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Biting Your Tongue

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Once you’re divorced or separated, it seems as if you should be free of your ex and able to live your life without his or her influence. However, if you are parents together, this is not a realistic expectation. You will be parents together for the rest of your lives and although you don’t have to live together or see each other often, you do have to find a way to function together as parents.

Spirit of Acceptance

Your child has two parents and although you are not in love with each other anymore, and in fact, may not even like each other, it’s best for your child if you work together as parents. No matter what kind of parenting arrangement you may have – shared custody, sole custody, or residential custody with visitation – you must still find a way to work together as a team.

As you’ve already learned, you cannot change who the other parent is, nor how he or she does things. This was true in your marriage and it remains true as you parent together. Part of parenting together is accepting who the other person is and learning to live with it. It may not be easy to put up with the things about the other parent that drive you crazy – lateness, neatness, snide comments, lack of attention to details, pickiness – whatever it is. But learning to do this is part of your job as a divorced parent.

Watch Your Words

As you and the other parent work through your journey as parenting partners, it’s likely that you will have clashes. Even if you had the most amicable divorce in the world, as you parent it is almost certain that resentments, jealousy, outrage, and other negative feelings will plague you at some point. It’s difficult to parent together when you rarely are together. You’re each growing into different people than you were when you were married.  As the years pass you may become more and more unfamiliar to each other.

One of the most important skills you will need to work effectively with the other parent is communication. Because you are not parenting in the same home, it is essential that you learn to communicate with each other about your child. Learning how and when to talk to each other is an important skill, but perhaps the most important skill is learning how to say nothing at all.

Silence is Golden

If you constantly criticize or complain to the other parent, your relationship will evolve into a negative one. Always pointing out what he or she is doing wrong just feeds the fire of resentment and anger. It is not your job to point out everything the other parent is doing wrong. That’s not your responsibility anymore. One of the best things you can do to create a supportive co-parenting environment is to try not to say anything negative. Instead focus on sharing information about your child, making plans that will benefit your child, and saying something nice once in a while.

If you are in a very difficult parenting relationship where every communication you have with each other seems to end in an argument, you need to cut back on your face to face communication. Try email, instant messenger, texting, or even sending notes back and forth.

Parent Together, But Apart

You and the other parent are part of a parenting team, but you’re each on the field at different times. Trying to set up some common boundaries and rules is helpful to everyone, but you can’t and shouldn’t try to control what is happening when the other parent is in charge. You have to let go and let the other parent do things his or her way – without commenting on it, criticizing or offering a better way to do it.

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Use Mediation for Custody Disputes

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If you are going through a divorce or are having a custody or visitation dispute, mediation is an option you should consider. When you go to court, a judge who doesn’t know you or your children makes decisions about how you’re all going to share your time. The outcomes are usually pretty scripted without a lot of creativity. Mediation puts the power back into the hands of the parents.

How Mediation Works

In mediation, the parents meet with a neutral mediator (who usually has background as a lawyer or therapist). The mediator helps the two parents find solutions that work for their lives, instead of making those decisions for them as a judge would do. The mediator encourages you to look at the situation from all angles, think of possible solutions, and compromise to reach decisions that work for your family. If you have teens, the mediator may encourage them to participate in a session and express their opinions about the parenting schedule.

Why Choose Mediation

In addition to the fact that mediation gives you and the other parent the power to create a parenting plan that meets your individual needs, it also has other benefits. Mediation is less expensive than hiring attorneys and is almost always faster than a trial. Mediation helps you not only today but in the future as well. Because you learn conflict resolution skills, mediation prepares you to solve future disagreements on your own, so that you aren’t always running back to court to fight over who should have your child for Christmas each year. A key benefit of mediation is the flexibility it gives you to create unique solutions that meet your individual family’s needs.

Perhaps the most important reason to choose mediation is because it benefits your children. Parents who mediate are less angry with each other. Although they may disagree, they are committed to working together to finding a plan that will work for the family. Because of this, they experience less conflict and expose their children to less fighting. Parents who mediate demonstrate to their children that they respect the other parent and support the relationship that parent has with the child. Mediation generates a parenting plan that has what is best for the children as the primary concern. Parents are able to work around the kids’ schedules and activities and maximize time with both parents. Mediation also teaches your children an important lesson – that it is better to work out your problems than to fight about them.

