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How TalkingParents Benefits Your Work with a Divorce Coach
How TalkingParents goes hand-in-hand with your work with a divorce coach.
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Even though many wish it were a simple process, divorce is often overwhelming. Managing paperwork, tracking deadlines, and addressing other requirements can be challenging when combined with processing strong emotions. Many divorcing couples turn to lawyers, accountants, and other professionals for help. One type of supportive professional that is sometimes overlooked is a divorce coach.
What is a divorce coach?
A divorce coach is an individual who is qualified by training or a certification program to assist those going through a divorce. According to the American Bar Association, divorce coaching is intended to "support, motivate, and guide people going through divorce to help them make the best possible decisions for their future, based on their particular interests, needs, and concerns." There are a variety of accreditation programs that signify the qualifications of a divorce coach. The most common accreditation is from the Certified Divorce Coach (CDC) program, a divorce coaching certification federally recognized in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia.
How a divorce coach can help
Working with a divorce coach allows you to pursue a productive method to resolve your divorce-related issues. A coach can assist anyone going through any stage of the divorce process. Depending on the situation, divorce coaches can hold sessions with one or both people in a divorcing couple. Some coaches have specialized background experience that enables them to advise clients on financial matters, parenting plans, custody issues, and other related topics. No matter what subject is addressed or what phase you're in, a divorce coach can help you by:
- Guiding you through issues
- Listening to your struggles and feelings
- Formulating productive solutions
- Finding ways to help you support your children
- Referring you to a therapist or counselor
A divorce coach should be able to guide you through a wide variety of issues, but certain things may fall outside a coach's abilities and qualifications. Even though they can help you through your split, divorce coaches cannot:
- Provide legal advice
- Act as a therapist or counselor
- Make decisions for you
Combining TalkingParents and divorce coaching
Although a divorce coach can assist you greatly, combining these efforts with other resources can make your experience even more manageable and effective. TalkingParents is a co-parenting communication service with various features that can help you maximize your work with a divorce coach. Here are four ways that our service can work hand-in-hand with your sessions with a divorce coach.
1. Take notes and document advice
Going through a divorce requires significant physical, mental, and emotional effort. With everything you must address and discuss, working with a divorce coach can help you create a comprehensive roadmap for your divorce journey. Whether you're stuck on which divorce method to pursue or which custody schedule to implement for your family, your coach can help you sort through your options and provide advice for related scenarios. Your coach is there to listen to your experiences, help you process your feelings, and maintain your focus on finding solutions in each of your sessions.
Each session with a divorce coach holds a wealth of knowledge, and it's essential to document that advice for future use. With TalkingParents, storing divorce and co-parenting advice is made easy through the Personal Journal. You can keep private notes regarding important guidance from each session in dated entries and include up to five attachments. These notes cannot be accessed by your co-parent, guaranteeing absolute privacy. By storing advice in your Journal, you can refer to past sessions and apply that guidance. You can also share your notes as needed, so if you would like to reference anything with a legal professional, therapist, or other similar resource, you are free to do so.
Another way to maximize your work with a divorce coach using the Journal is by noting any questions you might be considering between sessions. If you have an important update on your divorce or need help with creating your parenting plan, make a note to mention it to your coach. You can ask your coach about these new questions when you attend your next session. Your coach can be a more effective resource if you stay more organized and focused during and in between sessions.
2. Give your coach a full view of your situation
Working through difficult decisions and conversations with your co-parent is an inevitable task. If you work with a divorce coach, difficult conversations can become more manageable and pleasant for you and your ex. In addition to explaining your discussions to your coach, showing them specific examples of written interactions with your ex can be a helpful way of giving them insight into your co-parenting relationship and determining ways for you to navigate future conflicts.
With TalkingParents, you can give your divorce coach a complete picture of all communications with your ex. Messages in TalkingParents are timestamped and they cannot be edited or deleted, giving your coach a clear idea of what was said and when. With our Accountable Calling feature, you can also get recordings and transcripts of phone conversations with your co-parent to share with your coach. By sharing these clear records of your conversations, your coach can understand the pain points of your co-parenting situation, offer productive solutions, and avoid time spent navigating through guesswork and partial explanations.
3. Organize your tasks and documents
For parents figuring out a divorce and new co-parenting arrangement, the pile-up of paperwork and to-do lists happens quickly. For complex divorce proceedings involving court hearings and litigation, preparing documents and evidence for your case is essential. Forgetting to complete paperwork or provide crucial evidence can negatively affect your case, and managing difficult emotions can make it harder to stay on top of your to-do list. A divorce coach can assist you with organizing and managing these documents so that you are fully prepared for court.
The TalkingParents Vault is a practical, secure location to store and share files relevant to your divorce or co-parenting journey. By storing important documents related to your case in your Vault, you can access them anytime and keep them organized with folders. Any file stored in the Vault can be shared through an email or a shareable link, enabling you to share files with your coach as needed. Once you add the recipient's email address or copy the link, you can designate whether access to the shared file lasts 24 hours, 48 hours, or indefinitely. If you and your coach need to go through paperwork or documents needed for your next deadline, the Vault makes the review process more efficient and organized for each of you.
Additionally, collecting and presenting text messages and call logs could be an important part of preparing the evidence you need for court. Actions within TalkingParents are saved to an Unalterable Record, making it easy to prepare and present details related to direct interactions with your ex. Records include the important information you’ll want to share with your divorce coach, attorney, and any other legal professionals helping you through your divorce. Instead of spending days or weeks sorting through every interaction with your ex, Records enable you and your legal team to streamline your work in collecting evidence, understanding your case, and working toward solutions.
4. Practice what you learn
Divorce coaches can offer great advice for handling conversations, conflict, and decision-making processes with your co-parent. Once you learn these new techniques and skills from your coach, take them to heart and implement these new approaches in your co-parenting. If you apply what you learn to your relationship with your children and their other parent, you're on the road to a more successful and fulfilling co-parenting situation. Whether you discover new ways to be a more consistent co-parent or learn how to protect your mental health, apply your coach's advice to your daily life to get the full benefit of your sessions.
Just as your divorce coach aims to make your divorce process smoother, TalkingParents aims to make your co-parenting journey easier. The features of our service can help you implement and maintain the co-parenting advice you learn from your divorce coach regarding communication, coordination, self-regulation, boundaries, and more. When utilized together, your coach and TalkingParents can help you navigate your divorce in a healthier way, leading to a healthier shared parenting situation for you, your ex, and your kids.