Parallel Coparenting

Parallel coparenting is a model where the two homes -- just like parallel lines -- do not intersect. The only intersection is the child moving back and forth between the two homes.

This model is beneficial to a child when the unresolved differences between the two parents create chronic tension for the child or when the conflict flares in front of the child.

The goal of this model is to reduce the chronic psychological and emotional tension for the child (also known as child abuse) and to eliminate exposure to parental conflict (also known as Inter-Personal Violence (IPV)).

Some people object to the use of the words child abuse and violence because they believe that only the use of physical force to inflict pain should be called abusive or violent.

Child abuse includes any form of deliberate and/or ongoing infliction of psychological or emotional pain. For over two decades, researchers have documented the radical impairments that occur in the brain development of children who live with chronic hostile psychological and emotional abuse.

Parents must get the child out of the middle when contact between the two parents is hostile, whether that hatred and hostility is silent and cold, or loud and hot.

Parallel coparenting is the model that will protect the child caught in the middle. This model allows the child to experience calm, a sense of relief, and the ability to use his or her energy for being a child: exploring, experiencing, learning, growing, and just being a kid.

Unresolved differences occur for many reasons but here are some examples.
1 Unplanned pregnancy
Parents had a brief or superficial relationship when the child was conceived. Not only do the parents have nothing in common, they actually hold radically different world views and beliefs about people.

2 Deceit
Sometimes parents have led a double life with their intimate partner during a relationship. Depending on many factors, that deceit may have inflicted such a deep wound that healing is very difficult.

3 Domestic Violence (DV) / Substance Abuse (SA) / Mental Illness (MI)
When there is a specific pattern and problem which has led to the break-up of the family, the restructuring process can take anywhere form 18 months to 3 years. DV, SA, and MI are three such situations. Children cannot be exposed to the high emotion of parents with this kind of history. It’s just too much pressure for the child.

There are many other situations where parallel coparenting is the best choice, sometimes for a period of time that allows cooling down, healing and moving on. For some families, this model will be long term.

Parents who practice this model rarely have communication between the homes. Both parents take equal responsibility to be on time and at the right place for pick-ups and drop-offs. Parents only make direct contact in an emergency situation so there is no uncertainty about the nature of or reason for the contact.

Specific and non-negotiable parenting plans work best for these families.

Contact between the two homes is via email or Our Family Wizard (OFW) or Talking Parents. Communications are direct, brief and respectful. All communication is child-focused.
Parallel Coparents have separate and clear rules in each house. Children cope extremely well when they know what to expect.

Both parents take equal responsibility for clarity in their own home and neither parent disparages the rules in the other parent’s home.

Decision making is made in each home and conferring is rare. If there are shared expenses, parents establish a specific method to deal with that and do not deviate. Some parallel coparents attend all of the child’s appointments together, and some take turns.

Parallel coparents have clearly defined boundaries for transitions between the homes and for any joint activity that may occur with the child.

Facilitated coparenting meetings are the only way that Parallel Coparents engage. There is a clear agenda for the meeting and the facilitator manages the communication.

Parents who choose parallel coparenting are unable to achieve basic respect and cooperation, usually due to significant, unresolved relationship issues. They choose to parent the child separately in each home with very little contact with the other parent because they understand that the child needs peace and calm and permission to love both parents.

Self-Soothing and Self-Control - Let's Do It!

The two primary parenting tasks critical to raising happy children and good citizens are: (1) teaching self-control, and (2) teaching self-soothing.

These tasks require Mom and Dad to be attentive, listen actively, and guide the child toward experiencing the consequences of their own choices and taking responsibility for their own behavior.

The motivation for growth and development is part of the human condition. It doesn't need to be taught, but it can be stifled. Most parents instinctively help their children reach for toys, practice sitting, learn eye-hand control, and so on.

However, parents also do things for their children sometimes long after the child is able to do it for him or herself. Mom or Dad feeds the child because they don't want to clean up or they don't have the time. Parents carry children who are capable of walking because it's easier for the parents and requires less patience and concentration. Parents respond to demands and whining as if it was an appropriate way for a child to ask for what she or he needs.

