Parenting Plans: Peace is in the Details
As a Certified Divorce Coach and Co-Parenting Specialist, I repeatedly campaign for the value of detailed Parenting Plans. I encourage parents to think of their Parenting Plan as the structure they're building to house their co-parenting endeavor. Although they no longer share a physical home, co-parents can share a space intended to shelter their effort at thoughtful co-parenting – a structure built to honor their children’s experience of their two-household family.
A time-sharing schedule and cost-sharing agreement for the children’s expenses are merely the framing of such a space. Unfortunately, just framed is how many Parenting Plans that are built by attorneys or mediators are left. However, to keep warm, dry, organized, and poised for good use, co-parents must add far more structure, finishes, and systems to their Parenting Plan.
An incomplete Parenting Plan leaves opportunities for tension in its open questions. One wouldn’t start prepping a meal in a building with no sink – pausing during meal prep to install plumbing would put pressure on both the cooking and plumbing efforts. Pressure gets emotions running hotter, communication becomes strained, the co-parenting dynamic blisters, and children feel the burn. A detailed Parenting Plan, built out thoroughly before co-parents get down to co-existing in their effort, means less work-it-out and fight-it-out as-we-go events. Co-parenting poised for more peace is also invaluable to a child’s experience. A detailed structure of expectations demonstrates a considered, organized parenting effort to one’s children.
If you're already living in a Parenting Plan that’s short a sink, a solid roof, and some insulation here or there, don’t fret, act. Parenting plans can be created, expanded, or revised at any stage of co-parenting. Moreover, to best serve growing children with changing needs, as well as parents navigating the normal learning curve of parenting, Parenting Plans should include a procedure for periodic review and revisions no matter when they are initially written.
I provide an extensive outline of questions and considerations to my clients who are building, or renovating, their Parenting Plans. Together we contemplate the myriad of parenting matters and related mechanics to be included. When working with one parent, this effort leads to a proposal they can bring to discussions with their co-parent. When working with both parents, we can go as far as to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that reflects their agreed wishes for the Parenting Plan. If their Parenting Plan will be included in a Marital Settlement Agreement, or submitted to the court in another manner, the MOU would be shared with the attorney or mediator who is preparing the court filing. That person would develop a document reflecting the MOU that could be submitted to the court.
As a coach, I serve as the project manager on a Parenting Plan build, working with my clients to create a considered design that aims to serve their needs emotionally and practically. We also want to build with the awareness that children, and their parents, grow and change. Building with the possibility of future adjustments in mind can be a comfort to some and leave others uneasy. A desire for certainty and resistance to commitment may appear at odds. I put forward the idea that both pursuits are an effort at assurance that as the future unfolds each of us humans will continue to have the opportunity to live in our values, and in the case of parenting, raise our children from those values. A thoughtfully designed foundational plan can establish that sensibility while holding space for growing, evolving children to be afforded the benefit of growing, evolving parents.
There are dozens of details to consider in an effort to co-parent with the most potential for ease. For example, at the time of writing this piece, my Parenting Plan Considerations document includes 20 questions on the mechanics and conditions of transition day exchanges alone. Many of the points might seem to have obvious answers, but my work with clients tells me convincingly that countless moments of tension can be avoided when it’s clear what each parent can expect. Of course, there is no assurance that both parents will follow the Parenting Plan, but moving into co-parenting with buy-in on the plan from both parents means a touchstone for the shared effort has been placed before them, by them. And if co-parents can manage some level of cooperation and goodwill CHILDREN WILL FEEL IT.
I recently saw a need for a new addition to my Parenting Plan Considerations – how to address behaviors of concern, and the resulting consequences, between homes. This issue illustrates the opportunity a Parenting Plan offers to manage expectations, express one’s values, indicate respect for a co-parent’s values, and demonstrate collaboration to one’s children when it matters most.
It is commonly understood that day-to-day discipline is managed by the parent with whom the child is residing at any given time. For example, when a child fails to do their chores at Parent A’s house, Parent A alone will decide the consequences (or lack thereof). However, it’s valuable to establish what behaviors might rise to a standard that co-parents would at least inform the other, if not confer, regarding how to address the behavior. For example, would “cutting” school (skipping class without parental permission) be handled by the parent the child was with at the time the offense occurred, or discussed between the parents and addressed in some way that considers both parents’ responses to the matter?
Even if one parent feels equipped and comfortable dealing with their child’s concerning behavior alone, agreeing to some level of collaboration creates an opportunity to cultivate goodwill with one’s co-parent. More important though is the message this collaborative effort delivers to a child: that their parents place value – to the child’s annoyance or not – on communicating, or even uniting in response, when the child is making concerning choices.
How to address behaviors of concern is also a case in point for the need to revisit Parenting Plans as a child grows. The list of to-be-shared behaviors for a preschooler might include testing out matches, but for a teen might be testing out drugs.
There is a clear benefit to Parent A knowing that their child figured out matches at Parent B’s house – at a minimum, they can check that the matches at their house are stored safely. Ideally, Parent A can accept this information with grace and gratitude toward Parent B (without expressing judgment or criticism of Parent B). What would surely raise stress in Parent A is the child casually dropping, “I burned up Mom’s ficus tree when I made matches work!” Can you breathe through your co-parent’s admission that they learned a scary lesson about your child and matches to avoid the moment when your child drops that news or finds your matches too?
Some behaviors may remain on your to-be-shared list for the life of your Parenting Plan. Such events may include physical fighting or anything that results in a call from teachers or school administration.
Parents with a preschooler can’t possibly imagine what guidelines might serve a middle schooler. That is not because of a lack of knowledge or imagination – one simply cannot know what their particular child is going to be contending with in their particular circumstances over the life of the family’s Parenting Plan. The child’s personal development (interests, emotional needs, academic achievement, etc.) and changes in technology, law, public health, new partners, and more need space to unfold and be adjusted for over time.
From the everyday to the extraordinary, a thoughtfully built Parenting Plan will afford your two-household family its best chance at peaceful co-parenting. Let your personal and parenting values guide the design. Let your child’s experience of you inspire the tone with which you advocate for the plan with your co-parent.