I’m renovating my kitchen. I was laughing with a colleague about how my kids will have to get used to having weet-bix for dinner to which she replied, “I have a fully functioning kitchen and sometimes we have weet-bix for dinner!”
Listening to this had me thinking about co-parenting. Whether the parents still live in the same home or have decided to live in separate homes. They are still co-parenting.
Parenting children is by far the hardest job I have ever done, and to sound cliché, one of the most rewarding. My work with clients, helping them make decisions of how to spend time and make arrangements for their children now that they have decided to live in two separate homes, has really highlighted the fact that all parents find parenting difficult at one stage or another.
Communication is by far the biggest cause of conflict between co-parents. Both those who are still co-parenting under the one roof within a relationship but even more magnified if they have decided to separate and set up two separate homes.
Here are my top three tips on communication:
- Do not, under any circumstance, discuss adult issues in front of your children.
Children do not have the capacity to understand adult issues but they do have the capacity to listen and they will listen and interpret what you are saying, usually the wrong way. Keep communication about parenting, money, schedules away from little ears. Drop off is not the time to raise the point that “You’re late on child support” or “Samantha wet the bed because YOU forgot to pack her favourite bunny.” Drop off is the time to hand over your child to the other parent, give them a kiss and say “have a good time with mummy/daddy” and leave. If you need to discus child support or bunny, write an email.
- Do not denigrate or put down your co-parent in front of your children.
On that note don’t let anyone else do this in front of your children either. If your brother says to you in front of the kids “Well if your useless mother would show up on time…” remind them that we don’t speak like that in this house. Their mother may very well be useless in your opinion but that is your child’s mother, you only get one in life, let your children love her and form their own opinion when her time comes.
- Be respectful
Keep all communication that you share with your co-parent respectful. The best advise I was given, as a junior lawyer was “If you don’t want a Judge to read your email or text, do not write it.” Before you hit send, re-read your words and check to see if you could reframe what you are staying to get your point across without naming, blaming and shaming.
Co-parenting is difficult but remember, you share a common goal – to raise happy, healthy, safe children to be released into the world, even if they have weet-bix for dinner time to time.
