At some point, you and your child’s other parent have found yourselves subjected to a custody order. Whether negotiated or litigated, this order is binding, meaning that you and the other parent have to find a way to abide by it lest one of you seeks to hold the other in contempt. But navigating the complexities of co-parenting can be challenging, to say the least. You and your child’s other parent might have vastly different visions of the best way to raise your child, and personal conflict can sometimes cloud parenting decisions that should be made in the child’s best interests.
While all of this can be incredibly stressful to navigate, you don’t have to force yourself to live with a poor co-parenting situation. Like with any relationship, a co-parenting relationship requires work. Knowing that working on a co-parenting relationship can be difficult to do under your circumstances, we wanted to use this post to look at some tips that may be helpful in developing a stronger co-parenting relationship.
How can you build a more effective co-parenting arrangement?
There are a lot of different ways to approach a co-parenting relationship. Here are a few tips that you might find helpful in navigating yours:
- Understand and agree to a plan: You can’t enter a co-parenting relationship expecting to improvise how your child will be raised and when each parent will get to spend time with their kid. Instead, you and your child’s other parent should hash out the details of a parenting plan so that there aren’t any surprises moving forward and so that everyone has the same expectations. This can reduce uncertainty, provide clarity and minimize the risks that you or the other parent will act in ways that lead to disputes.
- Find an effective way to communicate: Do you and your child’s other parent always end up arguing when you meet face-to-face? If so, then in-person communication may not be the best way to facilitate a dialogue. Instead, you might want to reduce all communications to writing, whether through text, email or the use of some app. Communicating in writing also allows you to think through what you’re saying and ensure that your words convey exactly what you want while reducing the risk of misunderstandings. This method of communication will also help you document everything so that you can refer to it if your custody case ends up in court again.
- Be respectful and supportive: Your co-parenting relationship will work better if you refrain from personal attacks and instead focus on your child’s best interests. Being respectful of the other parent and supportive of their time with your child can go a long way toward building a team-like approach to parenting and reducing tension. It can also support your child in a healthy way while also modeling appropriate relationship building.
- Keep your child out of it: Don’t use your child as a messenger, and refrain from using them as a weapon against the other parent. Remember, the focus should always be on your child’s best interests. If you feel like the other parent is putting your child in the middle of a custody dispute, then you may need to take the matter to court to have a judge weigh in on it.
Use the legal system to your advantage in a child custody dispute
If your child’s other parent continues to make life challenging for you and your child, putting your child’s wellbeing at risk, then you may need to address the matter in court. That can be stressful to think about, but it may be necessary to keep your kid safe. So, if you want to learn more about what you can do to address your child custody issues when co-parenting has failed despite your best efforts, then please continue to read through our blog and the rest of our website.