Co-Parenting Archives | Page 6 of 9 | Collaborative Law Institute

August 27, 2014

One of the most valuable outcomes of Collaborative Team Practice for many families is how respectfully the process helps prepare parents for effective co-parenting. Lee Eddison, a very experienced neutral coach in Collaborative Team Practice, aptly describes this as a transition from We (a married couple) to a different kind of We (co-parents).

In Collaborative Team Practice, the expertise to make this transition is available from two mental health professionals on the team, the neutral child specialist and the neutral coach. The neutral child specialist offers a child-inclusive process to assist parents in the creation of a developmentally responsive Parenting Plan. The Parenting Plan lays an important foundation for effective-co-parenting with detailed agreements about decision making; communication; parenting expectations, routines and guidelines; and parenting time. This foundation is considerably strengthened when parents also create a Relationship Plan with their neutral coach.

The Relationship Plan is a set of clear and specific agreements about how parents can communicate effectively and resolve potential or actual conflicts in a productive manner once they have completed their divorce or separation and are on their own. The Relationship Plan is not a list of cookie cutter recommendations or generic advice, but is specifically tailored to the unique needs and concerns of each family.

Included in the Relationship Plan are agreements about necessary boundaries to define safe emotional, physical and communication space for co-parenting.The neutral coach helps parents be specific about what words and behaviors from a co-parent would feel respectful and supportive, what could easily trigger negative emotions, and what to do if negative emotions are triggered. The Relationship Plan helps parents anticipate and prepare for a number of sensitive and potentially complicated interpersonal situations that frequently arise after a divorce or break up.Creating a Relationship Plan also provides an opportunity for parents to articulate and build on their own and their co-parent’s strengths.

In my experience as a neutral child specialist, parents who invest the time and resources to create a Relationship Plan with their neutral coach have prepared themselves as fully as possible for their lifelong relationship as co-parents. On behalf of their children, what could possibly be more valuable than that?

August 22, 2014

The school year brings on new challenges as flexible summers come to a close and more demanding schedules begin. If you are like most parents of school age children, not only are the kids going back to school, but the activities and sports schedules also start to pile on. Here are our top 10 tips for co-parenting that will save your sanity this school year.

Fine turn your parenting plan NOW. Don’t wait until the middle of September after a few hiccups have ready occurred.
Who’s paying for what? If you haven’t already sat down with your ex to discuss this go grab coffee and decide who is paying for school supplies, clothes, school fees, daycare/afterschool care, sports and activities fees, etc. Map this out now to prevent an argument later.
Revisit and outline who has custody for which holidays this school year. Spring break may seem like a lifetime away right now, but now is the time for those discussions.
It’s inevitable – kids get sick. Make sure you are on the same page with a plan in place on who will stay home or pick up the sick child. Will you rotate, do it based on who has custody that day? You decide what works best, and plan for flexibility, but don’t wait until you are on the phone with the school nurse to decide.
Speaking of sick kids, assuming which parent providing medical insurance is already set, decide who is going to pay the uninsured medical costs, co-pays, etc.
Run-down of your regular weekly schedule, which provides appropriate time for each parent. Does is work better for Mom to pick up Matt after soccer practice and take him to Dad’s even though it’s Dad’s night? Parenting schedules will never be black and white, so plan for some flexibility, while preparing for multiple scenarios.
Transportation. Discuss who is driving to school, activities, drop offs, pick-ups etc. Will you be meeting half way to drop off/pick up or at each other’s houses. Are each other’s spouses/significant others “approved” to do so?
Saving for college. Whether there is no money is the budget to save and the “plan” is to wait 2 years to start, or one or both of you can start now, decide who, how much and where the money is going to: savings account, 529 College Saving account, etc.
Introducing new significant others into the mix. Make sure this is discussed now before feelings are hurt later on when mom unexpectedly meets dad’s new girlfriend at pick-up or find out that the kids meet a new boyfriend without dad knowing.
Communication. Last, and the most important tip is communication. The communication you have with your ex will ultimately reflect the relationship you have with your kids. It may not come easy, but continuing to improve communication is best for all parties.