Each of these situations is a natural opportunity to help guide the child's motivation towards learning self-control. Coming up against a limit or redirection from Mom or Dad may then lead to a natural opportunity for the child to practice the skills of self-soothing.

Discipline is about self-control and self-soothing. Discipline is about learning to manage impulses and desires; it's about learning to handle frustration and delayed gratification. This is the challenge of parenting. Teaching discipline to a child requires maturity and discipline on the part of the parent.

Teaching self-control and self-soothing is hard to do when we haven't learned it very well ourselves. It's one of the reasons that sometimes our children teach us that we need to grow up, too! Very few of us reach adulthood having completed all the tasks of adolescence. So reparenting ourselves, learning to heal the deficits from our own parents is just part of the process.

There is no such thing as a perfect parent because life is full of uncertainty and the unpredictable. It was true for our parents and it is true for us. Accept that and do the best you can. And reach out for help. It's easy to find. Learning about the research and techniques of parenting can be fun and very rewarding.

Parenting Means Saying "I'm Sorry"

Here is a summary of some great information on the importance of parents saying "I'm sorry" when they hurt a child's feelings.

If you want good communication with your child, if you want your child to open up to you, if you want to be that person your child turns to when they need to talk something over...make sure you say I'm sorry when social graces demands it.

'Sorry' doesn't heal children's hurt, but it mends relations

University of Virginia

Most adults know that a quick apology for a minor transgression, such as bumping into someone, helps maintain social harmony. The bumped-into person feels better, and so does the person who did the bumping. It's all part of the social norm.

But do apologies have this effect on children?

A new University of Virginia psychology study, published this week in the journal Social Development, shows that apologies are important even to children who are 6 or 7 years old, an age when they are undergoing dramatic and important changes in cognitive development - when they are moving from their preschool years to middle childhood and are building social skill foundations that will last a lifetime.

"What was surprising was that children who experienced a minor transgression and heard an apology felt just as bad as those who did not hear an apology," said Marissa Drell, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at UVA and the study's lead author. "But those who heard the transgressor say, 'I'm sorry' actually shared more with that person later. The apology repaired the relationship even though it did not mitigate their hurt feelings."

Drell set up a situation where children were the victims of a minor accident. The children and an adult research assistant were asked to build towers out of plastic cups. As the child neared completion of his or her tower, the adult asked to borrow a cup from the child, and in so doing toppled the child's tower. She either apologized or said nothing, and then left the room.

Later, when children were asked how they felt, those who received an apology reported feeling just as bad as those who did not. But when deciding how many stickers to give to the research assistant, those who heard an apology were more generous.

"Even though an apology didn't make children feel better, it did help to facilitate forgiveness," Drell said. "They seem to have recognized it as a signal that the transgressor felt bad about what she had done and may have been implicitly promising not to do it again."

There was one form of amends that resulted in an even better outcome: Children who had their towers knocked over and then received the transgressor's help in partially rebuilding it both felt better and shared more with her.

"Restitution - some sort of active effort to make repairs after a transgression - can make the victim feel better because it may undo some of the harm, and it can repair the relationship by showing the transgressor's commitment to it," Drell said.

The paper, Drell, M.B., Jaswal, V.K. (2015), Making amends: Children's expectations about and responses to apologies, Social Development, doi: 10.1111/sode.12168, is available here.

Self Control and Self Soothing

The two primary parenting tasks critical to raising happy children and good citizens are: (1) teaching self-control, and (2) teaching self-soothing.

These tasks require Mom and Dad to be attentive, listen actively, and guide the child toward experiencing the consequences of their own choices and taking responsibility for their own behavior.

The motivation for growth and development is part of the human condition. It doesn't need to be taught, but it can be stifled. Most parents instinctively help their children reach for toys, practice sitting, learn eye-hand control, and so on.

