“The more you can spare your child any “messenger” type of role and work directly with your ex to co-create rules, routines, and effective strategies for supporting your children and discouraging acting-out behaviors, the more ease and cooperation you’ll evoke in your children.”
Key take-aways from the article: (Yes, very hard to do, but parenting is never easy to begin with…)
- Understand your unconscious parenting style and how it may be a reaction to or a repetition of the way your own parents parented you.
- Communicate regularly with your ex, even if it’s through texts or email, to coordinate schedules and keep each other informed of school events, lessons, medical issues, or other relevant information.
- Notice what your ex is getting right.
- Talk to your ex about the pros and cons of your routines, find common ground, and agree to keep certain parts of the children’s routines consistent between households.
- Find ways to support each other that will allow for greater consistency while permitting flexibility.
- Discuss the rules that vary between households with your children, and explain why you and your ex have different views about these rules.
- When a serious difference or grievance arises, figure out a way to work through it respectfully.Read more.