August 14, 2014

Perhaps the most important advice I can give someone going through a divorce is to keep the long view in mind. Although it is easy to be swamped by the immediate emotions, the years after the divorce are where you see the impact of your decisions on your entire family. And nothing brings it to the forefront like a milestone event for your child, which I am currently experiencing. My daughter Sarah graduated from high school and will soon be heading off to Wellesley College. This summer has been marked by a graduation weekend with extended family, and soon I will join my fiancé and Sarah’s dad to move Sarah into her dorm. Bringing together the extended family for graduation post-divorce could have been painful and awkward. But it was a wonderful, celebratory weekend filled with love for Sarah and our love and respect for all members of the family. Sarah was in grade school when her dad, John, and I divorced. Divorce is always painful, but we were blessed with a team of collaborative professionals to assist us in the process. I have known for years that a collaborative divorce launched our excellent co-parenting relationship. What really resonated on graduation weekend was the impact on the extended family. My mom flew in from Arizona and John’s mom flew in from New York. These grandmothers had not seen each other since Sarah’s baptism. John’s brother came from Pennsylvania, and he had not seen my mom since our wedding 24 years ago. Also in the mix was my fiancé, Josh, his daughter Lily and his parents. I admit I was a bit nervous about seeing my former mother-in-law and brother-in-law, but it was incredible. We all worked together setting up for Sarah’s graduation party, had multiple meals together, carpooled to the ceremony and sat together cheering for Sarah as she collected her diploma. The love was abundant in all these events, which was priceless. Here’s what collaborative practice allowed for our family: we began to forgive each other and start healing. If we had litigated, the resentments would have become entrenched. By forgiving each other for our failures in the marriage, we could open up to respect and even love towards each other as parents of our amazing daughter. Our tone set the tone for our families – no one needs to choose sides or hold resentments. We can celebrate with full hearts. When we wave goodbye to Sarah at Wellesley this month, she can feel secure knowing her crazy, blended family is behind her, laughing, hugging and linking arms. I am looking forward to the next milestone, when we can all gather again. I know that wouldn’t be possible if we had litigated our divorce. I hope every parent going through a divorce strives for more than just being civil to each other. My hope is that you can celebrate the gifts each parent and family member brings to the life of your child. It starts with your divorce process – collaborative practice allows you to transform your relationship.

August 5, 2014

When you are ready to start a divorce, nothing creates more frustration than the reluctant spouse. How are you supposed to move forward with your life when your husband or wife doesn’t want a divorce? Here is my advice for dealing with the spouse who is dragging their feet. 1. Keep your long-term goals in the forefront, rather than taking short-term aggressive action. A friend of mine from another state called me recently to tell me about her meeting with a divorce lawyer. My friend wants a divorce; her husband doesn’t. The lawyer said she ought to serve and file divorce papers on her husband and tell her three children about the divorce by herself so she controlled the story to the kids. This kind of advice is what gives lawyers a bad name. Like most people with kids, my friend wants to protect them from conflict and have a good co-parenting relationship after the divorce. That means she has to work with her husband, not set up a firestorm of conflict by launching an aggressive attack. 2. Get the right support to help your spouse. A spouse who is not emotionally ready to handle a divorce can make the process difficult. It’s much more effective to connect with resources to help your spouse accept the divorce. If you have been in marriage counseling, you could enlist the counselor to facilitate conversations about your desire for a divorce and options for proceeding. Discernment counseling, which is a limited scope form of therapy, is another approach. Or you could work with a collaborative divorce coach, who is skilled at working with couples who are have a gap in their respective readiness to proceed with divorce. 3. Use the time to gather necessary financial documents. While you are letting your spouse play “catch up” emotionally, it helps to feel like you are taking steps to move forward. One task that has to happen is gathering financial information. You can contact a collaborative financial neutral to find out about their services and the information that will be needed. You can gather records, such as tax returns, mortgage documents, bank statements, and credit card statements. You can look into insurance costs as an individual and look into housing options. Gathering all the financial information usually takes some time, and there is no reason why you can’t get a start on that important step. It will make things go more quickly once you are ready to start the process. It is rare for both spouses to be in the same place emotionally when deciding to end a marriage. If you can give your spouse some time and support to accept that the marriage is over, you gain a less frustrating divorce process and a foundation for a good working relationship as co-parents.

July 8, 2014

Becoming friends with your ex? Or even friends with your ex’s new boyfriend/girlfriend? Do these friendships sound impossible to attain? Perhaps there is something to be learned from the infamous Tiger and Elin Woods’ divorce. Elin recently went on vacation with Tiger, their two kids and Tiger’s current girlfriend, Olympic skier, Lindsey Vonn. The modern blended family – where friendships, and even vacationing together can happen successfully. If befriending seems like a long-shot for you, try to put bitterness and grudges aside when you consider that new boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses will be around your children, whether you like it or not. Co-parenting is not easy, and it will take time and effort to find the right grove in your new lives. Daisy Camp recently hosted a co-parenting workshop at the Collaborative Alliance, titled “One Bridge to Peace,” where co-parenting tools were provided that allow even one willing, caring parent, to relate peacefully with even the most bitter and contentious co-parent. Depending on how newly divorced you are, joining each other on vacations may seem like a long-shot, but remember, even introducing yourself and keeping the lines of communication open with you ex’s new companion can go a long way. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll find yourself vacationing in the Bahamas or at Disney with your ex!

