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How to Divorce Without Going to Court: Amanda Singer on Mediation, Co-Parenting, and Keeping Control

· By Sol Kennedy

How to Divorce Without Going to Court: Amanda Singer on Mediation, Co-Parenting, and Keeping Control

If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are already in the thick of it — the texts that make your stomach drop, the legal bills that never stop, the feeling that your life is being decided by strangers in a courtroom. I know that feeling. It is exactly why I started the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. And it is why my conversation with Amanda Singer on Episode 13 stopped me in my tracks.

Amanda is a family law mediator, licensed attorney, and the founder of West Coast Family Mediation. She has spent over 13 years helping couples navigate divorce entirely outside of a courtroom — and she is here to tell you that this path exists, it works for more people than realize it, and it could save you years of your life.

Let’s dig into what she shared.

What Amanda Singer Taught Me About Conflict — And Why It Matters for Co-Parents

Early in our conversation, I shared a quote I found from Amanda that has stuck with me: “Conflict is normal. We all have it in our lives, but the way we deal with it and how we communicate with each other about it will affect our ability to move forward.”

That framing is everything. Amanda was quick to point out that even happy, intact marriages have conflict — and that zero conflict is actually its own red flag, a sign that important things are going unaddressed and building underneath the surface.

What makes co-parenting uniquely hard is that you bring the entire history of your relationship — every unresolved argument, every wound, every trigger — directly into every disagreement about your children. As Amanda put it, “Even if you had parenting conflicts when you were married, they don’t just go away. In fact, they’re most of the time going to get more difficult.”

This is something I have lived personally, and I know so many of you have too. The arguments were never really about the pick-up time or the school schedule. They were about trust, respect, and pain that predated the divorce by years. Understanding that is the first step toward changing it.

Mediation vs. Litigation: Amanda Singer Explains the Real Difference

Most people’s idea of mediation is a single mandatory session that happens before the “real” court process begins. I mentioned to Amanda that here in Marin County, California, there is a required mediation session before family court hearings — and it often feels like a checkbox rather than a genuine alternative.

Amanda pushed back on that model entirely. In her practice, mediation is the entire process, not a prelude to litigation.

Here is what full-service mediation with someone like Amanda actually looks like:

  • Both parties choose to mediate — they come in having agreed they do not want a judge making decisions for their family.
  • Everything is on the table — parenting plan, child support, spousal support, division of assets and debts.
  • A neutral mediator handles the legal paperwork — drafting and filing court documents so you never have to appear before a judge.
  • Sessions are structured and focused — anywhere from two or three sessions to many more, depending on complexity.
  • Flat-fee or hourly pricing is dramatically less expensive than paying two separate attorneys to communicate through filings and hearings.

The goal? You never set foot in a courtroom. You stay in control of your own family’s future.

If you are wondering whether this could realistically apply to you, I also highly recommend reading this guide on how to avoid divorce court that we published on the BestInterest blog.

5 Things Amanda Singer Says Every Co-Parent Should Know Before Choosing a Divorce Path

One thing I love about Amanda is her practical, no-nonsense approach to explaining how this process actually works. Here are five of the most important insights she shared in our episode:

  1. More couples qualify for mediation than they think. The biggest barrier is not conflict level — it is awareness. Many people simply do not know mediation is a real option. Amanda told me she regularly speaks with prospective clients who had no idea what mediation could actually accomplish for them.
  2. Both people have to agree to mediate — not agree on everything. This is a crucial distinction. You do not need to be on the same page about custody or finances to start mediation. You just need to both agree that you want to try to resolve things without a judge.
  3. To get your co-parent on board, speak to what matters to them. Amanda’s advice on convincing a reluctant co-parent to mediate was brilliant: figure out what they value most. Is it saving money? Avoiding conflict? Keeping control? Lead with that. If they hate spending money on attorneys, remind them that mediation is one neutral party instead of two billing attorneys talking to each other all day.
  4. Power imbalances can be managed. Amanda described how she starts with individual “preliminary planning sessions” with each person separately before any joint meeting. This allows her to understand the dynamics — including if one person is dominating, interrupting, or controlling — and actively balance participation during joint sessions.
  5. You can return to mediation as your kids grow. Parenting plans are not set in stone forever. Amanda noted that clients often return when child support needs modification, or when the kids hit new life stages — driving, social media, changes in schedule. Having an established mediator who knows your history is enormously valuable.

For more on how to prepare before you even pick up the phone to call an attorney or mediator, check out The Smart Way to Prepare for Divorce: Who To Hire Before You Hire a Lawyer.

The Parenting Plan Gaps Amanda Singer Sees Most Often

One of the most practically useful parts of our conversation was when I asked Amanda what agreements she most often sees missing from parenting plans — things that create conflict years down the road.

Her answer: parents focus on the age their children are right now, not who those children will become.

