If you're a therapist, guardian ad litem, parenting coordinator, family law attorney, or judge — this page is for you. Here's what to know about The Parallel Parenting Solution, and how to use it with the families you serve.
Family law professionals see the same pattern over and over: a client trying earnestly to "communicate better" with someone who is incapable of good faith communication, doing exactly what their last therapist or last book told them to do, and getting punished for it.
The mainstream coparenting literature was written for the wrong audience. It assumes two reasonable adults working in good faith. For your high-conflict cases — narcissistic abuse, alienation, addiction, DV histories, untreated personality disorders — that advice doesn't just fail. It actively harms the parent who follows it, hands the high-conflict parent more leverage, and keeps the family cycling back through your office.
The Parallel Parenting Solution exists because Carl Knickerbocker — a practicing family law attorney — got tired of watching the same dynamic play out in case after case. The book gives your high-conflict clients a coherent, attorney-written framework that actually fits their situation: low-contact, high-structure, written communication only, separate households, no negotiation with someone who weaponizes negotiation.
It's not a replacement for your work. It's a force multiplier for it.
Clients in active high-conflict coparenting are often stuck in a loop — they bring you the same fight every week, get insight, leave determined to handle it differently, and come back having been baited again. The book provides shared vocabulary and a structured framework that gives those sessions traction.
Common use: assigning specific chapters between sessions; using exercises from the companion workbook as session material; depathologizing the client's instinct to disengage rather than reframing it as "avoidance."
Especially relevant for clinicians working with narcissistic abuse recovery, betrayal trauma, complex PTSD, and post-divorce identity reconstruction.
Your client doesn't need another well-meaning hour of explanation about why they shouldn't take the bait. They need a book they can read on their own time that walks them through the strategic logic of disengagement and structure — so when you draft a parenting plan with rigid communication clauses, they understand why and don't try to "be reasonable" about removing them later.
Common use: assigned reading at intake; reference for clients navigating between hearings; companion to Family Court Solutions for clients heading into contested litigation.
Cases where one parent is genuinely high-conflict and the other is genuinely trying to protect the children are diagnostically different from "both sides are difficult." The book helps the protective parent demonstrate, through their behavior and parenting plan proposals, that they are operating from a coherent, child-focused framework — not from spite.
Common use: recommended reading for the parent attempting to disengage; reference when evaluating whether proposed parallel parenting structures are appropriate to the situation; vocabulary for explaining recommendations to the court.
PCs are often appointed precisely because traditional cooperative coparenting has failed. Yet the literature you're trained on largely assumes the cooperative model. The book offers a coherent alternative framework for the cases that actually need parallel structures, and gives both parents (especially the protective one) a shared reference point.
Common use: assigned reading for both parents at the start of an engagement; reference for the principles guiding decision allocation, communication channels, and exchange protocols.
Cases involving a high-conflict parent and a protective parent are some of the most difficult on any family law docket. The book offers context for why a parent may be requesting unusually rigid communication and decision-making structures — and why those structures often serve the children's interests better than the cooperative defaults.
Common use: background reading for officers handling complex custody dockets; context for evaluating parenting plan proposals that depart from cooperative-model defaults.
Mediation often fails in high-conflict cases not because the mediator is unskilled, but because the underlying assumption — that both parties will negotiate in good faith — doesn't hold. The book helps the protective parent come into mediation with a clear set of structural requests grounded in a coherent framework, rather than emotional reactions to a difficult counterparty.
Common use: recommended pre-mediation reading; reference for understanding what parallel parenting structures can and cannot be negotiated.
Different formats for different professional uses.
The foundational framework. Best general assignment for clients new to the concept. Used most often by therapists, GALs, and parenting coordinators.
2021 · #1 Bestseller
The litigation companion. How to defeat narcissists, bullies, and liars in divorce and custody battles with integrity, evidence, and strategy. Best for clients heading into contested litigation; useful reference for attorneys.
2024
100 structured exercises for clients doing the slower internal work — processing past dynamics, identifying triggers, building a forward vision. Particularly useful for therapists.
2024 · Companion guide
Learn moreTherapy practices, law firms, and family service organizations frequently keep copies on hand for client distribution. Bulk pricing is available — please reach out through the law firm with your needs.
Carl is available for continuing education presentations on parallel parenting, high-conflict family law, working with narcissistic clients, and related topics. Suitable for attorney CLE credit and clinician CEU programs.
For panel discussions, keynotes, podcast interviews, and trainings, please reach out through the law firm. Carl regularly speaks on high-conflict coparenting and family court strategy.
Your high-conflict clients don't need to be told to communicate better. They need to be told it's okay to stop.— On using the book in clinical and legal practice
The fastest way to get a client started is the print or audio edition on Amazon and Audible. For bulk orders, speaking inquiries, or to ask whether the book fits a specific case profile, reach out through Carl's law firm.