Co-parenting isn’t easy! Co-parenting takes work and requires both parents to want to de-escalate the conflict for the benefit of their children.
Why is reducing conflict important for children?
Children are little adults. They understand being a product of each parent. It isn’t fair to put a child in the middle. It isn’t fair to pit your child against your co-parent. Children should be given the ability to love both parents freely.
When parents do not like each other and fight, children recognize the dislike. If you ask a child whose parents are separated, most children are able to tell you whether or not their parents get along.
When parents do not get along, it can negatively impact the overall mental health of children. The children can feel pulled into the middle, and feel like they are being required to make a choice between their parents. Being pulled into parental conflict is known as triangulation.
Learning to be a better co-parent is important for children because it can negatively impacts their mental health. A best interest factor when determining physical custody is “the physical, developmental and emotional needs of the child.” What does that mean? The best interest factor is something that the Court is required to consider when deciding the timeshare between parents, and the final timeshare decision.
What can you do to reduce conflict? Here are a few suggestions that can be implemented to help with reducing co-parenting conflict. The list is not all inclusive, and you may find other options in additional blogs on the website:
- Do not name call! Do not call your co-parent anything other than the name they are given including the listing on your cellphone directory.
- Do not argue in front of the children. If the co-parent starts an argument, it is okay to walk away and circle back to unresolved issued at a later date through written communication or at a time when the children are not present.
- Do not use the children to send messages. It does not matter what the message is about, the children should not be used as a go between. Remember the game of telephone, what the first person says inevitably is not what the last person hears.
- Use co-parenting applications such as Our Family Wizard. The co-parenting communication tool has a tone meter setting that can help to change the way parents communicate.
- If you continue to have co-parenting communication problems, think about taking a class that deals with high conflict co-parenting. If you can learn to reduce conflict, it has a huge impact on the children.
You may hate your co-parent, but you need to love your child enough to put aside the hatred to make things calm for your child!