Divorce can be an incredibly emotional challenge, especially when there are children involved, but it’s useful to understand that the end of a marriage doesn’t mean the end of all your relationships – you’ll still need to parent together. Known as co-parenting, you’ll need to come up with a way to work together to raise your children after a divorce, ensuring you can provide the emotional stability they need to be healthy, happy people as they grow up.
With that in mind, read on to find out more about some of the best co-parenting strategies after a divorce to help you make a plan.
Work Out How To Communicate
The first thing you’ll need to do to be successful co-parents is learn how to communicate well together. This might be something that you’ve not really been able to do for some time, and it might even have led to the divorce in the first place (or at least made your marriage more difficult), but now’s the time to think about your children and learn how to communicate for them.
Make sure you define expectations, create good boundaries, and work out how you’ll make decisions together. Although face-to-face discussions are great, you might feel more comfortable using other technology, like video calls, emails, or text. Stick to one means of communication, to begin with, to make things easier and to ensure you don’t miss any messages or get confused about what you’re meant to be doing.
Create A Consistent Routine
Children are going to need a lot of reassurance during this time of divorce, and they’ll need a good, consistent routine to help them feel as though they’re in control of their lives. Work together with your ex-spouse to create a routine that works across both homes so that the rules are always the same, no matter where your children happen to be.
It’s also useful to coordinate your schedules for school, meals, bedtime, and visits so that everyone is always aware of exactly what they should be doing and when. It’s a great idea to have a shared digital calendar so that you can all keep track of important dates and appointments, that way, there will be a lot less confusion for all involved. To find out more about how to make a good routine, visit Two Healthy Homes – Co Parenting Advice for some help.
Be Flexible
Routines are very important, as mentioned above, but flexibility is a big part of successful co-parenting as well. Anything can happen in life, and unexpected events and changes in plans can happen at any time, no matter how well-planned things might be.
If you can be willing to compromise with your ex and always put your children first when you’re making plans – and changing plans – then you should be able to get past these issues without too many problems. It’s when you remain rigid about things that cause the biggest problems, but when you’re flexible, everyone can be a lot happier.
Don’t Forget Self-Care
Co-parenting can be hard, and it’s often quite emotionally draining, at least at the start (and possibly throughout). That’s why it’s so important not to forget about self-care while you’re working through these issues and make plans and schedules.
When you’re taking care of yourself, you’ll be putting yourself in a better position to take care of your children and to be a better co-parent, so it’s a good thing to do when you can.
