In Colorado, a parenting class is required in all dissolution of marriage or allocation of parental responsibility cases. Upon the commencement of the case, the court will issue a case management order, and one of the aspects of that case management order is the requirement for both parties to take a parenting class. The focus of that parenting class is co-parenting after divorce, or after separation, and the class is usually about four hours. It’s typically on a weekend. It is a mandatory requirement, and the topics of that class are how to co-parent with the other party, how to support that parent’s relationship with the child, how to make decisions together that are in the child’s best interest.
Other than that, there are other parenting classes, which are available to you. I encourage you to research those options. There are what we call a love and logic class, which is a more intensive class, which typically the parents take together, and it really goes into a lot more detail about how to handle conflict, how to make agreements, how to handle disputes regarding your child. And, again, I would encourage you to do that. It really does help for you to increase your knowledge, and become more updated on various stages of child development, and also look and how to communicate with the other parent, so that you’re able to be as supportive with your child and work with the other parents to really, just … you know, the child does so much better if you guys are able to get along, so to the extent you can put your differences aside and get along with the other parent, it’s going to be so much better off for your child in the long run.
So, if education and parenting classes will help us achieve that goal, it’s something we encourage. I’d be happy to talk to you more about those options, please feel free to give me a call at (303) 329-3802 and we can discuss what is the best way for you to proceed.
