Brooke Randolph is a licensed mental health counselor/therapist who also serves as a parenting coordinator. Increasingly, family courts are turning to parenting coordinators to assist co-parents experiencing high levels of conflict.

CoParenting101.org: How are children impacted by parents who remain entangled in conflict after a break up?

Brooke Randolph: Exposure to high levels of interparental conflict has been the strongest predictor of child maladjustment after divorce. Unfortunately up to 25% of divorces result in high conflict during the first two years following the divorce, and up to 15% of families of divorce continue to experience high conflict for several years. When children are under stress, they can withdraw, suffer mood swings, demand more attention, become fearful, lose interest in activities they once enjoyed, have difficulty with schoolwork, become defiant or destructive, experience nightmares, and/or experience physical symptoms. Parents seem to forget that children identify with both parents as part of themselves and experience confusion when they observe one parent rejecting the other.