July 2, 2014

In my role as neutral child specialist I often act as a translator. I work to ensure that parents understand the words and ideas of their children about how family can work best for them moving forward. I help parents listen to rather than react to each other while working on creating a parenting plan. And I frequently deconstruct and revise certain legal divorce terminology into more family-friendly language.

From the start, I ask my adult clients to think of and refer to themselves as parents rather than parties. The term parties to a dispute in a no fault divorce is more impartial than plaintiff vs. defendant, but it can still sound adversarial to many parents. As I have written before, legal terms like physical custody, legal custody, child support calculator and even settlement sound formal, top down and foreign to how families actually function. In my office, and in the offices of many Collaborative team professionals, we talk about parenting time and decision making, and the resources parents need to adequately meet their children’s needs in both homes.Since learning this priceless phrase from a child I worked with, I prefer the term getting unmarried to getting divorced. I prefer talking about reaching resolutions rather than settlements. I ask my clients to refrain from saying 50/50 parenting, because how often do kids think of their parents in percentages? I remind parents that children think of their moms as 100% their moms, and their dads as 100% their dads, regardless of whether the kids are at school, with their grandparents, on a play date, or where they sleep at night. We use the language of co-parenting that is developmentally informed and attuned to their children’s temperaments and personalities. Language powerfully shapes our human experience, and communicates both explicit and implicit meaning. The words chosen to describe a process or event are important. Discussing important concepts in clear, thoughtful, straight-forward language and avoiding the use of jargon whenever possible can promote clarity and understanding during an already anxiety-arousing process. And that is also priceless.

July 1, 2014

I seem to be going through a “mourner phase,” these days. Last month, I attended four funerals. This month, a couple. Frequently, these events were labeled “a celebration of life.” Sometimes they were; other times, not so much. It’s not unusual for children or close relatives to speak at these events, describing the bond between themselves and the deceased, and how it was created. Often, the speaker can bring that person to life, figuratively speaking, with their words. The last thing in the world we ever expect to hear is that Joe was a mean, abusive so-and-so; he denigrated his wife, beat his kids, and has as much chance of getting into Heaven as Osama bin Laden. Admittedly, none of the services I attended included such a speaker. Although . . . One of them included an out-of-town relative who was a member of the clergy. His memories of the dead individual brought to mind a temperance revival meeting, and really turned into a rant about how this relative had saved the decedent’s soul at the last minute. To many in attendance, and this was NOT an evangelical group, it appeared the funeral in those moments had ceased to be a celebration of the dead man’s life and had instead become all about the relative. As I struggled with how inappropriate the funeral hijacking felt, my deja vu detector went off. It took me a while to realize why. As a divorce lawyer, I get to help officiate at the death of a marriage. In the best cases, when a couple sees the wisdom of planning their family’s future together, those divorces can include a large measure of honoring that marriage, even if it stops short of an outright celebration. The relationship that brought the children into the world can be buttressed and supported going forward. The good things can be retained. The bad parts . . . well, the bad parts are why they’re in my conference room. And then there are those who, oblivious of the relational aspects of the marriage that died, just want to go on and on, like the prodigal clergyman, and make the divorce all about them. Their “rights,” their money, their property, even “their” children. Losing sight of the Big Picture is an uncomfortable thing to witness, whether it accompanies the death of a person, or the death of a marriage. When couples keep that Big Picture in mind, they can create a fitting memorial to the marriage that used to be, and honor the family that still is.

