As a divorcing parent, you will have to figure out how to best work toward cooperative parenting. Compared to sole custody, experts across the globe state that shared custody or cooperative parenting will benefit your child the most in the long term.
But what can you do if cooperation simply seems like it is out of the picture? Instead, you can take a look at parallel parenting and see if that will serve your needs.
Communication through writing
As Psychology Today examines, parallel parenting offers a host of benefits to the modern divorced family. First, it eliminates in-person contact. That is the main draw of this form of parenting. By avoiding in-person contact, you will have a much smaller rate of disagreements and arguments.
You will speak through text and written media instead, such as letters or emails. You can even avoid conversations entirely by simply documenting a visitation or events related to your child in a notebook, and then sending the notebook along with your child when they travel to your co-parent.
Paving the road to cooperative parenting
Parallel parenting serves as a step on the road to cooperative parenting. The court will review your case every so often, making decisions on whether or not to continue proceeding with the situation or to make changes to the arrangement. They can also decide that it is time for you to move on from parallel parenting and toward cooperative parenting, though this will not happen until you show signs that you are ready for it.
You may want to contact legal help during this time. They can help you decide whether or not parallel parenting will serve your needs.
