Learning To Communicate when Co-Parenting

Communicating with an ex is never easy. Add in trying to co-parent with someone after your divorce and it gets even worse. However, it is important that you learn to communicate with your ex (at least when it comes to the children). Your children need both of you in their lives and you should do everything that you can to ensure that this happens.

Here are some tips for communicating about co-parenting after a divorce.

Make sure that all of your communication revolves around the children. You don’t need to talk to your ex-spouse about anything other than your children. Though you may want to keep things as friendly as possible, in the beginning, it is best to stick to talking about the children and their needs only.

Once you get past the pain, you may be able to talk about other things but, in the beginning, you need to keep your contact about the children only. Don’t dredge up your past and the feelings that you are going through. Instead, focus on your children.

Keep your children out of any arguments. Though it is very hard, it is essential that your children don’t feel like they are in the middle. Don’t communicate through them. Instead, have a way to talk to your ex without bothering your children.

Don’t have the children discuss drop off and picks up, as well as schedule changes or any financial issues. All of these things need to go through you.

You also shouldn’t argue in front of them. Though they need to see conflict in order to be able to communicate effectively when they get older, if you argue constantly without any resolution, it can be harmful. Keep your fighting behind closed doors.

This can also make your children feel like they have to choose a side, which is the worst thing that you can do during and after a divorce. Your children deserve to have both of you in their lives.

Communicate without talking directly. Communicating can be hard when you have to talk to someone that has hurt you deeply, especially in the beginning. It might be easier to keep all of your communications through text messages or even e-mails to avoid getting angry and losing your temper. This allows you to reply to the messages when you are calm and thinking clearly. Otherwise, you may say something that you may regret. However, you need to think before you hit send.

It is important that you both make the decision to get along for your children. Holidays and other special events are important for everyone. It is even better if you can learn to get along with your ex-spouse so that you can share in some of these events together! By becoming civil and then friendly, your children will be able to celebrate their achievements with the most important people – both parents, as well as the entire family!

Communicating with someone who has hurt you is never easy. However, if you have children, you are going to have to find a way to get along. Your children deserve to have both of you in their lives.

If you enter into a new relationship, it is important to keep your children out of your new relationship until you are comfortable that the relationship will move into something more permanent. They don’t need to be in the middle or feel like they have to pick sides and they don’t need to get close to people you date for a short time considering that this person may not be around at some point and this may be difficult for children.