Therapy for parenting conflict in California.
You agree you love your kids. You don't agree on much else around how to raise them. Bedtime, screens, discipline, schools, what to allow, what to forbid — every parenting decision becomes another argument. The kids feel it. The relationship strains under it. The couple you used to be has been gradually replaced by two tired co-parents who keep disagreeing.
Parenting conflict is rarely just about parenting. Underneath the surface fights about screen time and structure are usually attachment differences, family-of-origin patterns, unaddressed resentments, and a couple relationship that hasn't been tended to in years. Kids amplify whatever was already there.
I work with couples who love their children and are losing their relationship to the daily friction of raising them. The work returns the focus to the couple first — because kids respond to the relationship's tone far more than they respond to any single parenting strategy. Aligned parenting requires aligned partners.
You don't have to keep living like this.
- Your parenting philosophies feel fundamentally opposite — strict vs. permissive, structured vs. free, anxious vs. unbothered.
- The kids have learned to go to the parent more likely to say yes — and you're both aware of it.
- You undermine each other in front of the kids, even when you try not to.
- You parent solo because it's easier than negotiating every decision with your partner.
- You've lost the couple underneath the co-parents. You can't remember the last time you were just the two of you.
How I work with parenting conflict.
Parenting conflict work begins by separating two things that usually get tangled — the parenting decisions themselves, and the relational pattern around how you make them. Most couples have spent years trying to win the parenting debate. We pause that and look at what the fight is actually about.
From there we work on the couple. Where has resentment built up? What's gone unsaid? What does each of you carry from your own childhood about what parents are supposed to do? When those threads get named, the daily friction softens — not because you agree on everything, but because you stop fighting through the kids.
Aligned parenting isn't identical parenting. It's two adults who trust each other enough to handle differences without sabotage. The goal is a couple the kids can feel — steady, on the same team, even when the strategies vary. That's what regulates a household.
Common questions.
Where this connects.
Asking for help takes courage.
Book a free 20-minute consultation to see if working together feels right.