Co-Parenting While Sheltering In Place

How many times, lately, have you heard the expression to shelter at home?  Last week we talked about making a house a home and outlined the “G O P H E R” components that change a house to a haven.   Grace and Forgiveness.  Home should be a safe place to make mistakes.  Order and Peace.  A healthy home is intentionally wired to be peaceful.  Purpose and Goals.  Understanding each person’s long-term dreams supports order and peace.  Help and Service.  Kindness, respect, affection, affirmation, and thinking about the needs of others are characteristics displayed in a healthy home.  Elation and Joy.   Joy is a deeper, more profound attitude than happiness.  Trouble can destroy happiness, but it can’t destroy joy.  Reliance on Faith.  A healthy home isn’t hammered together by restrictive regulations.  No, it’s a place where we pattern our actions and how we relate to one another based on a Biblical layout.  To sum up, GOPHER, use Christ as your blueprint.  He’ll give you the means to build a home, not a house, that nurtures your family.

Now let’s make the construction of your home much more complicated by adding the element of co-parenting.  This shelter in place time can tweak any parent’s last nerve.  Now, adding in dealing with a custody agreement can push Mom or Dad to the brink.  

Your first step in avoiding a total collapse is to remember the advice of Heather Hetchler, “Co-parenting is not a competition between two homes.  It’s a collaboration of parents doing what is best for the kids.”  

Co-parenting is structured by a custody agreement.  Your custody agreement most likely has sections dealing with school terms, visitation based on the school calendar, and each parent’s role in school activities.  With your children now being homeschooled, these provisions may not make sense.  How do you address changes to the custody arrangement? 

Option 1.  Dig your heels in, don’t allow for mutually agreed-upon changes, and fight for your rights.

Ok, this is NOT the recommended course of action.  In general, Courts do not approve when one parent wants to stop the other parent from seeing the kids and being a parent.  To see a real-life example of how NOT to co-parent read about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s child custody war.  Even Angelina was chastised and stopped from taking the kids to Europe by the Courts.  Why, because her actions were designed to prevent Brad from seeing the children.  Her behavior did not put the kids first.

Option 2. Don’t wait for the Courts to be in session, but develop a mutually agreeable solution. 

Using this option, you have to dig deep and change your point of view.  As Helen Fried points out in her book, “If you love your child more than you hate your ex, you can solve most co-parenting problems.”   You can spend most of your savings with attorneys and the courts.  Or, as an alternative, you can stop bickering and design a functional plan. 

What to do … both parents sit down in a comfortable public location and have a nonconfrontational adult conversation without the children.  And make respectful arrangements.  Then let the children know why and how these schedules are in their best interest.

Don’t forget about incorporating technology, Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime, in your provisions.  This allows parents and children time to talk regardless of their location.  Teleconferencing is a great way for a parent and a child to connect without venturing out.  Just understand that this is private time.  

When parents don’t show willingness and care for each other, the children will feel the tension.  Face it, there is already way too much tension with the stay at home order.  Kids recognize when Mom and Dad can’t agree and fail at co-parenting.  Your concern should be a co-parenting plan that is fair to everyone.  

Children need the stability of kind, considerate parents. Parents who set an example by putting their differences aside.  Parents that meet in the middle for the benefit of their children. 

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  Matthew 7:12

Cheryl Gowin and Dennis Gowin.  Call us with your feedback, comments, issues, or questions; our phone number is 434-808-2637.