Unfortunately, for many families, divorce does not end the conflict. Divorced parents frequently encounter enormous difficulties co-parenting their children. While all parents have disagreements about child-rearing issues, many divorced parents turn those disagreements into all-out war.

In addition, the realities of co-parenting only add fuel to the fire. There are disputes over parenting time, which often become quite emotional. Parents disagree over the rules to be applied to the children or resent the fact that the rules in each household are different. Anger over the divorce or with the other parent spills over to the children.

Children themselves have trouble adjusting to living in separate houses, or abiding by different rules, or their resentment over their parents’ divorce causes new and very troubling behaviors. Sometimes, the distance between parents’ homes becomes a very complicating factor influencing the lives of children and their parents. These disputes, and many like them, often create very high levels of conflict within divorced families.

High levels of post-divorce conflict can be devastating on families. While any divorce places children at risk for psychological difficulties, high conflict divorce makes those difficulties even more likely. Those psychological difficulties can range from simple anxiety to full-fledged rejection of one or both parents to long-term problems that can even include shorter life spans.

Children are especially vulnerable when the conflict is hostile, aggressive, poorly resolved, prolonged, or focused on child-related issues. Parents, also, can suffer similar psychological difficulties, ranging from anxiety and anger problems to parental alienation to total withdrawal from their children.

Nearly one-fourth of divorced families experience high levels of conflict within the first year or two of a divorce. But as many as 10% to 15% of divorced families live in a state of high conflict for several years after a divorce. Research has shown that the strongest predictor of child maladjustment after divorce is exposure to high levels of parental conflict. Therefore, families experiencing a high level of conflict after a divorce run the greatest risk of suffering serious, ongoing problems long after the divorce has been concluded. It is these families that can benefit the most from parenting coordination.