Why Parenting Coordination Focuses on Structure and Neutrality

People sometimes ask why I focus so much on process, communication protocols, proposals, timelines, and structure. Some assume that a Parenting Coordinator's role is to listen to every grievance, determine who was right in the past, and solve the emotional injuries that continue to drive conflict. My experience has taught me otherwise.

Having gone through a high-conflict divorce many years ago, I developed a deep interest in how profound emotional injury affects human behaviour. When people feel betrayed, frightened, rejected, powerless, or unheard, it is entirely human to move into fight-or-flight responses. Those reactions are not signs of weakness; they are often signs of pain. In many ways, they are predictable human responses to overwhelming stress and loss.

Unfortunately, the litigation system can unintentionally perpetuate those dynamics. When allegations are made in affidavits, people often feel compelled to respond to every point because a fact that is not expressly contradicted may be deemed true. The result is that conflict can expand rather than contract. Parents become focused on rebutting allegations, defending themselves, justifying their actions, and proving that the other parent is wrong. The conversation can move further and further away from children and increasingly toward old wounds, historical grievances, and emotional injuries that may never be fully healed through a legal process.

What Is the Purpose of Parenting Coordination?

Parenting coordination offers a different approach. Rather than expanding issues, the goal is to narrow them. Rather than revisiting every disagreement from the past, the goal is to identify what needs to happen now so that children can benefit from stability, predictability, and effective parenting. Parenting coordination focuses on implementation rather than blame because children generally benefit far more from workable solutions than they do from ongoing debates about who was right years ago.

How Parenting Coordination Begins with Consensus

One of the first things many parents learn is that parenting coordination is often far more efficient than they expected. The process always begins with consultation and consensus-building. Parents are encouraged to exchange information, consider options, seek clarification, and work toward agreement wherever possible. When both parents are prepared to focus on solutions and can agree to the same terms, multiple implementation issues can often be incorporated into a single written agreement. Several parenting issues that might otherwise generate multiple court applications can sometimes be resolved through one comprehensive agreement because both parents are focused on moving forward rather than winning an argument.

This approach creates substantial efficiency, reduces costs, and allows families to move forward more quickly. The objective is not to create work. The objective is to resolve implementation issues in a way that promotes stability, certainty, and predictability for children. When consensus succeeds, parenting coordination is often one of the most efficient dispute-resolution processes available to separated parents.

Why Some Parenting Disputes Become More Expensive

The process becomes more difficult when parties begin negotiating every word, continually revisiting previously discussed issues, expanding the scope of disputes, or delaying agreements that were previously within reach. Delays in finalizing agreements can create uncertainty for children and may prevent implementation issues from being resolved in a timely manner. Parenting coordination is designed to move decisions forward in the child's best interests, not leave children waiting indefinitely while adults continue debating wording, process concerns, historical grievances, or collateral issues.

How Parenting Coordinators Try to Avoid Determinations

For that reason, considerable effort is made to avoid determinations whenever possible. Parenting coordination begins with consultation, education, consensus-building, information sharing, clarification, and problem-solving. Parents frequently receive detailed written explanations of concerns, options, and potential outcomes. Public education resources available on my websites are often provided so that parents can better understand the process, the legal framework, and the practical considerations involved. Questions can often be answered through an email copied to all participants seeking clarification so that everyone receives the same information at the same time. Many disagreements are resolved simply because the process provides a structured opportunity to correct misunderstandings before positions become entrenched.

Formal written recommendations are also commonly used. These recommendations are non-binding and allow parents to understand the rationale for a proposed outcome, the child-focused considerations involved, and the implementation concerns that must be addressed before the cost and formality of a binding determination become necessary. In many cases, understanding the reasoning behind a recommendation allows the parties to resolve the issue themselves. This is often preferable because agreements reached by parents themselves tend to create greater buy-in and reduce future conflict.

When Parenting Coordinator Determinations Become Necessary

Sometimes, however, a determination becomes necessary. This may occur when an urgent decision affecting a child must be made, when consultation and consensus efforts have been exhausted, when a parent disagrees with a recommendation, or when a party wishes to exercise their right to seek a review of a binding decision in accordance with the governing legislation. Parenting Coordinators do not begin by making determinations, but neither is the process intended to permit indefinite delay when a child requires certainty, stability, or a timely decision.

When determinations become necessary, issues are generally prioritized according to urgency, impact on the child, and the need for timely implementation. A determination can sometimes be made within hours when circumstances require an urgent response and sufficient information is available. This surprises many people because they assume that every determination requires months of process and extensive litigation-style procedures. Parenting coordination is intended to solve implementation problems, not become another source of delay.

Under the BC Parenting Coordinators Roster Society's standard participation agreement, a Parenting Coordinator may make a determination when necessary and provide the written determination as soon as practicable thereafter. This allows important decisions affecting children to be addressed promptly while still preserving transparency and accountability through written reasons. The immediate priority is often ensuring that a child has certainty about what happens next rather than waiting for a lengthy written document to be completed before any action can occur.

