When Parenting Coordination Stops Being the Solution

Parenting Coordination is often used when separated parents have difficulty consulting, making decisions and implementing parenting arrangements together. It can provide structure, facilitate agreement and, where jurisdiction exists, provide a binding determination when reasonable consultation does not produce consensus.

Sometimes, however, the difficulty becomes larger than the individual parenting disputes being referred to the Parenting Coordinator. Important decisions repeatedly require professional intervention, the cost becomes disproportionate, funding becomes difficult or contested, and the Parenting Coordination process itself becomes another subject of dispute. At that point, the question is no longer simply how the Parenting Coordinator should resolve the next issue. It may be whether the existing decision-making structure remains workable at all.

That conclusion should never be assumed merely because a file is difficult. Concerns about the Parenting Coordinator, jurisdiction, procedural fairness, proportionality, cost or professional services may be legitimate and deserve consideration through the appropriate process. The difficulty may lie with the PC, the process, the parenting arrangement, the parents' demonstrated capacity to use that structure, or a combination of these factors.

The first task is therefore diagnosis, not blame.

First, Identify Where the Problem Actually Lies

Parenting Coordination is intended to help parents implement existing parenting arrangements. A Parenting Coordinator's role is to help parents carry out an existing parenting agreement or order and resolve disagreements about how those arrangements are put into effect. A PC cannot fundamentally change the underlying parenting arrangements.

That distinction matters when a file begins to break down. A problem with a Parenting Coordinator requires a different response from a problem with the Parenting Coordination process, and both are different from an underlying parenting arrangement that repeatedly fails to produce necessary decisions for the child.

There may be a legitimate concern about jurisdiction, procedural fairness, neutrality, cost or the proportionality of the services being provided. If so, that concern should be examined on its merits. Changing the parenting structure should not become a way of avoiding legitimate scrutiny of the Parenting Coordination process.

But the reverse is also true. Repeated criticism of the Parenting Coordinator does not necessarily establish that the Parenting Coordinator is the reason the process has stopped working.

When the Dispute Shifts to the Parenting Coordinator

Parents are entitled to disagree with a Parenting Coordinator. They are also entitled to raise genuine concerns about bias, jurisdiction, procedural fairness, cost or the way the process is being managed.

A Parenting Coordinator should consider legitimate concerns, correct errors where appropriate and remain open to the possibility that criticism has merit. Neutrality does not require the PC to agree with the criticism, however, and an unfavourable recommendation or determination does not by itself establish unfairness or bias.

There can also come a point where repeated debate about the Parenting Coordinator begins consuming the professional process without helping resolve the parenting issue. Demands that the PC continually explain earlier communications, defend decisions or answer repeated allegations can produce significant professional expense while doing little to advance implementation.

A Parenting Coordinator should be particularly careful at that point not to become defensive. The professional task remains the same: consider any new information that genuinely bears on jurisdiction, fairness or the issue requiring resolution, create a sufficient record and continue to act neutrally within the authority conferred.

Not every criticism requires an answer. Sometimes the appropriate response is simply to let the record and the determination speak for themselves.

When Consensus Stops Producing Value

Most Parenting Coordinators appropriately begin with consensus. Parents should generally remain responsible for decisions they are capable of making themselves, and agreement is usually less expensive and less adversarial than adjudication. But consensus is a means, not the ultimate objective of Parenting Coordination.

In some files, consultation may begin to follow a recurring pattern. A discrete issue is identified, proposals are exchanged, collateral matters emerge, the issue expands, the PC attempts to narrow it again, additional conditions or concerns are introduced, further drafting occurs, and significant professional time is spent attempting to obtain agreement. The process may still eventually require a determination.

That does not necessarily mean either parent has acted improperly. Nor does it mean that the Parenting Coordinator has failed. It may simply demonstrate that additional consensus-building is no longer increasing the likelihood of agreement enough to justify its cost. The appropriate response can then be less process, not more.

