Divorce can be a confusing situation for the children. The shift from having both parents under the same roof to a different living arrangement can take its toll on them mentally and emotionally. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the transition is smooth and there are no unnecessary changes in the children’s lives.
As co-parents, you can do this by ensuring consistency in discharging your parental duties. That way, the children will not feel much change whenever they are with either parent. How can you achieve this? Here are a couple of tips:
Ensuring consistency across both households
It is necessary to talk to your co-parent about this to ensure you are both reading from the same page. It should not be a hard discussion since it is what’s best for the children.
To establish consistency, you should ensure that similar rules and boundaries apply across both homes. These include things like bedtime, chores, allowances and homework time, among others. In addition, how you deal with issues affecting the children, like indiscipline cases, should be similar for both parents.
Why is it important?
Consistent co-parenting will help your children adjust to the new lease of life. In addition, it gives the parents a perfect environment to instill positive values in them since both of you will be pushing in the same direction. Importantly, children require stability and consistency in life, more so in their foundational years.
What if your co-parent won’t cooperate?
Things may not work out as you intend, especially if you are not on good terms with your co-parent. If achieving consistency is not possible, you need to play your part and continue being the best parent your children could wish for. With time, your co-parent might reconsider their hardline stance, and you could find a breakthrough.
If the conflicts between households escalate, you may need to take further action, such as modifying the existing custody orders if you believe your co-parent’s methods are actually harmful to the children.