How to Find a Mediator

Do an online search to locate your state or city mediation association. They will have a list of mediators in your area. You can also call your state or local bar association and ask for information. Once you get a list, call a few and ask some preliminary questions, such as what their credentials are and if they just do mediation or practice in other areas. Always schedule a free consultation to get a feel for the person and his or her style. Even if you are currently in the middle of an ongoing court case, you can put a hold on the proceedings and go see a mediator to determine if you can work the conflict out yourselves.

How to Be Successful in Mediation

Enter into mediation with as open a mind as possible. Obviously, you have a clear idea of what is acceptable to you and what isn’t when it comes to custody, but there may be some solutions you have not considered. Speak up about what you think and how you envision resolving the conflict. Meet with an attorney for a consultation before you go into mediation so that you completely understand what your rights are under your state’s laws – this helps you understand how a court might rule in your situation. Be patient. Don’t expect everything to be resolved in the first session. It takes time to talk through all the issues and possible solutions.

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Friends and Parenting Time

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Photo credit: VladoFriendships are an important part of life for kids, but making time for friends can become complicated when your child has divorced parents.  Striking a balance between family and friends is difficult but possible.

Welcome Friends

Let your child know that you respect his or her friendships.  Welcome friends into your home, within reason.  Children need to spend time with friends out of school and if you stand in the way, you’ll face a lot of resentment which will likely get worse as your child gets older.  Talk about friends with your child and make it clear that seeing them is something you want your child to do.  View friends as a wonderful part of your child’s life, and not as something that takes time away from you.

Set Priorities

If you and your ex alternate weekends, it can be hard to give up a whole afternoon to a play date – whether at your home or at the friend’s home.  But it is possible to have quality time with your child while allowing him play dates.  Make it a rule that play dates are fine, say, on Saturdays from noon to four, or any other day and time that is convenient for you.  Also make it clear that there must be time during the weekend for family and that while a sleepover once in a while is fine, every weekend is a bit much.

Discuss Plans with Your Ex

You and your ex should talk about how important it is to your child to see friends.  Your child may want to invite friends over for play dates or sleepovers at the non-custodial parent’s house.  Kids like to have their friends see both of their homes and parents.  Again, the non-custodial parent should set boundaries and schedule things so that there is adequate family time, but also room for friends.

Prepare for Occasions

Expect that your child will be invited to birthday parties and other events, and that these may not fit easily into your parenting plan.  You’ll need to weigh each invitation and talk to your child about them.  Most of the time, kids will want to go, but sometimes they don’t, so it’s always best to ask.  Try to make it possible for your child to attend parties he is interested in.  Your child is sure to miserable if she is the only one in the class who couldn’t go to the pool party.  You and your ex may want to have an arrangement that whichever parent is scheduled for the time of a party is the one to decide if the child is going and to provide transportation.

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How to Create a Parenting Plan

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Once you have a basic custody agreement decided (or ordered by a court), you still have a lot of work to do in order to create a workable parenting schedule. If you have a court order that specifies alternate weekend and one night per week visitation with the non-custodial parent, you might think there’s nothing for you to do. Setting up a parenting schedule is actually rather complicated and requires you and your ex to sit down together (if possible) and hammer out the details. If you don’t have a court order and want to work this out on your own, then you also need to find time to sit down and work through it.

Map It Out

You each need to bring your own calendar to the meeting, as well as have a calendar showing all of your child’s sports events, school events, and extracurricular activities. You should place a large blank month by month calendar on the table in between you. Using pencil, start by plotting in all the visitation for the next month. Then compare these dates to your own calendars and your child’s calendar. Look for conflicts. For example, if you need to go out of town on business on a weekend you would normally have, it would make sense to swap weekends so your ex has your child at that time. If pick and drop off from visitation falls in the middle of a soccer game, dance practice or birthday party your child goes to, you need to adjust the times.

Moving Forward

Once you’ve worked through one month, try plotting out the next two. Work through that, then set up a tentative schedule for the rest of the year. Keep in mind this has to be tentative and subject to change. It’s really hard to know what is going to be happening in December when you are scheduling in March. Plan to be flexible and make adjustments as you go.