The Parenting Coordinator can identify the specific implementation issue, obtain the information reasonably required, ask each parent for a defined position or proposal, provide a proportionate opportunity for consultation and, if consensus is not reasonably achievable, proceed to determination where authorized.

The objective is not less procedural fairness. It is to avoid continuing a consensus process after experience has demonstrated that additional process is no longer helping produce consensus.

Parenting Coordination Can Move at Different Speeds

This suggests an important distinction that is sometimes overlooked. A family does not necessarily have to choose between conciliatory Parenting Coordination and adjudicative Parenting Coordination as permanently different models.

The PC manages the process within the jurisdiction actually conferred. The amount of facilitation reasonably required before a determination may depend upon the issue, the parents' demonstrated ability to reach agreement and what previous attempts at consultation have shown.

For some families, the process may appropriately look like:

Identify → Inform → Propose → Consult → Revise → Agree

For others, after experience demonstrates that extended consensus work repeatedly generates cost without convergence, a more proportionate process may look like:

Identify → Inform → Final Proposals → Brief Consultation → Agree or Determine

The parental responsibilities have not changed. The Parenting Coordinator's jurisdiction has not expanded. What has changed is the amount of professional process devoted to attempting consensus before the decision-making function already contemplated by Parenting Coordination becomes necessary.

This can substantially affect cost. Repeated attempts to achieve consensus are not inexpensive merely because they are non-adjudicative.

Determinations Also Need Proportionality

Moving earlier to determination does not solve the economic problem if every determination becomes an exhaustive reconstruction of the failed consultation. A sufficient determination needs enough information to establish jurisdiction, identify the issue, fairly state the material positions and facts, explain the reasoning and provide an implementable result. It does not necessarily need to reproduce every communication through which consensus failed.

That distinction matters particularly when the Parenting Coordinator has been criticized personally. A natural professional response is to create an increasingly detailed record demonstrating how much work occurred, how many opportunities for agreement were provided and why the PC's process was fair.

Sometimes that detail is necessary, particularly in reporting and accounting for substantial professional fees. But completeness can also become disproportionate. Every additional factual assertion may create another point about which the parents can disagree. A sufficient record protects the integrity of the process. An unnecessarily exhaustive record can sometimes become another arena for the conflict.

When Proportionate Parenting Coordination Is Still Too Expensive

There is a more difficult category of file. Suppose the PC has contained the process. Issues are considered separately. Consultation is focused. Collateral issues are deferred. The parties receive a reasonable but limited opportunity to reach agreement. Determinations themselves are proportionate. Still, issue after issue requires adjudication. At that point, the answer may not be a better Parenting Coordination process.

The repeated need for professional adjudication may be information about the underlying parenting structure. A shared decision-making arrangement can work well for parents who disagree frequently if they can nevertheless exchange information, consider proposals and make enough decisions themselves that Parenting Coordination remains an occasional dispute-resolution mechanism. It becomes fundamentally different if ordinary parenting decisions repeatedly require a privately funded professional adjudication before the child's life can move forward. That is where court involvement may be required.

Funding Is Part of the Structural Problem

Parenting Coordination is a professional service. Determinations require time to identify jurisdiction, review relevant information, provide procedural fairness, analyze the issue and prepare a decision. If a family needs frequent PC adjudication, the process needs sufficient funding to provide it.

An inability to pay and a refusal to maintain required funding are not necessarily the same problem. Genuine financial hardship raises important proportionality and access-to-justice considerations. But either circumstance can expose the same practical limitation: an unfunded Parenting Coordination process cannot indefinitely provide privately funded adjudication.

A Parenting Coordinator does not acquire coercive enforcement powers because continued funding is important. Where judicial authority is required to address funding, compliance or some other matter outside the PC's role, the matter belongs at the judicial level rather than being solved by expanding PC authority. If adequate funding would merely permit a continuing stream of expensive determinations because virtually every significant parenting issue produces deadlock, the court may need to consider the more fundamental question: does the existing allocation of parental responsibilities still fit this family?

