The Couple and The Child: Parenting as a Team 
Clinical Training

Couple conflict is one of the strongest predictors of children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. When parents become misaligned, children are often drawn into conflict or left emotionally unsupported—both of which impact their wellbeing.
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Parenting as a Team™ (PaaT) is a preventative mental health framework that focuses on strengthening the co-parenting relationship—the system children depend on most.​
This presentation introduces a practical roadmap for supporting parents to move from adversarial or avoidant patterns into effective teamwork. It includes:
  • Assessment tools for identifying co-parenting dynamics
  • Clinical protocol for understanding triadic alliance patterns
  • Structured interventions that support repair, compassion, and coordination
​Grounded in Gottman Method Couples Therapy, contemporary attachment theory, and triadic family research (Lausanne Trilogue Play), this model helps clinicians understand how parenting stress can escalate into conflict between parents—and how to interrupt that process early.

The framework identifies three common breakdown patterns in co-parenting--collusive, disengaged, dominating and competitive dynamics—and contrasts these with cohesive co-parenting, where parents maintain connection, shared leadership, and emotional alignment, even under pressure.
When parents learn to stay connected during difficult moments, children benefit from a more secure, predictable, and emotionally supportive environment.
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Strengthening the parental alliance is one of the most powerful and under utilised preventative mental health interventions available.

Take this work further

If you’re interested in bringing this approach into your clinical work, you may be interested in our training for clinicians.
The Couple & The Child: Parenting as a Team offers a practical, hands-on framework for working with co-parenting dynamics in therapy.
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