Making Shared Parenting a Little Less Scary

Divorce and separation aren’t words to be taken lightly.  To some, these words may even sound rather scary.  Parents and children who are encountering the challenges of divorce and shared parenting responsibility for the first time may find themselves falling into this sense of fear, yet there are ways to overcome the scariness of this situation.  With a parenting schedule and a solid routine to match, you can ease your own fears and uncertainty and make things feel a little less scary for your kids.

Children dealing with divorcing or separating parents might get scared that their family is torn apart and they’ll never feel as happy as they were when Mum and Dad were together.  It’s important to help your children understand that this doesn’t have to be the case.  Having a structured parenting schedule in place is beneficial to your kids’ emotional and physical health because their fears and stresses that stem from not knowing when they will see Mum or Dad next are diminished when they simply know what to expect everyday.  While it might be challenging to settle on a plan at first, it is very important in order to encourage structure between homes and create a new standard of normality for you and your kids.  

Discuss ideas on how your parenting plan should work based on everyone’s work, school, extracurricular, and social schedules.  Also, don’t forget about including a holiday parenting schedule into your overall plan.  It will be very important to have your holiday parenting plan set well ahead of time so holiday festivities are not interrupted due to disputes about parenting responsibility.  The best case scenario is for parents to work out parenting schedule on their own.  A parenting schedule created this way will likely be more in tune with the needs of your family.  When two parents can work together to create a plan, this also demonstrates to the children that even though Mum and Dad might not be able to live in the same house anymore, everyone is still part of the same family.

Along with getting a working parenting schedule in place, keeping your kids on a solid routine will make their new normal feel less scary and unfamiliar.  It is unavoidable that some parts of their routine will be completely changed, like having to spend the night with one parent at a time.   As parents, you both should work as hard as you can to keep the rest of your your children’s everyday schedule as unchanged as possible.  If you and the other parent live close enough after you separate, continue to allow your children to go to the same school, see the same friends and enjoy the same extracurricular activities.  Keep them on the same diet and the same bedtime schedule.  If your kids are old enough to keep track of their own schedule, share a calendar with the whole family that has all of the important events and parenting time exchanges posted.  This way, everyone will stay in the loop of what’s going on.  Since this calendar must be shared between two homes, seek out an online resource for everyone to access from wherever they may be.  Even if they need a little extra time getting used to living among two homes, your children can find comfort in the normality of their solid routine.