Going through divorce is a difficult task for anyone, but it has extra complications for parents. After all, you must handle your own personal matters while simultaneously working things out so that they benefit your child and cause the least amount of harm.
To reach that goal, you may want to consider parallel parenting. This parenting option is a stepping stone that allows parents who are not on the best terms to reach a point where cooperative co-parenting may seem possible.
Avoiding in-person confrontation
Psychology Today discusses parallel parenting, a form of joint parenting after divorce. It allows you and your co-parent to raise your child together while minimizing the contact you share with each other. It does this by limiting the forms of communication you can use.
Through parallel parenting, you can only engage in written communication. This may include emails, text messages and even written letters, but it excludes anything like video chat, in-person meetings and so on.
Minimizing co-parent arguments
Limiting contact gives you time to adjust to post-divorce life without having to deal with each other one-on-one. You do not have to hold conversations, which means the chance of arguments breaking outgrows much slimmer. Instead, you can focus entirely on your child and on readjusting to this form of parenting.
The court will periodically evaluate your relationship to determine if anything should change. Eventually, they will move away from parallel parenting and toward cooperative parenting, but the timeline for this shift will differ greatly depending on each individual family. This way, you do not have to worry about making a change you are not ready for.
