Adapting SPACE Training to Support Co-Parenting Efforts to Address Parent-Child Contact Problems
By Premela Deck
During child custody litigation, it is common for family court judges to order a parent and child into family therapy when a child is resisting or refusing contact with one parent. These situations, often referred to in the clinical literature as parent-child contact problems or resist-refuse dynamics, are highly complex. Unfortunately, both legal and mental health professionals may mistakenly focus on pathology in the child, overlooking the broader systemic patterns that contribute to the issue. A more nuanced, systems-oriented understanding recognizes that, in most cases, all members of the family—as well as aligned professionals and supporters—play a role in the child’s resistance, though to varying degrees.
This common, yet limited, treatment approach of focusing only on the child is not without precedent. Consider, for example, a child with school-related anxiety. The reflexive solution might be to enroll the child in individual therapy to address internal causes of the avoidance to attend school. While this can be helpful, research has shown that targeting parental behavior—specifically, the ways in which parents accommodate the child’s anxiety—can be as effective, if not, more effective. This is the foundation of SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), an evidence-based parent intervention developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center.
When applied to co-parenting dynamics, especially in high-conflict divorce situations, SPACE may provide a structured, compassionate method for helping parents collaborate in a child-focused way. It encourages accountability and equips both parents with tools to reduce behaviors—often unintentional—that may be deepening the child’s resistance. In doing so, it aligns more closely with a systems perspective than the more commonly court-endorsed individual pathology model.
This article explores whether the principles of SPACE, originally designed to support parents of anxious children, can be adapted to help parents address contact problems in the context of high-conflict custody disputes. Specifically, it considers how SPACE’s structured, non-blaming approach to modifying parental accommodations may offer a powerful framework for shifting entrenched family dynamics and promoting healthier parent-child relationships.
In high-conflict custody disputes, it is common for co-parents to disengage from direct communication or to speak about one another with hostility—sometimes even in front of the child. While this behavior may seem like a byproduct of conflict, it is actually a powerful and modifiable dynamic that can be targeted within a SPACE-informed approach to parent-child contact problems. Unlike interventions that focus on changing the child’s mindset or behavior, targeting how parents communicate is entirely within the adults’ control and does not require the child to make the first move toward reunification. When parents refuse to speak or model animosity in front of their child, they are, in effect, accommodating the conflictual family system—preserving the child's triangulated loyalty and reinforcing avoidance. By contrast, when parents intentionally demonstrate respectful, cooperative behavior—even minimally—such actions send a powerful signal that estrangement is not the expectation. Over time, consistent parental modeling of reduced conflict and increased emotional availability can create a safer relational environment, making it easier for the child to move toward contact. In this way, shifting parent behavior becomes the intervention, and the child’s change follows organically.
Another element of SPACE that mirrors best practices in court-involved family therapy is the use of “supporters.” Supporters in the SPACE framework are individuals who can help the family implement new behavioral strategies and reinforce consistent, non-accommodating responses to the child’s anxiety. These supporters play a crucial role in ensuring that the plan is implemented with clarity and unity. Similarly, in cases involving parent-child contact problems, family therapists should also engage supporters to promote change. In court-involved contexts, these supporters may include not only extended family and trusted allies, but also legal and mental health professionals working with the family. For the intervention to be effective, all supporters must be aligned in the shared goal of helping parents model a healthier, more cohesive relational environment. For lawyers, this means encouraging clients to solve problems collaboratively perhaps through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) means, rather than the adversarial court process. For therapists, this means making concerted efforts to view your client within the environment and larger family goals. When supporters reinforce this consistent message of familial goals —rather than contributing to split allegiances or mixed signals—they help reduce systemic accommodations that maintain the child’s resistance, ultimately creating the conditions for improved parent-child contact.
In sum, incorporating SPACE into court-involved therapy allows practitioners to focus on the changeable behaviors of parents—where true leverage often lies—rather than getting caught in the adversarial tangle of blame and symptom-labeling. This evidence-based model holds significant promise for therapists and families navigating the complex terrain of contact problems in the shadow of legal scrutiny.
