co-parenting
What Makes for Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce?
Ten key principles that enable children to flourish
Whenever parents seek advice about helping their children adjust to the fallout of divorce, they are, more often then not, instructed about what not to do rather than provided with useful ideas about how to behave in a positive manner to the benefit of their children. They are typically told: “Don’t put your children in the middle of conflict between you and your ex”; or, “Don’tbadmouth the other parent.” Although such advice has its place, it nevertheless assumes a deficit perspective in relation to divorcing parents, and overlooks parents’ good faith efforts and capacity to do the best for their children, given a little support. Many such prescriptions also fall short in regard to offering concrete, practical steps that parents can take to enable their children to not only cope with the divorce, but flourish in its aftermath.
The following principles are offered in the spirit that parents have the strengths, capacities and abilities to help children through the difficult transitions attendant to divorce, and will be able do the best for their children with concrete, practical support. It is the responsibility of service providers and support networks to support parents in their quest to address their children’s needs during and after divorce. What we expect of others, they endeavor to provide: if we expect divorcing parents to be responsible and act in their children’s best interests, and provide the supports to enable them to do so, they will act accordingly; if we expect them to fail, they will fail.
Although there is no “typical divorce” and no “magic formula” for ensuring positive child and family outcomes, and every child and family are unique, there are some general principles for successful co-parenting that apply to most, if not all, divorcing families:
1. Be there for your children, both physically and emotionally. Quantity of time matters; quality relationships are not possible without sufficient routine time to develop and sustain those relationships. But although quantity of parental time is necessary for successful child outcomes, it is not sufficient: children also need their parents to be emotionally present, engaged and attuned, taking an interest in all aspects of their lives and actively involved in their day-to-day routines.
2. Talk with your children about the divorce. Above all, children need to know that they will not be abandoned, physically or emotionally, by either of their parents. Reassure them by first of all creating a safe environment for the discussion, and a safe way to express their feelings of shock and confusion, self-blame, fear, grief and sadness, anger, or guilt. Recognize that divorce is a long-term process for children, not a one-time event, and be prepared to have several such talks. If possible, talk with your children together as parents, reassuring them that you will cooperate in the future.
3. Let children be children. Don’t involve children in adult problems; rather, maintain continuity in their existing routines and relationships, and shelter them from the struggles that are properly the responsibility of their parents.
4. Support the other parent’s role and relationship with your children. The idea is to maximize and optimize the time that your children can spend with each of their parents. It is extremely difficult for parents to be at their best when having to parent under duress, and when having to deal with a co-parent who is less than supportive of their role and relationship with their children. You can support each other as parents by keeping to the co-parenting schedule, remaining flexible in accommodating each other wherever possible, and moving from a place of conflict and antagonism toward that of cooperation as parents. A big part of this is to separate your previous hostilities as a couple from your ongoing co-parenting responsibilities.
5. Speak about and act in a respectful manner toward the other parent, especially in front of your children. Conveying an attitude of respect toward your co-parent is vital to children’s well-being, and shielding children from conflict is essential. There are few things more damaging to a child than witnessing conflict between parents, and ongoing conflict cuts to the heart of a child’s well-being, as a children see themselves as essentially half their mother and half their father. Keep this at the forefront of all interactions between you and the other parent in front of the child.
6. Wherever possible, maintain open communication channels with the other parent. Open and regular communication is the key to cooperative parenting. If this is not possible, then phone calls, emails, or stockpiling concerns to be discussed at periodic “co-parenting meetings,” with or without a third party present, are good alternatives. If you are unable to communicate without resorting to conflict and recriminations, a parallel parenting plan in which co-parenting arrangements are spelled out in a detailed agreed-upon schedule, is another effective option.
7. Maintain your child’s community of support. Essential to children is the security of maintaining existing relationships and routines with extended family members, friends, school and other activities. This adds to children’s sense of stability, continuity, and predictability in their lives.
8. Educate yourself about children’s needs, co-parenting options, and community resources. Shared parenting offers parents an almost infinite variety of co-parenting scheduling possibilities commensurate with children’s ages and stages of development, and can be tailor-made to children’s and families’ unique circumstances. There are a variety of web-, print-, and community-based resources (including divorce educationprograms) for parents to access.
