During a divorce, you and your spouse must determine how to raise your children together without living under the same roof. In hostile or combative relationships, working together on a parenting plan can be particularly difficult. Working as partners may not work for all couples and instead of co-parenting, they may have better results with parallel parenting.
According to WebMD, parallel parenting requires the parents to interact as little as possible. Before choosing a parallel parenting style, you may worry about how your kids will cope with it.
Benefits of parallel parenting
While many kids prefer co-parenting because their parents can still interact civilly, parallel parenting can be as healthy as co-parenting. If you cannot interact with your spouse without fighting, you do not want to be together in front of the kids. Children in a parallel parenting plan do not have to worry about seeing you and your spouse fight. Kids not exposed to a combative relationship tend to have a more stable environment and cope better with the divorce.
Children do better when they have both parents in their lives. You do not have to be in one another’s life to continue to support your kids.
Tips for parallel parenting
With parallel parenting, you need to plan for all possible outcomes. Know the dropoff locations and times to exchange your kids. Make sure you understand which parent has the decision power during visits. You may want to keep a book that your child can take back and forth. The book can include medical appointments and essential milestones. You can include sleeping and feeding times along with different soothing methods for babies and toddlers.
Parallel parenting helps you and your spouse continue to work together for the good of your kids with minimal contact.