When One Parent Is High Conflict: How to Protect Your Kids with Hallie Strauss and Kate Alcamo

Published September 10, 2026 · By Sol Kennedy

If every message from your co-parent feels like a trap, if you’re terrified that anything you say or do will end up in a courtroom, or if your kids are caught in the crossfire of a conflict you never wanted — you are not alone, and you are not powerless.

I recently sat down with Hallie Strauss and Kate Alcamo, co-founders of the Co-Parent Collective, for Episode 18 of the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. Hallie is a psychologist, parenting coordinator, custody evaluator, and mediator who works daily with families stuck in high-conflict dynamics. Kate is a licensed marriage and family therapist and child specialist who helps parents understand what divorce looks and feels like from inside a child’s world. Together, they brought two of the sharpest, most compassionate lenses I’ve encountered in this space — and I want to share what I learned.

What Hallie Strauss Sees That Most Parents Miss

One of the first things Hallie Strauss said that stopped me in my tracks was this: the goal of parallel parenting is not failure. It’s a starting point.

There’s a myth in co-parenting culture that parallel parenting — where each parent operates independently without much direct collaboration — is a sign that the family has given up. Hallie pushed back hard on that.

“Most people’s goal is to live next door to their co-parent and their new families and co-parent together seamlessly. And you don’t get there right away. People need some time on these parallel tracks. They need to be able to process the divorce, to process their own feelings, and then to come back together collaboratively.”

Kate added that rushing into forced collaboration before trust is rebuilt can actually create more conflict — not less. Kids can even become confused when parents who just separated suddenly seem like best friends. Starting with structure and boundaries isn’t a step backward. It’s a foundation.

This reframe was powerful for me. Parallel parenting is not the destination, but it is a valid and often necessary road.

Spouse Mind vs. Parent Mind: The Core Shift

Kate introduced a concept that I think every co-parent needs tattooed somewhere they’ll see it daily: spouse mind versus parent mind.

Spouse mind is where you make decisions based on what your ex did, what they’ll think, what they’ll use against you, or what you “owe” them after the hurt they caused. Parent mind is asking: what does my child need right now?

This shift sounds simple. It is not. When you’re in the middle of litigation, receiving hostile messages, or watching your co-parent undermine you, spouse mind kicks in automatically. Kate described sitting with parents in coaching sessions who couldn’t even agree to get their child into therapy — not because they didn’t want help for their kid, but because agreeing with the other parent felt like losing.

“They get lost in the conflict with their co-parent instead of what’s in the best interest of their child. So it drives a lot of how they parent.”

The children in these situations become little detectives, Kate told me. They look through parents’ phones. They read text messages. They absorb what they find and carry it alone. What you write to your co-parent, your child may one day read. That image has stayed with me.

5 Communication Strategies Hallie Strauss Recommends for High-Conflict Co-Parents

Hallie has read 700 pages of emails in a single custody case. She’s been on the stand for four and a half hours analyzing text messages that parents never imagined anyone else would see. Here is what she and Kate consistently teach:

Write as if a judge will read it. Or, as Kate added, write as if your child will read it. Both framings immediately raise the standard of what you’re willing to put in writing.
Use the BIFF method. Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm. This formula keeps messages focused on logistics, strips out emotional charge, and leaves little room for escalation.
Draft, then wait. Write your message, then let it sit for four or five hours. Come back to it with fresh eyes. Ask yourself: does this still need to be said this way?
Use a tool to filter your tone before you send. Hallie mentioned recommending co-parenting apps to her clients specifically because a tone check can catch the small things — like using the word “fine” instead of “good” — that quietly inflame conflict without the sender even realizing it. BestInterest’s Tone Guardian does exactly this: it reviews your message before you send it and flags wording that could inflame conflict. (And for the messages coming at you, Message Shield filters the hostility out of what you have to read.)
De-escalate unilaterally. You don’t need your co-parent to agree to lower the temperature. Hallie was direct: in almost every case she’s worked on (outside of domestic violence or coercive control), one parent de-escalating brings the conflict level down almost immediately. It takes strength. It is not weakness.