9. Seek out formal and informal sources of co-parenting support. Family members, friends and informal support networks are vital in helping parents work through difficult feelings, including anger management, and the multiple challenges and transitions attendant to divorce. More formal sources of support also span a wide array: therapeutic family mediation focused on the development and implementation of co-parenting plans, divorce coaching and parenting coordination in high conflict situations.
10. Maintain your own health and well-being as a priority. Taking care of yourself is essential not only for your own but your children’s well-being. Your children depend on you, and you owe it to them to prioritize your own physical, emotional and mental health. For parents struggling in the face of systemic barriers to co-parenting: never, never give up.
Above all, it is critical to keep in mind that the two most important factors in children’s successful adjustment to the consequences of divorce are the maintenance of a meaningful routine relationship with each of their parents, and to be shielded from ongoing parental conflict. The challenge for parents is to develop and maintain a co-parenting relationship that ensures that both of these essential needs are met. The challenge for both professional service providers and informal support networks is to support (and not undermine) parents in the fulfillment of their responsibilities in regard to these needs of children in particular.
Co-Parenting With An Abuser
All of us survivors know that our ex will at least verbally and emotionally abuse our children. We survivors also know how hard that type of abuse is to prove, and even proving it doesn't mean your ex will have less time with our children. Proving non-sexual or non-physical abuse typically results in therapy if it results in anything at all. Therapy doesn't work unless the abuser wants to change. They don't want to change which is the reason you left them in the first place.
If you are in this position, then you have to fight back through education and love. That is easier said than done, but it is very important to "do it" more often than you don't.
Educate your kids about bullies, sexual predators, and dating violence.
Empathize with them when their other parent hurts them, remind them how great they are, and have faith that your children are smart cookies who will continue to talk to you about their problems.
Introduce your children to therapy, keep your eyes open for signs and symptoms of abuse, and report any allegations or proof of sexual or physical violence as soon as you see it.
Create a new safety plan with your children. Make sure they know what they can do if they feel afraid while at your ex's house. You may have to be very careful about this because focusing on "what to do if you're at mom's house and she starts hitting you" could have negative effects. Instead, create a safety plan for your home, the babysitter's, grandma's, their friend's and your ex's. Make it a general "what to do if I am scared" plan without singling anyone out, then practice it with them.
Yes, it feels horrible to know that your kids cannot escape the emotional manipulation and pain like you did through separation or divorce. It is very difficult to cope with your kids' visits to your ex when you truly believe it is but a matter of time before your children are injured on the outside too. It is a helpless feeling to watch them go off to your ex's home, knowing "something bad" is waiting for them there. However, you cannot allow yourself to remain attached to your abuser through the children. So long as you feel like a victim (out of powerlessness to help your kids like you want to) you will remain a victim.
Remind yourself that now you are free of your ex's daily abuse, much stronger and smarter, and therefore in a better position to support your children in helpful ways. When you lived with abuse, you did not have the freedom to combat it that you do today. Remember to be grateful that you set an example for your children and try to stop beating yourself up every time they visit their other parent. Your kids visit your abuser because the court says they have to do so, not because you want it that way.
Forgive yourself for being unable to protect them 100% from their abusive parent. You can't protect them all of the time anyway. Children must learn hard lessons about all kinds of things on their own. They will be grateful that you were there for them, their safe place, if the other parent abuses them. They'll see the difference in the two of you in time. Let that awareness be as natural for them as possible (meaning don't habitually point out the other parent's flaws even if they talk badly about you).
Protect Yourself
You are no good to your children if you allow yourself to be abused by your ex.
If you stay on the phone while your ex admonishes you for your poor parenting skills so you can eventually talk to them about the kids, you're allowing the abuse to continue. Hang up the phone at the first insult and send an email instead. Write only about the children.
Don't allow your ex to enter your house without knocking and respect their home in the same way.
Keep your personal boundaries strong. Let your children see that your ex can't get to you (at least not for long). They need to see you as separate from your ex; they need to know they have two homes, two parents, two different families to love. (They do love their other parent, always will - let them, and be there without "I told you so" if your ex lets them down.)
Your way of parenting will not affect your ex's ideas about parenting. Don't let their way of parenting affect yours. The idea is to work with your ex when it is reasonable to do so, but remember that you have separate homes and separate lives. You get to set the rules at your house.
