10 Common Co-Parenting Mistakes
Protect your kids’ best interests by avoiding these 10 co-parenting mistakes.
Raising children involves a lot of trial and error, and co-parents often experience even more demanding challenges and complications. No two situations are alike, so navigating new aspects like custody calendars and shared expenses after a separation or divorce can feel like a never-ending guessing game. Decisions that seem to be good at first can unfortunately end up causing headaches and roadblocks.
Dealing with repercussions can be frustrating, especially if you act with good intentions but end up contributing to a negative dynamic with your co-parent. Fortunately, you can avoid making typical missteps while learning and benefiting from their lessons. Here are 10 co-parenting mistakes you should avoid to better protect your family’s health and well-being.
1. Ignoring boundaries
Creating healthy boundaries with your co-parent is vital to preserving your well-being and acting in your children’s best interests. The hardest part is respecting them in your day-to-day routine, especially if your ex crosses the line. While ignoring your own limits or disrespecting your co-parent’s boundaries might seem harmless, the fallout can come with lasting repercussions.
2. Critiquing your ex’s parenting choices
Even if you and your co-parent have a healthy, amicable dynamic, you’re bound to encounter moments where you disagree on something. You may not like what your co-parent does and says with your kids, but that doesn’t mean you have to offer unsolicited advice or feedback. Doing so can lead to unnecessary conflict and tension between you and your ex that inevitably impacts your kids.
3. Not getting or sharing details in writing
It’s essential for co-parents to stay organized when balancing details about school events, joint expenses, and other shared parenting responsibilities that can change on a whim. Some details are easily memorized, but it can quickly become challenging to manage when information gets mixed up and changes. Forgetting even the smallest detail because it wasn’t written somewhere can impact your kids’ plans or interfere with parenting time.
4. Purposefully keeping information from your ex
Shared parenting involves a considerable amount of collaboration and sharing, especially when it comes to details about your kids’ lives. While you aren’t expected to share every tiny piece about their time with you, information about their medical record or school schedule needs to be shared with your co-parent. If you choose to keep details to yourself, ensure that doing so doesn’t violate the terms of your parenting plan.
5. Acting or speaking with malicious intent
Keeping a level head with your co-parent can be challenging, especially if they have high conflict or narcissistic tendencies when talking or arguing with you. You may want to prove a point or match your ex’s energy during tense moments, but keeping yourself grounded and steady instead of acting out of spite is vital. Falling into another cycle of conflict is far from productive or beneficial, even though retaliating or calling out your co-parent may seem like the best option.
6. Bad-mouthing your ex around your kids
You may feel like your ex is a villain in your co-parenting story, but your kids don’t need to hear your opinions on their other parent from you. Your kids shouldn’t think of you and your ex as a “good guy” and “bad guy,” and complaining to them about their other parent can contribute to giving them that impression. Even though you may feel better after bad-mouthing your co-parent to your kids, it’s not worth the potential emotional damage and parental alienation they may experience.
7. Treating co-parenting like a competition
Spending time with your kids can seem like the perfect opportunity to do more exciting activities with them than your ex does, especially if your co-parent is the “fun parent.” While it’s perfectly normal to want the best for your kids, intentionally outdoing your co-parent can turn your parenting into competing. You and your ex’s combined positive actions contribute to your kids’ happiness, and caring about who does more undermines your efforts.
8. Weaponizing the family law system
The family law and overall court systems are intended to help promote the safety and well-being of your family. Still, it can sometimes be misused by co-parents with bad intentions to infringe on their exes’ parental rights. Unless you genuinely need to request a protective order or enforce visitation rights, don’t use a judge or attorney to get back at your ex. Even if you can’t stand when your kids are with them, it’s best to take a child-centered custody approach and always prioritize your kids’ best interests.
9. Using your kids as messengers
When your kids routinely move between your house and your co-parent’s place, asking them to relay details or questions to your ex can seem reasonable. However, doing so often gives your kids too much responsibility that isn’t age-appropriate and puts them on the receiving end of your ex’s reaction to your message. In addition to creating unnecessary stress, treating your kids like mediators can contribute to parentification, enmeshment, and other adverse long-term effects.
10. Fighting with your ex in front of your kids
Arguments with your co-parent are unavoidable, but exposing your kids to them is entirely in your control. Fighting in front of your kids can negatively affect their mental and physical well-being, with increased risks of emotional issues, behavioral disorders, and more. Unless you can have constructive, well-regulated disagreements with your ex, keeping your kids separate from tense interactions is best.
Making mistakes as a co-parent is inevitable, even if you take precautions to avoid conflict or frustration. As long as you actively prioritize your kids’ best interests, you’re already on your way to avoiding common co-parenting mistakes. One of the best ways to achieve this is by keeping your shared parenting situation organized and documented.
Creating a more well-intended co-parenting arrangement is ideal but can be challenging. Fortunately, a co-parenting communication service like TalkingParents can help you achieve less stressful, more coordinated co-parenting. Our all-in-one features keep messages, calendars, payments, and more recorded and stored in a single service, giving you and your co-parent the neutral space needed to handle everything related to your kids.