Holiday Schedule

Next work on the holiday schedule. If you have a court order, it might spell out who has which holiday, but you’ll still need to make some adjustments. For example, if your ex has Thanksgiving this year but the Saturday and Sunday after it would normally be his weekend, it might make sense to switch out that weekend, so you will have some time with your child on that holiday weekend. If your ex has Christmas Eve, but that falls on a weekend that would be yours, you’ll need to remember that holidays trump regularly scheduled weekends.

Make Changes Together.

Try to be flexible with each other. Remember that you can make any changes to the visitation plan that you both agree on – and in fact courts want you to do this rather than filling up the docket with trivial things like this. If you can work it out on your own, you absolutely should do so. If you’re worried about your ex pulling a fast one, you can enter a stipulation into court to get the change made official.

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Balancing Parenting Styles

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photo credit: renjith krishan

Jan prides herself on being a good mother. She is a highly motivated person who believes in punctuality and clear rules. She loves her children more than anything, but has some firm rules for the kids when it comes to chores, homework, curfews, and TV/computer time. She also makes lots of time to do things with the kids and is always looking for what she thinks of as teachable moments – opportunities to talk about big issues and lay down a good moral foundation for her kids. Her ex-husband Peter couldn’t be more different. When they were married, they fought a lot about what he called her uptightness and she called his lazy attitude. As you can imagine, Peter parents differently than Jan. He isn’t as worried about how much TV/computer time the kids have and lets them watch TV before their homework is done. He doesn’t expect them to do any chores at his house and in fact doesn’t do too many himself. Because Jan is so rigid about bedtimes and curfews, he often returns the kids late just to tick her off and sometimes lets them stay up late on the weekends. He even allowed their twelve-year-old daughter to stay out until 11 p.m., which Jan thought was ridiculous. Sometimes Peter doesn’t make dinner for the kids and says everyone has to find something in the fridge that they want. Jan and Peter continue to fight even after the divorce because Jan feels that the way he parents is outrageous, lax, and simply wrong. No matter how many times she patiently explains how important it is to have a routine, set bedtimes, and consistent rules at both homes, Peter simply won’t do things her way.

Jan and Peter might seem a bit exaggerated (but believe me, they really aren’t – I’ve seen cases with greater extremes), but I’m offering their story to make a point. It’s quite common for basic differences in parenting styles to become yawning gaps after a divorce. Each parent has a tendency to go further to an extreme after a divorce, as if to cement that his or her way is correct.

The end result of this is more conflict, anger, and resentment. Both spouses are learning to parent alone and it’s likely they’re both going to make mistakes. In fact, they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t. You might have noticed that separation and divorce rock you to the core and that also applies to your parenting. It’s often a time when people take a stand just to have something they can hold on to and this can result in a real clash between parents because they’ve lost the ability (and sometimes the desire) to work together.

The best way to handle a situation like Jan and Peter’s is to remember that no matter how certain you are that your way is the right way, there is no perfect approach to parenting. In fact, your kids will probably benefit from having parents with two different approaches because they will learn to be adaptable. Of course, there are some situations where this isn’t good – children with severe learning disabilities, for example, cannot adapt well and do need consistency. If one parent is lax to the point of endangering the children, that obviously is a bad situation. But in most other situations, the best thing to do is accept that you’re both different and that your children need both of you, with all your quirks.

Tips for Coping When You Have Different Parenting Styles
1. Reassure yourself that your kids are getting the basics: they are healthy, clean, fed, rested, loved and doing ok in school. If there is a real problem that endangers this, talk to the other parent, otherwise decide you have to let go.
2. Create a separation in your mind. What happens at the other parent’s house is outside of your control. Stop trying to monitor, evaluate, judge, and affect what’s happening there. Put up a mental wall that you will not climb over.
3. Get on with things when the kids aren’t with you. Don’t let yourself be consumed by worry and what ifs. Assume they are happy and adequately cared for and put it out of your mind.

4. Don’t question your kids about what happened at the other parent’s house. Listen to them if they share details, but don’t quiz them and try to elicit details about exactly what happened when. Encourage them to resolve problems with the other parent themselves when possible.
5. Realize you cannot change how your ex parents. He/she doesn’t want and won’t take your advice, tips, suggestions, or directives. You’re not in charge of what happens there, just as your ex is not in charge of what happens at your house.
6. Realize that having two parents who are different is actually a good thing for your child.

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