Why Some Determinations Are Longer Than Others

When multiple determinations become necessary within the same file, the level of factual detail often changes. The first determination may contain a comprehensive summary of the history, communications, positions, and implementation issues necessary to understand the dispute. Subsequent determinations involving related issues are usually much shorter because that background has already been documented. The focus shifts to the new implementation question that requires resolution rather than repeatedly reproducing the same historical record.

Parenting Coordination Focuses on Implementation Rather Than Blame

That distinction is important because one of the most significant parts of my role is helping parents distinguish between information that is emotionally important and information that is legally or practically relevant to the issue that must be decided. The two are not always the same. The history of who was right or wrong years ago may be deeply meaningful to the people involved. It may explain why a parent feels hurt, frustrated, fearful, or distrustful. However, that history is not always necessary to deciding how a parenting plan should be implemented next week.

Many parents arrive believing that if I fully understand their story, I will understand why they are right. What often proves more useful is creating a process that allows both parents to move forward without requiring agreement about what happened in the past. Children generally benefit more from effective implementation than from endless debate. The focus remains on identifying what structure, process, communication method, clarification, recommendation, agreement, or decision is necessary today to allow the parenting plan to function in the child's best interests.

Preventing Delay and Creating Certainty for Children

There are occasions when process itself becomes an obstacle to implementation. For example, a parent may clearly agree with a proposal in principle and then begin disputing wording, revisiting settled issues, introducing new concerns, or delaying final agreement at the very time an urgent decision is needed. In those circumstances, the issue is not whether that parent is good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable. The issue is that children require certainty and important decisions cannot be delayed indefinitely. Parenting coordination is designed to prevent implementation from becoming stalled while adults continue debating matters that no longer assist in resolving the actual problem before them.

The role of the Parenting Coordinator is not to determine fault or assign blame. The role is to ensure that a process exists that can continue moving decisions forward when agreement is no longer occurring. If parties genuinely agree, an agreement can often resolve multiple issues efficiently. If agreement breaks down and implementation is delayed, the process shifts toward whatever structure is necessary to keep matters moving in a child-focused manner.

Why Structure Reduces Conflict and Costs

This is where structure becomes valuable. Clear proposals, defined issues, timelines, communication expectations, recommendations, and decision-making processes reduce uncertainty and contain conflict. A structured process narrows issues rather than expanding them. It prioritizes matters requiring immediate attention and creates a clear path toward resolution. It allows parents to focus on solving problems rather than continually revisiting them.

A structured process is also more affordable. When every issue becomes connected to ten previous disputes, every discussion becomes longer, every decision becomes harder, and every professional becomes more expensive. Narrowing issues is not about limiting anyone's voice. It is about directing time, energy, attention, and resources toward decisions that actually affect children.

Why Parenting Coordinators Prepare Detailed Reports and Accounts

Some people are surprised when detailed reports or accounts become necessary. A detailed report is not a section 211 evaluation and it is not an attempt to investigate every aspect of a family's history. Its purpose is much narrower and much more practical. A thorough report creates transparency and allows the parties, their lawyers, and, if necessary, a reviewing judge to understand what issues were raised, what efforts were made to achieve consensus, what recommendations were provided, what process was followed, and why further intervention became necessary.

This transparency becomes particularly important when the process itself is challenged. A thorough report and account allows a court to assess whether the Parenting Coordinator acted within the scope of their role, whether the process is functioning effectively, whether concerns relate to the process or simply disagreement with the outcome, and whether parenting coordination remains the appropriate dispute-resolution mechanism for that family. Unlike a section 211 report, the purpose is not to investigate the family or determine what parenting arrangements should exist. The purpose is to create an accurate record of an implementation-focused process intended to help parents move forward.

Creating Space for Growth, Stability, and Healing

The longer I do this work, the more convinced I become that most families do not need more opportunities to argue. They do not need more opportunities to explain why they are hurt, disappointed, angry, or frustrated. Most have already spent years doing exactly that. What they often need is enough structure, predictability, and calm to allow growth to occur.

Conflict consumes attention. Uncertainty creates anxiety. Chaos makes thoughtful decision-making difficult. Children benefit when parents have a process that reduces conflict, contains issues, creates predictability, and provides a clear path forward. Growth is more likely to occur when there is space for it to occur.

I care deeply about the families who come through my office. I understand that many are carrying grief, fear, anger, disappointment, and exhaustion that did not begin with the parenting dispute itself. Those realities deserve respect and compassion. They are often an important part of understanding why conflict persists.

At the same time, compassion alone does not resolve implementation problems. Growth usually requires space, calm, predictability, and a process that prevents conflict from consuming every interaction. In my experience, structure is not the opposite of caring. Structure is often how caring becomes effective.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is not to determine who is the better parent. The goal is not to rewrite history or resolve every emotional injury. The goal is creating enough stability, predictability, and calm that parents can focus less on the conflict and more on raising their children. When that happens, there is finally room for the growth, healing, and forward movement that most families were seeking all along.

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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