However, parents also do things for their children sometimes long after the child is able to do it for him or herself. Mom or Dad feeds the child because they don't want to clean up or they don't have the time. Parents carry children who are capable of walking because it's easier for the parents and requires less patience and concentration. Parents respond to demands and whining as if it was an appropriate way for a child to ask for what she or he needs.

Each of these situations is a natural opportunity to help guide the child's motivation towards learning self-control. Coming up against a limit or redirection from Mom or Dad may then lead to a natural opportunity for the child to practice the skills of self-soothing.

Discipline is about self-control and self-soothing. Discipline is about learning to manage impulses and desires; it's about learning to handle frustration and delayed gratification. This is the challenge of parenting. Teaching discipline to a child requires maturity and discipline on the part of the parent.

Teaching self-control and self-soothing is hard to do when we haven't learned it very well ourselves. It's one of the reasons that sometimes our children teach us that we need to grow up, too! Very few of us reach adulthood having completed all the tasks of adolescence. So reparenting ourselves, learning to heal the deficits from our own parents is just part of the process.

There is no such thing as a perfect parent because life is full of uncertainty and the unpredictable. It was true for our parents and it is true for us. Accept that and do the best you can. And reach out for help. It's easy to find. Learning about the research and techniques of parenting can be fun and very rewarding.

Who Taught You That?!

Don't make disparaging remarks about the other parent in front of your child.

Don't use your child to gather information about the other parent's home.

Most co-parents in family court have heard these cautions from a judge, lawyer, mediator, or counselor. Some parents comply and some don't. Some parents at least make the effort to comply and some don't.

A prohibition against such behavior is routinely made a part of court orders which -- at least in theory -- means contempt of court if a parent does engage in such behavior.

Some parents use a work-around, either consciously or unconsciously, to find a way to implicitly criticize the other parent. Here are some variations:
Who taught you that?
Where did you learn that?
You never did that before!

These are not so subtle ways of disparaging the other parent. The child can tell from both the question and the tone of voice that someone in his or her life is clearly doing something wrong. And, it's clear to the child that the parent asking him or her the question would NEVER allow the child to learn something like that because the parent asking the question ALWAYS does everything the right way!

Some of the problems with this approach are obvious. The most obvious is that moral superiority and moral outrage are not very attractive on anyone! One problem may not be so obvious. The parent in this situation is assuming a couple of things. First, that the behavior of the child is someone's fault other than the child and second, that the child would not be doing this unless the family ____________________________ . You fill in the blank. The filled in blank is some version of family life being different now than it used to be.

What's the problem? The parent is letting the child know that he or she either isn't responsible for their own behavior, or is communicating that they just can't help it. However, most of the time, children's behavior is developmentally appropriate to their age, personality, sibling and peer status, and development in a number of areas. Rarely is a child's behavior only the result of one person or a particular life situation. Blaming someone (like the other parent or their friends/relatives) or blaming a life situation (like separation, divorce, or a restraining order) gives the Child an excuse to behave badly. Even if there is a direct link between a divorce and a Child's unkind/destructive behavior toward others, the problem is still the behavior and the Child is responsible and needs to learn the natural consequences of that behavior.

If your child spits in your face, which of these actions do you think addresses the issue:
(a) at the first opportunity, write a note to the parent in other home asking them to please tell the Child not to spit in your face;
(b) ask the Child "Who taught you to do that?"
(c) put the Child on time out immediately and limit his or her contact with other people for the rest of the day because of the choice he or she made.

Hopefully, you picked the third option. It's the behavior that is the problem, not where it came from or who is responsible or what it might mean. If the behavior is happening right now with you, then it is your problem. And it is your responsibility to address it in a firm manner that clearly communicates your expectations about the child's behavior. If you allow the behavior to occur without a consequence or without an adequate consequence because of your personal conflicts about your adult life, then the Child gets the message that it's okay to engage in bad behavior because there is someone else to blame and someone else to hold responsible.

Respect your Child and his or her ability to learn, care and make positive life choices. Empower your Child to claim responsibility for his or her own behavior. Nurture your Child's self-esteem by assuming he or she has the ability to become a competent partner in relationship to other people.