In this Article:
- The 4 essential rules for successful co-parenting?
- How can mutual respect improve your co-parenting relationship?
- Why trust is crucial in co-parenting after divorce.
- The importance of flexibility in shared parenting agreements.
- How consistency across households benefits your child.
As I muddled my way through the divorce, I wasn’t really aware of the moments that our rules were being written, but in hindsight, I see that there were four main ingredients that we would have to have if we were to be successful co-parents.
Like many important discoveries, we stumbled on them by accident, by doing the wrong thing a couple of times before figuring it out. But once we did, the ride suddenly got a whole lot smoother.
1. MUTUAL RESPECT
The entire premise of divorce is the dismantling of a whole; you were a unit, and now you are two separate entities, free to do what you want without having to consider the other party. But when you have a kid, that’s out the window.
The easiest way to cause World War III is to think that you can unilaterally make decisions for your child. Whether it is something as simple as signing them up for an activity or finding a therapist for them to talk to (which is a great idea during this time), it’s imperative that the other person is at the very least consulted.
And this is where you have to make sure you have stepped out of boxer mode. You can’t say no just because it was your ex-partner’s idea. You can’t say no just because you can.
I mean, you can, but ultimately who is that hurting? And think about what this feels like for your child. How will they feel confident that they can get
their needs met if they believe that anything they ask for is going to result in a fight between their parents?
The answer is, they won’t. They will stop asking in an effort to protect you both, and now guess who’s acting like the parent? Get over yourself.
For me, a piece of this was also keeping him informed of what was going on with Sammi. These days, for the most part, schools understand that children might come from nontraditional families, and they do a great job of communicating across multiple households. When signing her up for activities, I made sure that I gave contact information for both of us so it would never appear that I was trying to cut him out of anything or not give him ample opportunity to be a part of every aspect of Sammi’s life.
Though I knew that he was getting the same emails and information that I got, I also felt compelled to give him a heads up about things coming up that involved Sammi. I didn’t want to see the disappointment on Sammi’s face when she looked for her dad and he wasn’t there. So if a quick reminder text could keep that from happening, then I would be sending that text. Every time. Because guess what? It’s not about me.
Another piece of the respect puzzle was creating an alliance with Mick that was very clear to Sammi. While I was focusing on making sure that no one around me spoke negatively about Mick, I realized that wasn’t enough.
I knew that Sammi had never heard me say anything bad about her dad, but she had also never really heard me say anything good either. There is a message in that kind of silence, and kid logic could have led her to believe that meant I didn’t really like him.
If I hadn’t given her another narrative, she would have been left to fill in the blanks herself. It wasn’t that she only needed me to not be negative. She needed to hear me talk about her father in a positive light, to show her that though we weren’t together, I still liked and respected him.
She didn’t need us to be homies, but being able to talk about him with civility and talk about their relationship in positive terms and show it the reverence it deserved was crucial. We were a team, Team Sammi, and you don’t throw your teammates under the bus.
2. TRUST
Trust can be tricky after divorce, and it also kind of takes on a whole new meaning. We went from an intimate partnership to a purely business relationship, and not a healthy one—the kind of business relationship where I was always trying to make sure I had the upper hand, and I was constantly on guard, worrying if he was going to try to screw me. I kept my cards close to my vest and never let him know what I was really thinking.
It confused and saddened me that I felt like I needed to protect myself from someone who had vowed to protect me. But that’s how I felt. And there is not a lot of room for trust in that space. I knew that if we were actually going to do this co-parenting thing right, we’d have to get back to a space where we trusted each other’s decisions and gave each other the freedom to be the parents we believed we would be back when we looked at the ultrasound for the first time.
To be honest, I am not sure how you build that trust back. I know that it took time to retrain my brain to not always think the worst or question his motives. I believed that transparency and trying to give him the same consideration as her dad that I would have when we were married was where I needed to start.
So I began to do what I would want Mick to do when it was my turn to watch from the wings. I gave him flight numbers and a quick text message to confirm our arrival. He wasn’t “checking up on me”; he was being a dad. And I knew he would, as a dad, want to know that his baby girl was safe. If she had a doctor’s appointment, I called afterward with a brief summary, and if any medical decisions needed to be made, like vaccinations, I discussed them with him.
3. FLEXIBILITY
In the state of Ohio, when you divorce, you are required to file a shared parenting agreement that outlines your plan for the time that your child will spend with each parent. When we got to the point of designing our parenting plan, I knew the standard “every Wednesday and every other weekend with dad” was not going to work. His schedule was unpredictable, changing from week to week and month to month depending on what part of the basketball season they were in.
