When you get through your divorce and enter the post-divorce period, it is common and even expected to still have lingering tensions and negative feelings toward your co-parent. Some people can adjust more quickly than others and move on to cooperative co-parenting in no time. Other co-parents need more space.
This is where parallel parenting may come in handy for you. This form of parenting allows you to get the space you need while also providing your child with the support they need.
How to avoid arguments
Healthline discusses ways to make a parallel parenting plan that benefits everyone. At its base, parallel parenting is a form of shared custody that allows you and your co-parent to avoid arguments through a limitation of how you communicate with one another. While using this plan, you cannot communicate in person. Instead, all communication happens through writing. This can include everything from emails to handwritten letters. You can even avoid conversations entirely, simply keeping a journal of how things went with your child during visitation and passing this journal between each other.
How this benefits your child
This protects your child from witnessing the two of you argue, and also gives you both extra time and space to recover from the divorce. It drastically reduces the chance of arguments happening because you can both step back from a written conversation much easier than a conversation happening face-to-face.
Parallel parenting is not permanent, and a judge will eventually determine when it is time for you to move on to more cooperative forms of parenting. However, this happens at a different rate and along a different timeline depending on many personal factors, making guesswork virtually impossible.
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