- Home
- /
- Resources
Co-Parenting Resources & Practical Support
Practical guidance for navigating co-parenting, family conflict and difficult relationships with greater clarity and confidence.
Featured Free Resource
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. Real-Time Parenting is written by three parent coaches who understand the demands of parenthood and empower moms and dads to discover their personal best. Through stories and practice, they respond to their family with intention instead of reacting from stress.”
Resources for Parents
Real-Time Parenting: The Must-Read Guide for Parents
Parent with confidence, not comparison. In Real-Time Parenting, Amy Armstrong shares practical tools and strategies to help you respond with clarity, set healthy boundaries, and raise thriving, independent kids.
Free No-Regret Response Kit
A practical resource to help you slow down, respond intentionally, and communicate with greater clarity during difficult or high-conflict interactions, so you can feel confident about what you say and do next.
Boundary Basics: Practical Steps to Keep Your Cool and Reduce Conflict
Struggling to set boundaries without guilt or fear? In Boundary Basics, Amy Armstrong gives you the tools to break free from people-pleasing, enforce limits with confidence, and reclaim your power, one page at a time.
Recommended Reading
These resources offer practical tools and thoughtful perspectives for navigating parenting, co-parenting, separation, divorce, family transitions, conflict, and personal growth.
Co-Parenting, Divorce & Communication
BIFF for CoParent Communication: Your Guide to Difficult Texts, Emails, and Social Media Posts — Bill Eddy
Practical strategies for communicating clearly and effectively when co-parent interactions are difficult or high-conflict.
The Co-Parenting Handbook: Raising Well-Adjusted and Resilient Kids from Little Ones to Young Adults through Divorce or Separation — Karen Bonnell
An excellent guide to protecting children and creating a healthy two-home family following separation or divorce.
Overcoming the Co-Parenting Trap: Essential Parenting Skills When a Child Resists a Parent — John A. Moran, Ph.D., Tyler Sullivan & Matthew Sullivan, Ph.D.
Especially helpful when a child is resisting contact with a parent or becoming caught in parental conflict.
Parenting & Connecting with Children
Real-Time Parenting: Choose Action Steps for the Present Moment — Amy Armstrong, Mary Funari & Beth Miller
Practical tools for responding intentionally to what your child needs in the present moment rather than becoming caught in fear, frustration, or old patterns.
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk — Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
A classic resource for improving communication, cooperation, and connection with children.
How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk — Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
Practical approaches for communicating with adolescents while supporting both independence and connection
ASAP: Ages, Stages, and Phases: From Infancy to Adolescence, Integrating Physical, Social, Moral, Emotional, Intellectual, and Spiritual Development — Patricia D. Fosarelli, M.D.
A helpful developmental reference for understanding what children need at different ages and stages.
Stepfamilies & Family Transitions
The Stepfamily Handbook: From Dating, to Getting Serious, to Forming a “Blended Family” — Patricia Papernow
A useful guide to the unique developmental challenges of stepfamilies and the time and patience involved in building healthy new family relationships.
Resilience, Trauma, Conflict & Personal Growth
Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts — Jeremy Pollack, Ph.D.
Explores how the nervous system, threat perception, stress, safety, and connection influence conflict—and how neuroscience can help us understand escalation and create more constructive responses.
The Reality Slap, 2nd Edition: How to Survive and Thrive When Life Hits Hard — Russ Harris
An Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based approach to facing difficult realities while making intentional choices about how you want to live.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma — Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
An introduction to understanding how traumatic experiences can affect the brain, body, emotions, and relationships.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom — Don Miguel Ruiz
A simple framework for becoming more intentional about assumptions, reactions, communication, and personal responsibility.
The Courage to Be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
A provocative exploration of personal responsibility, freedom, relationships, and letting go of attempts to control what other people think or do.
StoryJacking: Change Your Inner Dialogue | Transform Your Life — Lyssa Danehy deHart
A coaching-oriented resource for recognizing and changing the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences.
For Professionals
The following resources are particularly helpful for mental health professionals, attorneys, Guardians ad Litem, parenting coordinators, mediators, coaches, judicial officers, and others working with families experiencing separation, divorce, high conflict, or parent-child contact problems.
AFCC and NCJFCJ Joint Statement on Parent-Child Contact Problems — Association of Family and Conciliation Courts & National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
An important interdisciplinary framework for working with families when children resist or refuse contact with a parent. It emphasizes child-centered practice, safety screening, consideration of multiple possible contributors to parent-child contact problems, individualized case analysis, and appropriate and proportional interventions.
AFCC Guidelines for Parenting Plan Evaluations in Family Law Cases — Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
Professional guidance for competent, systematic, and impartial evaluation practices when gathering information and formulating opinions related to parenting plans and family court matters.
AFCC Guidelines for Parenting Coordination — Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
Guidance for professionals working with high-conflict co-parenting families, including professional roles and boundaries, conflict management, parenting education, safety, and effective parenting coordination practice.
High Conflict People in Legal Disputes — Bill Eddy
A useful framework for understanding recurring high-conflict behavior patterns and responding without unnecessarily escalating conflict.
The Conflict Resolution Toolbox: Models & Maps for Analyzing, Diagnosing, and Resolving Conflict — Gary T. Furlong
Multiple frameworks for understanding what may actually be driving a conflict before determining the most useful intervention.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In — Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton
The classic introduction to interest-based negotiation and the distinction between stated positions and underlying interests.
The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict — Christopher W. Moore
A comprehensive professional resource addressing mediation theory, process, strategy, and intervention.