The Family Law Act Already Asks That Question

British Columbia's Family Law Act does not presume that parental responsibilities must be allocated equally or that guardians must make decisions jointly. Section 40 permits parental responsibilities to be allocated to one or more guardians, or to guardians acting separately or together.

Section 37 makes the child's best interests the only consideration when parenting arrangements are made. Among the statutory considerations are each guardian's ability to exercise parental responsibilities and the appropriateness of an arrangement requiring guardians to cooperate on matters affecting the child.

Those provisions matter because persistent decision-making failure should not automatically be understood as evidence that one parent is good and the other is bad. It may instead be evidence relevant to whether the architecture requiring those particular parents to make decisions together continues to be appropriate.

The court has authority under s. 45 to make orders concerning the allocation of parental responsibilities, implementation of parenting orders and the means for resolving disputes respecting those orders. Sometimes the appropriate response to a Parenting Coordination process that has become disproportionately adjudicative is therefore not more Parenting Coordination. It is court consideration of a different parenting structure.

Neuroscience: Why Structure Matters More Than Blame

Persistent parental conflict can involve threat perception, stress responses, trauma histories, rigidity, mistrust and deeply established patterns of responding to disagreement. Those observations can help professionals understand why simply providing more information or another opportunity to cooperate does not always change behaviour. They do not require diagnosing a parent.

A Parenting Coordinator generally does not need to determine why a parent continually expands an issue, experiences a process as unfair or struggles to reach closure. The more useful professional question is often what structure allows decisions to be made despite those difficulties.

That is one reason my practice has increasingly emphasized structure over blame. People do not always change because they receive more information or better explanations. Sometimes behaviour changes because the surrounding system makes the next step clearer, more predictable and easier to follow.

Structured proposals, one issue at a time, clear deadlines, defined consultation, implementation-focused communication and proportionate determination processes can all reduce unnecessary conflict without requiring conclusions about either parent's character.

Structure Can Create Room for Growth

Greater structure does not mean parents will never become better at managing disagreement. Predictable processes can reduce opportunities for circular conflict and allow emotional intensity to settle. Parents who initially require significant professional intervention may eventually learn to identify the real issue, make focused proposals, tolerate disagreement and reach decisions without involving the PC.

That is an important reason not to treat a structured process as punishment. The objective is not to maximize professional involvement. It is usually the opposite: use enough structure to make the system reliable, then leave as much parenting as possible with the parents.

There Are Different Ways to Change the Structure

If ordinary shared decision-making has become unworkable, the choice is not necessarily between maintaining it unchanged and transferring every parental responsibility to one parent.

Section 40 permits parental responsibilities to be allocated differently. A court may consider structures in which responsibilities remain shared in areas that continue to work while particular responsibilities are divided or allocated differently where recurring deadlock has been demonstrated.

One possible approach is designated decision-making after consultation. Both parents remain informed and meaningfully involved, but if reasonable consultation does not produce agreement, the parent designated for that parental responsibility makes the decision. The significance of this structure is not that one parent “wins.” It is that disagreement no longer automatically prevents a decision from being made.

For example, parents might continue sharing educational decisions while one parent has designated responsibility after consultation for particular health decisions. Another family might require a completely different allocation. No particular arrangement is presumed to be in the child's best interests under s. 40.

Parenting Coordination Can Still Have an Implementation Role

Giving a parent designated decision-making authority does not necessarily require Parenting Coordination to disappear. The distinction is between making the substantive decision allocated to the parent and resolving a separate implementation dispute within the PC's jurisdiction.

Suppose a parent has designated responsibility for a particular health decision and, after meaningful consultation, decides that the child will attend an assessment. The Parenting Coordinator does not automatically conduct a second best-interests hearing to decide whether that parent made the decision the PC would have made. But a separate issue concerning interpretation or implementation may still arise. Where that issue falls within the PC's lawful and delegated jurisdiction, Parenting Coordination may remain useful.

