After a divorce, it is important to establish how you want to move forward with parenting your child. Needless to say, the idea of working closely with a co-parent often serves as a difficult hurdle for people to consider when fresh out of an ended marriage.
In this difficult in-between stage, you may want to consider parallel parenting. This allows you to provide your child with a stable household and the support of both parents, while also giving you time and space to recover.
How parallel parenting works
Psychology Today looks at parallel parenting as an option after divorce. Parallel parenting allows you and your co-parent to avoid the possibility of getting into nasty arguments or disputes by limiting the forms of communication you have.
Through parallel parenting, you and your co-parent only communicate through the written word. This can include notes in notebooks or on paper, text messages, emails, instant message replies and other forms of writing. You can even avoid conversations by simply reporting important information in a written record.
A temporary measure
However, courts do not consider parallel parenting a permanent parenting plan. They will continually monitor your progress and have check-in periods. During these times, they will determine if they should keep your plan as-is, make alterations, or get rid of it completely.
The end goal of parallel parenting serves to provide you with a path to more cooperative parenting while giving you time to cool down after the split. Though it does not work for everyone, it has definite benefits that might suit the needs of you and your family after a divorce.
