How to Be Successful at Co-Parenting

Parenting your child or children with a person you are no longer with probably isn’t how you imagined things when you had kids, but co-parenting does not have to be a battleground. By following these tips, you are guaranteed a successful co-parenting journey that will help the little ones get the best of both worlds.

Separate Your Feelings

You might have a lot of feelings towards your ex depending on what happened when you split. You need to put all your hurt and anger aside and think of the children in this situation. If this person is a good parent and wants to be there, that is all that matters. You need to face facts that this person will be in your life in some way because of the child or children that you share together.

You Need to Be Civil Towards Each Other

Kids are really clever, and they will sense if there is animosity there, which in turn will make them anxious and upset.

Come Up with a Schedule

You need to have a schedule in place for who has the children on what days. This can be done through the courts but if you can come up with a schedule that you both agree on and don’t need to get the courts involved, this is even better. Discuss what you both want, are you going to have 50-50 custody of the children or is this not possible? Once you have a schedule, make sure that you do have it in writing and stick to it!

Communicate Well

A way to communicate should be put in place with the co-parent so you have a way to chat, share updates of the child and so on. This could be via text, phone, social media, and so on. It is important to chat in a nice manner about what is going on, share news of any appointments that the child might have, etc. This will actually help to strengthen your co-parenting relationship, which is going to be beneficial for the child in both the short and long-term.

Be Flexible

While you do have a schedule in place and everything is (hopefully) running smoothly with your co-parenting, be flexible where you can. Sometimes life just happens, and you should help each other out when co-parenting as much as possible. Perhaps you want to take a few day’s vacation and need your ex to have the kids longer than they would have usually? Maybe your ex has to work overtime and has to give up one of his days? Whatever the case might be, communicate what is going on and be as understanding as possible.

Make co-parenting as easy as possible for everyone involved by following the tips that have been mentioned right here. Having two loving parents in their life is going to make the child much happier with the situation. You need to ensure that the child’s mother or father is on the same page as you with all of this for a more enjoyable life for everybody.