The parent exercises the parental responsibility. The Parenting Coordinator assists with authorized implementation. The court remains responsible for the underlying parenting architecture and matters requiring judicial authority. That allocation of functions can preserve the useful parts of Parenting Coordination without making PC adjudication the gateway to every decision.

What About Accountability?

A designated decision-making structure does not remove accountability. The designated parent remains required to exercise parental responsibilities in the child's best interests. Both parents may remain subject to meaningful consultation requirements. Parenting Coordination can remain available for authorized implementation issues, and the court continues to supervise the underlying parenting structure.

The accountability framework can therefore be understood quite simply: Consultation provides participation. Designated authority provides a decision. Parenting Coordination assists with authorized implementation. The court provides judicial supervision.

The purpose is not to place one parent beyond scrutiny. It is to place each type of decision at the appropriate level.

Sometimes the Correct Conclusion Is That Parenting Coordination Has Reached Its Limit

Parenting Coordination cannot make every family agree. It cannot make privately funded professional adjudication inexpensive when numerous genuine disputes require decisions. It cannot exercise judicial enforcement powers it does not possess. And it cannot fundamentally redesign parenting arrangements merely because the existing structure has become difficult to implement. PCs implement existing arrangements rather than fundamentally changing them.

There is therefore an important professional distinction between: Parenting Coordination was performed badly.
and:
Parenting Coordination was no longer capable of solving the structural problem proportionately. The second conclusion is not an admission of professional failure.

Sometimes repeated experience demonstrates that extended consensus efforts are no longer proportionate, and the PC should move more efficiently to determination. Sometimes even efficient determinations remain too frequent and expensive. Sometimes funding fails. Sometimes the underlying parenting arrangement itself requires reconsideration. Recognizing those limits is part of the Parenting Coordinator's role.

Different Models for Different Families

I have prepared separate public legal-information resources examining why decision-making structures sometimes need to change and illustrating several possible ways parental responsibilities and dispute-resolution processes may be structured. These are examples rather than an exhaustive catalogue of the arrangements that may be available or that a court may consider.

These are illustrative ideas, not an exhaustive statement of the arrangements a court may make. Different responsibilities can potentially use different structures, and courts may develop different solutions based on the evidence, the child's best interests and the circumstances of the family.

The resource is available at: parentingcoordinatorbc.online → Understanding the Process → PC Models and Decision-Making (https://parentingcoordinatorbc.online/pc-models-decision-making).

The larger point is more important than any particular model: the decision-making structure should fit the family's demonstrated capacity to use it.

The Goal Is Not to Decide Who Won

The goal is not to preserve shared decision-making at all costs. It is not to defend the Parenting Coordinator. It is not to punish a parent for disagreement, criticism, non-participation or difficult communication. The goal is to create a structure in which both parents can participate meaningfully while the child continues to have reliable access to necessary decisions.

For some families, ordinary consultation is enough. Others benefit from consensus-oriented Parenting Coordination. Some require a more focused PC process in which unsuccessful consultation moves efficiently to determination. And where repeated adjudication itself becomes disproportionate or the PC process cannot remain practically available, the parenting structure may require consideration by the court.

Parenting Coordination is most valuable when it helps a parenting arrangement function. When the process repeatedly cannot do that proportionately, the answer is not necessarily more Parenting Coordination. Sometimes the appropriate next step is to recognize the limits of the intervention and return the structural question to the court.

This article provides general legal information only and is not legal advice. It does not comment on any particular parent, Parenting Coordinator, assessment or proceeding. The examples and structures discussed are illustrative and are not exhaustive models or proposed outcomes for any individual family. Parenting arrangements and Parenting Coordinator jurisdiction depend upon the evidence, the child's best interests, the governing order or agreement, the Family Law Act, the Family Law Act Regulation and the authority actually conferred on the Parenting Coordinator.

Written by Cori L. McGuire, family law mediator, arbitrator, collaborative family law lawyer and Parenting Coordinator with a family law practice in British Columbia since 1998. 

© 2026 Cori McGuire. All Rights Reserved. Proprietary Workflow.

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