I was intimately familiar with the NCAA basketball coaching schedule and knew that we were going to have to get super creative to work this all out. My attorney said that her hope for her clients is that they would draft a parenting plan and put it in a drawer and forget about it. Because life happens. And if you can let go of ego or a desire to control and manipulate the other parent through screwing with their parenting time, sensible people should be able to be flexible and figure this stuff out. Sensible people.
You are assuming that hurt people, bitter people, frustrated people, angry people, can be sensible. You are expecting partners who couldn’t agree on enough to stay married to agree on what is fair and be willing to compromise on the one thing they know they can use to hurt the other. Yeah, good luck with that.
For many, it’s hard to remember that their disastrous relationship and divorce is a totally separate issue from parenting. Totally. Fucking. Separate.
But you have to file a plan, so we did. We came up with some crazy, complicated plan that attempted to take into account his practice and game schedules, travel, recruiting, and pockets of downtime. When we were done, I looked at my attorney and said, “You know there is no way we can stick to this, right?”
History had taught me that one of the most consistent things I could count on was the schedule changing. So we had absolutely no shot at following a parenting schedule to the letter.
Now, I knew that technically, I would be within my rights as a parent to enforce the plan once it was filed and tell him that if he could not make his set days and times, then he was just out of luck. And I won’t lie and say there weren’t days that those words were dancing on the tip of my tongue.
I found myself asking a question that I would come back to regularly in parenting: Do I want to be right, or do I want to do what’s best for Sammi? Sometimes those two things were the same. And sometimes they weren’t. And in those moments, I had to swallow my indignation and remember what the hell this was really about.
4. CONSISTENCY
We struggled to get into a rhythm or routine with parenting time because things were always changing from one week to the next. We instituted structure and routine where we could, the same bedtime and rules about electronics at both houses, but there were still a lot of last-minute, sharp-left turns on the road to finding consistency.
Consistency is not just important when it comes to creating routines that kids can count on to build feelings of security, but it’s also important in creating a structure they can count on to be steady across both households. This can be a challenge when you have parenting styles that don’t vibe or different expectations of the kids from one home to the other.
Understand that there will be differences, and please know these two things: your way is not the only way, and just because their way is different doesn’t mean it’s harmful to your child. This is one of those moments when it’s crucial to put on your big-kid pants, swallow whatever pride is getting in the way, and have a conversation about making some rules and guidelines that you will both enforce.
Everything is not going to line up, and that’s OK. But the more that it does, the easier the transition between homes will be for them and the less tension there will be between you as parents.
Also, you both have to be willing to have the other’s back. If a rule is broken at my house (even it if isn’t a rule at Mick's house) and Sammi is facing consequences, she should not get a pass on those consequences just because her time at my house is over.
If you’re grounded here, you’re grounded there. Period. It should not feel like going into two different worlds when they go between houses. It’s more like crossing state lines—maybe the speed limit is a little higher over here, but you still better wear your seat-belt and not drive like an asshole, or there will be consequences.
Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Condensed and adapted with permission.
Article Source:
BOOK: It's Not About Us
It's Not About Us: A Co-parenting Survival Guide to Taking the High Road
by Darlene Taylor.
Part memoir, part survival guide, It’s Not About Us shares with hilarious honesty her imperfect attempts at forging a new path for her family after divorce. Darlene Taylor provides 15 nuggets of co-parenting wisdom, including: * When to make decisions solo and when to consult your ex; * The worst thing children of divorce beg you not to do; * How family and friends can help; * The surprising lesson from a boyfriend’s ex-wife; * The most impactful decision you can make.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as an Audiobook, Hardback, and Kindle edition.
About the Author
DARLENE TAYLOR is a first-time author whose superpower is helping people see the very best in themselves and achieve things they never thought possible. Since 2010 she has worked as the conductor of the crazy train called postdivorce parenting, hoping that her ten years of experience as a clinical social worker would keep the train from derailing. She has managed to keep the train on the tracks while rocking out this mom thing, shaping young minds as a gender studies professor at the University of Cincinnati, and helping people become the best versions of themselves as a personal trainer and wellness coach. These days, she is doing her part to leave the world better than she found it through her work as a diversity consultant. Visit her website at DarleneTaylor.com
Article Recap:
Successful co-parenting after divorce hinges on four essential rules: mutual respect, trust, flexibility, and consistency. These principles are critical in building a cooperative relationship with your ex-partner that prioritizes your child's well-being. Mutual respect ensures that both parents are involved in decision-making, trust allows for smoother cooperation, flexibility accommodates the realities of changing schedules, and consistency across both households provides a stable environment for your child. Adhering to these rules can help divorced parents navigate the complexities of co-parenting and create a positive, supportive environment for their children.
