Does Mandatory Divorce Education for Parents Work?

In a court-mandated, child-focused class for divorcing parents, parental mastery of skills taught were evaluated both immediately after the class and 6 months later Parents perceived the classes 10 be realistic and uspful. Skills were effectively learned and were maintained over the evaluation period. Parents reported that they were successful in dramatically lowering exposure of their children to parental conjlict. Relative to a comparison group ofparents divorcing the year before the classes were initiated, parents completing the class were better able to work through how they would handle dificult child-related situations with their ex-spouses and were willing to let their children spend more time with the other parent. Few gender diferences were observedmothers perceived the class as more realistic; fathers showed greater improvement on some skills. Similarly, interest level in further training was not predictive of class benefits, suggesting that enthusiasm for parenting training is probably not essential.