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Navigating the New Normal: Essential Tips for Effective Co-Parenting After Divorce

Divorce. A word that carries so much weight and so much change to navigate. Maybe you are recently divorced or have been divorced for years. No matter your circumstance, reflecting on how you want to co-parent is essential for the health of your entire family unit. After all, YOU, the adults, have decided to part ways, not your children. They likely did not have a say in suddenly having separate households.


Dissolution of a marriage is undeniably hard. It brings with it a lot of painful emotions…sadness, grief, despair…maybe also anger, guilt, shame. However, we must remember that the children are also going through their own journey accompanied often with difficult emotions and questions to process and manage. It is our duty as parents to recognize this and help them as much as we can.


Co-parenting means recognizing both parents’ essential and active role in your children’s lives. It means making a commitment to protect your child’s relationship with you AS WELL AS your ex-spouse. Having both parents working together to raise a child brings stability, predictability, and consistency. It protects your child’s self-esteem and mental health. It helps them continue to observe effective communication, respect and problem solving within a family unit, even if their parents are no longer in a romantic relationship. Modeling these factors is advantageous to how they may choose to approach relationships in their future.


Obviously, when it comes to certain circumstances such as domestic violence or substance abuse other protections and choices likely need to be made. However, in the absence of extenuating circumstances and in the presence of both parents being capable of caring for the children, co-parenting really is an essential path to helping your child continue to feel secure.


But how does one establish an effective co-parenting relationship with an ex when divorce likely escalated stress, frustration and feelings of betrayal, loss or abandonment?


How does one change their view on their family when they thought their marriage would be holding their family together for a lifetime?


How does one possibly help their child adjust when they are having a hard time adjusting themselves?


Below are a few tips to ponder when considering how you want to move forward in your new reality. Because that’s just it…you have to move forward. You have to help your children move forward. So perhaps these strategies will be the key you need to take that step towards a brighter future. Perhaps it will be the step needed to help your child understand that although there may be two households there is shared love for them from both parents that will never change.


Tip #1: Change your mindset.

Separate your old, spousal relationship from your new

co-parenting relationship. The co-parenting relationship is completely about your children and not at all personal from here on out. This can provide distance from the negative feelings that often accompanied your marriage, especially towards the end, and allow you to reframe your new relationship to be about working with someone who loves your children as much as you do.


Tip #2: Always, always ask yourself how your words and actions will affect your child.

Your communication and your choices have the power to create a stronger familial bond or further chip it and have it feel broken. Remember, your child loves you both and wants to know that it is okay to not hide that. In fact, they want to know that you still have a form of love and respect for the other parent as well. Kids do not want to hear bad things about someone they love. Kids do not want to feel like they have to be peacemakers or choose a side in a conflict that should be kept private between two adults. Kids do not need the stress from “adult problems.” Let them be kids. Let them enjoy and cherish moments with each of their parents. They want to love you both. Let them.


Tip #3: Develop a system for communicating and set boundaries around that communication.

However, talk to one another. Loop each other in when it is in the best interest of your child. Be a united front when it comes to making big decisions and handling big mistakes. Be careful and sensitive to how you approach new relationships. Discuss together how and when you want to introduce the concept of dating new people to your child. Again, be respectful in that conversation so your child is not made to feel that they are somehow betraying you if they welcome this new person in their parent’s life.


Tip #4: Stick to a schedule but allow for flexibility because life is not always predictable.

Again, keep your child’s best interest at the forefront of your mind when it comes to things that are important to them or that come up suddenly. Show fairness and compassion with one another. Hear each other out and try to reach a compromise everyone feels good about. Invite each other and be amicable at the big events that celebrate your child. Put aside your own feelings so that you child can possibly have both parents in the same room again for some special occasions such as a birthday, extracurricular event, graduation, holiday and/or wedding. These memories of their whole family together will be memories that will have a special place in their hearts for years to come.


Tip #5: Take care of yourself and your own mental health.

As hard as it is to not be with your kids every day, try to view the “days off” as opportunities to find a new hobby, exercise, run errands, complete mundane household tasks or spend time with your support system. This will help you be fully present with your child when they are with you. Quality time always wins over quantity. However, find ways to be a part of your child’s everyday life..phone calls, text messages and/or Facetime. If you are noticing your anger, sadness and/or anxiety not dissipating, reach out to a therapist for professional support. Do not ever vent to your children about your spouse or the divorce, but know that your feelings and experiences are valid and matter. Those feelings and experiences are important to acknowledge and process. Find a therapeutic provider that feels emotionally safe and is skilled in helping clients find light in the darkness. Crises are opportunities. Opportunities to learn more about yourself…your values, your strength, your wants, your needs and your goals. Although forced upon you, it is an opportunity nonetheless that can help you discover yourself in a whole new way.

You got this! And if you need extra support, we are here to walk alongside you in your journey.



Sincerely,


Janet Radziszewski, LCSW


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