer since 1998 in British Columbia. For further reading on the process try How Parenting Coordinators Work to Keep You Out of Court and When Cooperation Stops: How the Parenting Coordination Process Manages High Conflict