Parenting is hard enough when you do not feel like you have to fight your co-parent every step of the way. Unfortunately, this is the experience many newly divorced parents have. The penchant to fight one another may end up outweighing your ability to help your child.
If this sounds like you, you may benefit from parallel parenting. This unique style of co-parenting after a divorce is not permanent, but it can give you the tools you need to adapt after a split.
Removing in-person meetings
Psychology Today examines the benefits parallel parenting can bring you and your family. Parallel parenting aims to remove the source of arguments: in-person meetings. Instead of discussing things face-to-face or even over the phone, you and your co-parent will communicate strictly through text instead.
You may use emails, text messages and other instant messaging services or platforms. If you truly cannot even stand to hold a conversation, you can even write down summaries of visitations or what is going on with your child in a notebook. You can then pass the notebook back and forward through your child when they go from one home to the other, which lets you both stay up to date on what is happening in your child’s life without ever having a single conversation.
Working to a cooperative parenting
The divorce court will check in with the two of you throughout this process, making decisions on whether to continue as-is or to make changes. Eventually, the goal is to get to the point where you no longer have to parallel parents and you can instead utilize cooperative parenting tactics, working together to raise your child.