It’s always important to set up good, healthy boundaries after your divorce. However, if you’re going to be co-parenting, then you’ll need some specific co-parenting boundaries as well. These boundaries can really help you have a more pleasant co-parenting experience…
Co-Parenting Boundaries: Key Areas
Conversations
It’s important to have good co-parenting boundaries for your conversations. Healthy communication is crucial for any co-parenting plan. If you can’t talk to one another, then it’ll quickly cause issues for you both when it comes to trying to co-parent.
Having some boundaries regarding your conversations can help prevent these issues. Mainly, you want to keep your conversations focused on the kids, and avoid trying to pry into their personal life. You might even find it’s better to keep your conversations through text or phone calls as an extra step to avoid tensions.
Pick-ups & drop-offs
You’ll also want to have good co-parenting boundaries when doing pick-ups and drop-offs. While these might seem pretty simple, the truth is they can be more difficult than you think. Seeing your ex again can bring up strong emotions, which could end up causing you to argue in front of the kids.
That kind of fighting can be traumatic to your kids, who might think that they’re somehow responsible for your fighting. Therefore, you should make sure these times are focused solely on having the kids move from one household to another. If you really do need to talk to your co-parent about something, do it later and in private away from the kids.
New partners
New partners tend to always make co-parenting a little bit trickier than it was before. If your partner starts seeing someone new, then you probably won’t be too fond of this new person at first. Your ex could act the same should you move on and begin dating first as well.
This is why the best thing to do is set up co-parenting boundaries which limit the involvement of these new partners. After all, your agreement was between you and your ex. Keep these new partners out of it for the most part, and wait until things begin to calm down before either of you try and introduce them properly to the other.
