Even when you’re able to amicably divorce from your spouse, challenges can arise as you continue to raise your children together. You and the other parent might disagree on your children’s extracurricular activities, discipline strategies, and even religious upbringing. All of this can cause strain and conflict that, if left unaddressed, can fester into something even more hostile.
This friction can be psychologically damaging for your children, and it can lead to costly and stressful custody battles in court.
Tips for building a better co-parenting relationship
Fortunately, you might be able to avoid all of that by implementing some effective co-parenting strategies that seek to reduce or even eliminate conflict. These include:
- Avoiding dragging up painful events that happened in the past.
- Clarifying every detail of parenting decisions so that there aren’t misunderstandings and miscommunications.
- Being sure to strike the right tone so that you don’t trigger a disagreement based on the words you choose or how you say them.
- Finding an effective way of communication, even if that means reducing everything to writing.
- Redirecting disagreements so that the focus is always on the best interests of your children.
- Trying to learn from disagreements that you have with the child’s other parent.
- Trying to understand why the other parent pushes the way that they do so that you can better gauge how to address them.
- Using technology to help with scheduling.
- Avoiding talking poorly about the other parent while in your child’s presence.
What should you do if co-parenting simply isn’t working?
If even after utilizing these tips you find that your co-parenting relationship is so contentious that it’s harmful to your child, then you may need to negotiate a new custody arrangement or take the matter to court. Either way, you need to be prepared to advocate for your child’s best interests. Otherwise, your child suffer otherwise avoidable emotional and psychological harm.