Effective Co-Parenting After Divorce
By Ho Shee Wai
Clinical Director / Registered Psychologist
To nurture well, the co-parents need to evolve from their conflicts to having clear goals, plans, priorities, “job description” (roles), and rules based on consensus. Although individual co-parents will have unique goals, most parents will strive for some general, basic long-term co-parenting outcomes.
Basic Co-Parenting Outcome / Goals
Your child should:
Steadily feel and be shown unconditional love
Steadily feel and be shown conditional respect
To have his or her fears, dreams, feelings, hopes, and needs listened to
Have a/all co-parent(s) play the role of loyal companion, friend, and playmate
Be given merited praise and recognition often
Feel and be shown honest affection
Be given healthy touching, hugs, and kisses
Be encouraged and guided, rather than criticized and shamed
Be protected from abuses, dangers, and neglect
The co-parents need to agree on who is responsible to consistently model and teach your child:
Self respect and non-egoistic pride
Self nurturing values and skills
Self protection skills
Personal honesty and accountability
Personal hygiene values and habits
Proper bathroom manners and behaviours
Language/swearing/name-calling limits
Verbal and written communication skills
Effective problem solving skills
Anger/aggression/impulse management
Nudity, modesty, and privacy standards
Proper ethical and moral judgment
Respectful attitude about race, gender, background, etc
Practically, the co-parents need to have clarity in terms of who is responsible for the following areas of your child’s life:
Medical needs
Education
Physical care
Health & growth
Finance
Spiritual/religion
Aim for consistency
It’s healthy for your child to be exposed to different perspectives and to learn to be flexible, but they also need to know they’re living under the same basic set of expectations at each home. Aiming for consistency between your home and the co-parent’s avoids confusion for your child. Consistency needs to be in 3 main areas:
Having looked at the goals of coparenting, let's look at how we can communicate so as to facilitate this process.
Rules
Rules do not have to be exactly the same, but if both co-parents establish generally consistent guidelines, your child will not have to bounce back and forth between two radically different disciplinary environments. Important lifestyle rules like homework issues, curfews, and off-limit activities should be followed in both households.
Discipline
Try to follow similar systems of consequences for broken rules, even if the infraction didn’t happen under your roof. So, if your kids have lost TV privileges while at the other co-parents’ house, follow through with the restriction. The same can be done for rewarding good behavior.
Schedule
Where you can, aim for some consistency in your child’s schedules. Making meals, homework, and bedtimes similar can go a long way toward your child’s adjustment to having two homes.
Communication Tips for Co-parents
Co-parenting is full of decisions you’ll have to make with the other co-parent(s), whether you like each another or not. Cooperating and communicating without major blow-ups or bickering makes decision-making far easier on everybody.