Don't let them talk you into spanking when you prefer time-outs, not even "for consistency between households".
If your ex grounds your daughter from her cell phone (for good reasons) but you feel more comfortable if she has it on her at school, then take it from her as soon as she gets home.
Drop any expectation that your ex will enforce a punishment you set for your child while the child visits them.
Realize that your children will play you against your ex sometimes. Your kids are smart; they know both of their parent's well. Our kids do not label us "bad" and "good" people. We're "mom" and "dad". If you think you're being played and that your child is doing something dangerous, email your ex to tell them about it.
You may get no response or your ex could degrade you for your thoughts, but keep in mind that, most likely, your ex wants your children alive and well too (If they don't, you probably have proof of that and already took it to the authorities).
If you receive a nasty reply, read it (I know you will), then archive it. I add my ex's emails to a folder labeled "Jerk" - it feels really good to hit the button sending it to that folder! I save them just in case I need proof of something in the future. I don't reread them, and I don't give them a second thought. I did what I needed to do when I informed him about our child.
Remember that you cannot see the future. Your gut instincts and intuition do not determine destiny. Your fears may never come true. Trust that if they do, you will have the presence of mind to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.
Do the best you can today. Take a deep breath, hug and kiss your kids, and talk to them. Parent the best way you know how, keep educating yourself so you can teach your kids how to live free of abuse, and keep your ex abuser's voice out of your decisions.
Keep your focus on your relationship with your child. How your ex fixes or screws up their relationship with your child is beyond your control.
You can do this. It isn't easy, but you can do it.
You can find Kellie Jo Holly on her website, Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
*Both women and men could be abusers or victims, so do not take my pronoun choices as an implication that one gender abuses and the other is victimized.
Use a co-parenting app.
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Messenger
Reliably text the same way you always have with anyone connected to AppClose and enjoy the convenience of having all of your parenting communications in one location! This includes the ability to group chat, communicate with your solicitor confidentially, and export any communications between you and your contacts if needed for any reason. Additionally, and in order to keep accurate records between parents, chat conversations between co-parents cannot be altered or deleted (unless both parents delete their AppClose account).
Requests
Need to be reimbursed for medical expenses or extracurricular activities? Need to change a drop off time or swap parenting days?
Submit your requests to the other parent or a third party through AppClose and get notified immediately when your request is approved, paid, or declined. Scanning receipts or attaching documentation related to requests is easy and can be done exclusively by using the app! AppClose even facilitates payments through ipayou, our built-in payment solution, making it easy to stay on top of financial obligations.
Expenses
Get paid and send payments for expenses within seconds using ipayou, our secure, built-in payment solution! From activities to medical expenses, it’s a lot to keep track of, especially when child-related expenses are often split between two households.
Our integrated expense tracker is designed to:
help you better understand your spending by tracking expenses by category;
allow you to quickly submit expenses for reimbursement; and
send and receive payments quickly!
Your Circle
Your circle is essentially the way you connect to a group of people through the app! You can have multiple circles with multiple members, even if those invited into your circle choose not to use the app. In addition to co-parents and children, stepparents, grandparents, other caregivers, and even third-party professionals are often part of an AppClose circle!
Your profile and children’s important information is also securely stored here and is accessible whenever and wherever you need it. This makes it super easy to share important information with the other parent such as alternative child care providers, school information, allergy details, measurements, and more - all at the touch of a button!
AppClose Solo is a unique and exclusive feature only available to AppClose users, allowing you to send requests or events to non-connected co-parents, third parties, or other family members via text, email, or social media. You can even attach receipts or documents and export and print any records you might need for free with access to all the other benefits of AppClose.
When you send a request or event to a non-connected party, that person is then notified with a link to view and respond by approving or declining your request or event. Once the non-connected party responds, you will receive notification and this response will be automatically recorded in the app. This allows you to keep accurate records within your AppClose account concerning your attempts to send and inform others of any financial obligations, events, or other important information concerning your child.
Exporting Records
With Appclose, exporting records is simple and FREE! Whether you need records for personal use or for litigation purposes, you can easily export the following records as needed:
Unaltered text messages (on-on-one or group chat messages)
Expense records
Reimbursement requests
Requests for Pick Up, Drop Off, or Swapping Days
AppClose Solo requests and events
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