It can be a bit difficult to start co-parenting. To help you and your ex going in the right direction, it can be a good idea to set some co-parenting goals. These goals can help ensure your efforts result in success…
Co-Parenting Goals
Help the kids feel secure
Divorce usually causes your kids to feel a lot of uncertainty about the future. While you yourself might have a lot of questions about what’s next, your kids also will feel the same. Mainly, they might be worried about where they’ll live, or if the divorce itself was somehow their fault.
Therefore, it helps to set making the kids feel secure as one of your co-parenting goals. Having a good, consistent schedule can help them adjust to this new “normal” and feel more relaxed. Spending plenty of time with them also helps reinforce to them that you or your ex aren’t going anywhere.
Create a budget
Divorce also brings changes to one’s budget. As a co-parent, you’ll not only need to plan a budget for yourself, but also one for your kids with your co-parent. Usually, this budget involves things like major expenses, such as tuition or medical bills. That’s why this shared budget is another of the co-parenting goals to work towards.
One useful way to do this is by first meeting with your ex and going over your individual budgets. Then, you can look at what major kid-related costs you might have. By doing so, you can work on adjusting your budgets to meet your kids’ needs.
Better communication
Not all ex-couples will want to talk all the time after divorcing. Still, co-parenting will require some kind of communication between the two of you. After all, you’ll have to coordinate things like dropping or picking up the kids. Due to this, improving communication is one of the most common co-parenting goals.
A good way to do this is by keeping your conversations positive. Focus on the good things, like if the kids got good grades on a test, over negative topics. It’s also good to help keep them in the loop about any changes to your schedule which could impact your usual co-parenting plans.