June 30, 2014

Recently I received a referral from Kristin, a client I represented in 2011 in her collaborative divorce. In thanking her for the referral, I took the opportunity to ask her how she was doing. With her permission, her response is reproduced below. At the time of her divorce, Kristin and her husband had two (2) children ages 10 and 12. Hi Tonda, Nice to hear from you. I will fill you in with some detail for examples of what can lay on the other side of divorce to help you give hope to your clients going through this painful process. Everyone is doing well here; the kids are doing really well splitting their time between our 2 households (4 miles apart). Tom and I have a much better relationship now than when we were getting divorced. We talk several times per week and text, usually daily, mostly regarding kids’ stuff like coordinating activities/homework and just general parenting issues. We also try to meet for coffee sometimes to discuss things more in depth like holidays and vacation planning and kids’ milestones. We see each other at their basketball games, tennis matches, orchestra concerts, etc, even holidays sometimes, and usually sit together with our new spouses. Tom and I both got re-married a couple of months ago and Tom and his wife are expecting a baby in March. I married a pharmacist that I met after the divorce and we got married in Yosemite in August of this year. The four of us get along well and the kids get along well with both our spouses so I have nothing but great things to say about the collaborative process. It really helped us to avoid a lot of un-pleasantries and keep our family together without staying married, which is really great. I hope all is well with you and your practice. I will continue to recommend people look into collaborative divorce as an option. It has been very helpful to us to use the divorce agreement as a structure, but we stay very flexible with rearranging schedules, holidays and vacations etc. We have actually never even had an argument since the divorce. It has helped us build a sense of cooperation and the collaborative process really reinforced putting the kids as the center point for all decisions going forward. One of the things that always stuck in my mind through the whole process was that Tom and I decided that even though we did not have a successful and healthy marriage, we would have a successful and healthy divorce and be successful and healthy parents. Best, Kristin

May 15, 2014

For Minnesota families, summer feels different than other times of the year in more ways than just the warmer weather. Because most kids don’t attend school year round, the summer months can present unique scheduling challenges. This is especially true for families headed by two wage earners, and even more so when parents have gotten unmarried. For a school-age child, the summer routine often includes a mix of camps, classes and lessons, latchkey programs, vacations and sporting activities, with many logistical issues to be resolved. This is “times 3” if there are three kids in the family! The start and end times of kids’ activities vary week to week, and tend to not conveniently coincide with the work hours of the parent on duty. That’s a lot of moving parts for families in which parents are getting unmarried. Managing complicated logistics is especially stressful if kids move from Mom Island to Dad Island without a safe and reliable bridge between the two. This is one reason why Collaborative Team Practice is designed to help parents establish the best possible co-parenting relationship after a divorce or break up. This always makes it easier on kids, but it can also be a huge benefit for time-challenged parents, and for the support network of extended family, baby sitters and carpool parents who can be resources for kids without having to be in the middle. Here’s the rub: establishing an effective co-parenting relationship isn’t easy. An effective co-parenting relationship relies on clear communication, cooperation, reasonable flexibility and courtesy, and these elements can be in short supply during the painful end of a marriage or partnership. The Collaborative guidance and support of a neutral child specialist to create a Parenting Plan and a neutral coach to create a Relationship Plan are important resources toward the goal of effective co-parenting. We know this hard work can be invaluable for your family in the future. You and your kids deserve to enjoy all the summers to come.

May 14, 2014

Sometimes Life’s lessons are subtle and elusive. Other times, they’re less so. In mid-March, my granddaughter arrived “in the usual way”, big dark eyes and a head full of dark hair that had all the nurses exclaiming. My stepson was beside himself with joy and tenderness. My wife’s feelings radiated from her face like a beacon. That was Thursday night. On Monday, the new parents brought the baby to St. Johns Hospital to visit Grampa, who was failing, and in and out of awareness. Grampa was able to sit up and hold his great-granddaughter. “Sweet baby!” he murmured repeatedly, smiling down at her. The next day, Grampa returned to his assisted living apartment under a hospice arrangement. The last weekend of March saw my wife and I camped at his bedside from Friday on. Relatives came and went, and as the significance of the moment registered, I expressed my feelings in poetry. Monday morning he slipped away. The funeral was three days later. In each case, I was reminded of the majesty and grandeur of Life’s primal events; of how great is the illusion of human control over the most important matters of our lives. I wondered at the ability of a tiny baby to cement two young people together, and suddenly found myself thinking how insane is the notion that anything could ever separate her parents. Yet, as a divorce lawyer, I see it every day. And I was humbled once again recalling my clients who reconnected with the joy of their children’s births at the same time they were witnessing the death of their marriages; who saved what they could and grieved the loss of what they couldn’t. Occasionally, I hear from them, reporting that the Great Wheel of Life did, in fact, continue to turn; that sometimes the lessons they learned were not realized until months or even years later. It made them, they report, much more sensitive to the teachings of any given moment. It made them participants, rather than mere spectators, in their own lives. It made them think.