10 Topics for Co-parenting Conversations

Different reasons such as divorce, never married couple, and living apart bring about co-parenting. It is essential to keep your relationship with the other parent cordial for the sake of the children. The kid’s well-being is the priority in such arrangements. Therefore, the parents should put all negative feelings for each other aside and focus on the child’s needs.

What Is Coparenting

Joint parenting involves parents of a child or caregivers raising a child when there is no romantic involvement. The arrangement ensures that both parents have an active role to play in their children’s life. How you relate with the other parent greatly affects the physical and emotional wellness of your child.

Psychologists agreed that parents’ relationships directly affect the children, mostly negatively. Joint parenting can be infuriating and exhausting when you have a poor relationship with your ex-partner. There are many ways to fix how you get along with them for the sake of your kids.

Co parenting Classes

These are classes for anyone who wants to improve their parenting skills. Divorced or separated parents can benefit from such a class to avoid making their separation more difficult for the kids. The class helps communication between the two parties while building their relationship in this new chapter of their lives.

Co parenting classes help you design a successful relationship for co-parenting. You get to develop creative and effective ways to resolve burdensome issues like vacation dates and faith-related issues. Additionally, the classes help with individual improvement in self-awareness and interpersonal relationships.

Co parenting Plan

For successful joint parenting, you and your ex-partner should develop a plan on how to raise your kids. A co parenting plan helps reduce anxiety, careless mistakes, or frequent arguments that surround the arrangement.

It covers questions like how, when, or where you pick your children from school or drop them off for extra-curricular activities. Both parents must respect the rules that you decide on for it to work. Your child-rearing partnership must operate with respect and frequent communication, and there are ways to ensure you achieve mutual respect.

What a Parenting Plan Involves

There are key points that you must tackle in creating a co-parenting plan. The child is the primary focus, and you should come up with the best plan for the children. You can adjust the plan when or if it fails, and there is no problem in trying to get the best approach to raise your kids.

The program has to have ground rules that both of you agree to and promise to maintain. It would be best if you also explicitly discussed the expectations that both of you have regarding parenting. The child’s age must also be considered when making these plans. Always try to be consistent with them. Kids thrive with consistency, and for example, the kids should sleep at the same time when staying with either parent.

Communication

For any team to execute their strategy well, there is a need for effective communication. Your ex-partner is your teammate, and you must keep kosher for the sake of your kids. Here are some tips to ensure proper communication.

• You should be clear, respectful, and concise. Avoid too much unnecessary conversation between the two of you.
• Be cooperative. Try and be as cordial as possible, don’t let your hurt feelings and anger come out when discussing your children. You can vent them to friends, therapists or let them out by exercising.
• Keep texting to a minimum. Messages are not an effective way to communicate important information like a child’s doctor’s appointment.
• Always communicate directly with each other. Do not involve a third party when it comes to your co-parenting arrangements.

Communication between the two of you best works when it is face-to-face interaction. In cases where meeting up is a little challenging, electronic communication is advisable. Phone calls, video calls, or emails can be scheduled to a good time for both of you. Keeping in contact should not cause any inconvenience for any member.

Some issues must be discussed to ensure consistency and structure are achieved. Regular parenting conversations are essential when raising children. Some topics are crucial to discuss for an effective co-parenting plan. Below is a list of those necessary topics.

Living arrangements

For divorced parents, living together becomes impossible, having the kids split their time with each parent. Even though the parents live separately, it is essential to discuss when and where a kid spends the weekend, birthday, or holiday. You can decide on a central home for the kids if it is easier for both you and the children.

Transportation

Who picks up the children after school and other transport issues must be discussed clearly to ensure no careless mistakes are made. When the children move from one home to another, you should know who drops and picks them up. Also, your kids should have a way to contact either parent when unexpected issues arise.

Education, health and religion

When you split, some things like education become an issue. With clear communication, you can decide the best school for your children or the best health care plan to use. Always put the child’s well-being in mind when making these decisions. Religion may be a tricky topic for either parent, but it is a decision that must be made to avoid confusing the kids.

Financial responsibilities

Children have expenses that must be met. You should have a clear list of responsibilities to handle when it comes to what they want. Each parent can take up a few expenses like shopping and school fees while the other pays for events and vacations. Deciding on who claims tax credit for the kid is also significant to discuss.

Guardianship

Some topics are more challenging to discuss, but they are necessary all the same. If both parents die, there should be clear instruction on how to go about it. It would help if you appointed a responsible adult to care for the children if something happened to both of you.

Death is not the only reason to find a guardian, illness or problems with the law dictates you find a guardian for your children. The best candidates are close family members or friends. The guardian is to be notified and consulted before you decide on giving them that responsibility.

Emergency Notifications

It would be best if you cooperated on deciding which parent should be an emergency contact and where. If you or your ex-partner lives too far away, they can not be assigned as an emergency contact to ensure effectiveness. A communication line is vital in such cases to avoid leaving the other person out of the loop.

This topic should involve the kids after the parents decide on the best plan of action. Inform your kids on who to contact when they are in trouble and what counts as trouble. Your kids’ safety should be your most important concern. Help your kids feel protected and cared for even with the split of the parents.

Rules

When you separate or are not married, you must develop a set of rules for yourself and your kids. Coparenting is not easy, but you and the other parent can make it simple by coming up with several rules. When to make phone calls or drop off children should be agreed upon, and both parties respect them. There are so many rules to discuss, and taking co-parenting classes can prove helpful.

The children, too, should know there are rules to follow, and they should be consistent. It is not wise to have different rules for them as they move between the two homes. Consistency is vital for a child’s development and discipline. For example, you can have a united front when deciding when a child should start going on dates.

Boundaries

Any behavioral issue is a point of concern that warrants special attention. As you co-parent, make sure your children behave the same in both households. Disciplining your kid’s errant ways also must be done similarly in both homes. Children need to know how to act without feeling conflicted or disrespecting either parent.

Relationships and Social Media

Relationships with friends and interaction with social media too must be discussed. Enforce a curfew that works for both parents and restrict internet access in the same way for different set-ups. As parents, you must have your own set of boundaries that you mustn’t cross to maintain peace and mutual respect.

Change in Parent’s Situation

You are required to talk about introducing your children to other people in your former spouse’s life. When one of you needs to move on to different set-ups, it is great to talk about it first. How the deed may affect the children is important to consider.

You can decide on the best way to break the news to your children, to reduce negative feelings and reactions. Your child is the main concern, so your decisions must support what is best for them. Waiting to tell your children some news can be beneficial to avoid upsetting them for no good reason.