When kids are toddlers, parents write plans for toddlers. They do not think about what happens when their child starts driving at 16, wants a smartphone at 11, or asks to choose which parent they live with at 14. Amanda said she now routinely adds language around screen time, social media, and phone use — topics that were barely relevant even a few years ago.

Her philosophy is not that you can predict everything — it is that you can build a framework for how you will make future decisions together. That might mean agreeing in writing that you will return to mediation if you hit an impasse, rather than defaulting to court. That single clause can save years of litigation.

This connects directly to something I believe deeply: the best parenting plan works like a business plan — clear, forward-thinking, and built for adaptation. And if you need to document how agreements are or are not being followed right now, the BestInterest Coparenting Journal lets you log incidents, communications, and parenting events in a timestamped, court-admissible format. It is a tool I wish I had from day one.

Emotions, Therapy, and Why Family Court Fails Humans

One of the moments in this episode that I found most validating was when Amanda and I talked about the complete absence of emotional intelligence in the family court system.

As she put it directly: “The family court system — they don’t have the time, they don’t have the resources to actually dig into anything related to the emotions.”

In contrast, Amanda said that in mediation, emotions are part of the process — not something to be suppressed or ignored. She was clear that she is not a therapist and does not work from a therapeutic framework, but she is also honest that you cannot pretend divorce is not emotional.

She told me she could always tell which clients had been working with a therapist. They regulated better in sessions, came more prepared, and reached agreements faster. Her dream, she said, would be to require every mediation client to also have a therapist. I could not agree more.

If you are deep in a high-conflict situation and need tools to communicate without blowing up, the Tone Guardian in the BestInterest app can help you review your messages before you send them — catching reactive language before it escalates. And if you need to protect yourself from incoming hostility, Solo Mode with Message Shield filters what reaches you so you are not ambushed by every incoming message.

New Partners, Blended Families, and What Amanda Singer Does Differently

I was genuinely surprised to learn that Amanda regularly facilitates mediation that includes new partners — what she calls “bonus parents” — when all parties agree.

Her reasoning is smart: if a new partner is not in the room, they are still in the conversation — through their partner’s filtered, emotional retelling of every session. That retelling, she pointed out, is never fully accurate. It is perspective. And it often makes the absent new partner more angry and entrenched toward the ex than they would be if they had simply been present.

Bringing everyone into the same room, focused on the children’s wellbeing, can short-circuit that cycle entirely. “We’re not talking about their relationship anymore. We’re not talking about the past. We’re talking about what’s going on with the kids now.”

This is one of the healthiest reframes I have heard for navigating new partner introductions in co-parenting. The goal is never to control who your co-parent loves. It is to agree on how that love shows up around your children.

What the Kids Would Say If They Were in the Room

I asked Amanda one of my favorite questions: if the children could speak in the mediation room, what would they say?

She referenced the film Split — a short film entirely from the perspective of children of divorce. (I have actually had one of the co-creators of that film on this podcast — a conversation I will never forget.) And then she said something simple and devastating:

“The kids just want to see their parents happy. They don’t want to see them fighting. They want to know that they’re still loved and that there is going to be the least amount of change possible.”

They are not asking for the house. They are not asking for the furniture. They are asking for constants — familiar routines, familiar spaces, the feeling of being held by both parents even as the world shifts around them.

That is a message worth sitting with.

Amanda Singer on Premarital Mediation: The Divorce Conversation You Have While You’re Still in Love

One of the most unexpected and fascinating parts of our episode was learning about Amanda’s premarital mediation work. She helps couples create prenuptial agreements — but not the way you might imagine.

Instead of one person hiring an attorney who drafts a document that protects only them, Amanda sits with both partners together, as a neutral party, and guides them through a collaborative conversation about finances, assets, and what they each want their marriage to look like legally.

I said something in our conversation that I really believe: the best time to have the divorce conversation is when you are still in love. Amanda agreed completely. She has seen it from both sides — the prenup table and the divorce table — and she knows that the couple who talked it through in the beginning almost always has an easier time if things do not work out.

It is one of the most proactive forms of conflict prevention I have ever encountered.

One Thing You Can Do Today

I closed our conversation by asking Amanda what she would say to a parent who is in the fight of their lives right now, dreading the next text, barely staying present for their kids.

Her answer was this: get some kind of help. It does not have to be big. A therapist. A mediator. A co-parenting app. Resources and articles. You do not have to do this alone, and trying to white-knuckle your way through it usually just makes the conflict grow.

That is exactly what BestInterest was built for. If your co-parent is not ready to mediate, if you are in the middle of a high-conflict situation right now, tools like the Coparent Coach can give you real-time guidance on how to respond to difficult messages, plan your next communication, or just process what is happening in a safe space. And if you need a record of everything that is happening, Verified Reports from BestInterest give you a verified, timestamped record of your co-parenting communications.

You can listen to my full conversation with Amanda Singer on Episode 13 of Coparenting Beyond Conflict right here: How to Divorce Without Going to Court with Amanda Singer.

Resources Mentioned & Recommended