You know that your children should be the focus of every custody decision. In fact, if you decided to file for divorce with children in your home, you are likely acutely aware of how divorce can have an adverse impact on a child’s mental health.
Concerted efforts by both parents to minimize conflict will be necessary if you want to reduce how difficult your divorce is for your children. Of course, the fact that you share your children will mean that you and your spouse will have to continue seeing one another frequently, even long after the children are adults themselves.
How can you resolve or ideally prevent conflicts with your co-parent?
1. Pick and stick to a parenting app
There may come a time in the future when a disagreement with your co-parent will not provoke an emotional response. No matter how even keel you typically are, you will struggle to eliminate emotional responses during disagreements with your co-parent early into this transition.
Having all of the information about your parenting arrangements in one place and an app recording what you say can go a long way toward minimizing the conflict you may experience. When you have a solid track record of working together and relating to one another you can move on to more informal communication methods if you both agree.
2. Don’t think about your co-parent as your ex
Although it will be challenging at first, one of the most helpful things you can do when you share custody of your children with a former romantic partner is to change how you view them. It can be hard to work positively with them and even harder to view your relationship with them positively.
If you start thinking of them as a parent and focusing on how they treat and care for your children, it will be a lot easier for you to react with compassion during a dispute instead of becoming
3. Commit to a conflict resolution system
Do you both still attend the same church and have a pastor who can talk to you when emotions run high? Have you gone to marriage counseling, meaning you have a therapeutic relationship with someone who can teach you conflict resolution and communication skills or mediate disputes?
The two of you need to be realistic about the fact that you will inevitably disagree about certain details, which means having a plan in place to work out that dispute when it happens.
The more careful you are with how you treat one another and structure your parenting plan, the easier it will be for you to minimize the conflicts the two of you have with one another and to move on from those disputes after you resolve them. Consistently keeping the focus on your children is crucial for those hoping to navigate a co-parenting relationship with minimal conflict.
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