Co-parenting means choosing to maintain a commitment to your child and to collaborating with your child's other parent.
When you experience a divorce or separation, there are seemingly thousands of things to consider - from where you’ll be living, to how you’ll manage a new financial situation.
One of the biggest questions for newly separated parents is - “how will we continue to parent our kids?”
If you’re a newly divorced or separated parenting, you’ve probably heard the term “co-parenting”.
In this three-part series, we’re taking a deeper look at what “co-parenting” means. And in this third installment, we’re looking at one of the core features of co-parenting, “commitment”.
The Art of Commitment
If you’ve divorced or separated, you’re no longer in a committed romantic relationship with your child’s other parent.
However, co-parenting means maintaining a commitment to your child, and also making a commitment to an ongoing collaboration with your child’s other parent.
If that feels overwhelming - don’t worry! Making a co-parenting commitment is simple, straightforward, and can be divided into these three easy areas:
Commitment to Now
Co-parenting means making a commitment to being there for your child, and to collaborating with your co-parent today.
Commitment to the Process
It also means committing to the process of collaborative decision-making and shared responsibility with your co-parent - in whatever form that takes.
Commitment to the Future
Most importantly, you’re making a commitment to your child not just today - but through all their challenges, accomplishments, and triumphs in the future.
A Dedication to an Evolving Experience
If you do choose to co-parent, you will likely go through multiple iterations of your co-parenting schedule, processes, communication methods, and situation. Nothing in co-parenting is ever etched into stone, as children’s needs develop on a daily basis.
Remember that as your child or children grow, your co-parenting responsibilities will evolve and change as well.
One of the main features of co-parenting is dedicating yourself to your child, and to the evolving process of sharing responsibility for raising that child.
Summary of Part I and II: In part one of this series, we talked about the collaborative aspects of co-parenting. In part two
, we looked at the communication features of co-parenting.