The Role of a Parenting Coordinator — and Why It Matters

Hallie Strauss spent time explaining a role that many co-parents have never heard of: the parenting coordinator, or PC. A PC is a trained mediator with additional skills who works with families — sometimes court-ordered, sometimes voluntarily — to help them make decisions when they’re stuck.

A PC can:

Hold regular or as-needed sessions to resolve disputes about schedules, schools, medical decisions, or extracurricular activities
Act as a bridge between the treatment team (therapists, specialists) and the legal system without requiring those providers to go to court
In some jurisdictions, hold binding authority — the ability to make decisions when parents can’t agree

Hallie shared that she once came close to having to choose a child’s preschool because the parents simply could not agree. Binding authority is a tool that can move families forward, but it’s also a mirror: it reminds parents that they’d almost always rather make that call themselves than have a stranger make it.

For parents who can’t access a PC, Hallie has found that co-parenting apps serve a similar containment function — a place where communication is structured, documented, and not pinging someone’s personal phone at all hours. She specifically mentioned recommending that high-conflict clients communicate exclusively through platforms where everything is trackable.

If you’re navigating this without a parenting coordinator, the BestInterest co-parenting app offers tools designed for exactly this situation — from message filtering to a co-parenting journal that helps you document what matters.

What Children Actually Need When Conflict Is High

Kate’s work with kids gave this episode a dimension that I think often gets overlooked in co-parenting conversations: the child’s interior world.

She described kids as “little detectives” — seeking information to make sense of an overwhelming situation, often finding it in places parents never intended. She talked about children who can’t find a stable sense of self when each parent is trying to pull them into their version of the story.

The single greatest risk factor for children of divorce, Kate said clearly, is high conflict between parents. Not the divorce itself. The conflict.

But she was equally clear about something hopeful: kids are resilient when the right protective factors are in place. Those include:

At least one emotionally available, stable parent
Access to therapy or a trusted adult outside the conflict
Not being used as messengers or confidants
Parents who make decisions from parent mind, not spouse mind

When a child comes home saying something alarming about the other parent, Kate’s advice was grounding: validate first. Don’t interrogate. Don’t defend yourself. Try the “three H’s” — ask your child if they want to be hugged, heard, or helped. Let them lead.

Radical Acceptance and the Long Game

Perhaps the most quietly powerful moment of my conversation with Hallie Strauss and Kate came near the end, during what I called our “double lightning round.”

I asked: co-parenting with a high-conflict ex gets a little easier when…

Kate’s answer:

“You accept they are who they are. We do a lot of shifting towards ‘when they do this, it makes me feel…’ so they can actually process what it feels like… you can’t change them. So radical acceptance of my co-parent is who they are — and how can I deal with that.”

This is the long game. Not winning. Not changing them. Building a life where their behavior has less and less power over yours.

And for the parent who is feeling low, overwhelmed, or fresh into this process — Hallie’s advice was the same note we opened with: regulate first. Step outside for five minutes. Put the email in drafts. Come back when your nervous system has settled. React less. Respond more.

Resources

The Co-Parent Collective — Hallie and Kate’s organization offering courses, coaching, and resources for divorcing and co-parenting families: www.thecoparentcollective.com
The Co-Parent Collective on Instagram — @TheCoparentCollective
BestInterest Co-Parenting App — Tools including message filtering, journaling, and more: bestinterest.app/app
Co-Parenting Plan Guide — A practical resource for building a parenting plan that holds up: bestinterest.app/co-parenting-plan-guide
Psychology Today – Find a Therapist — psychologytoday.com/us/therapists

This conversation with Hallie Strauss and Kate Alcamo is one I keep returning to. If you’re in the thick of a high-conflict co-parenting situation, or if you’re just beginning to navigate separation and want to do it differently, I can’t recommend this episode enough. You can listen to Episode 18 in full on Buzzsprout.