5 tips/tools to Communicate effectievly with your Co-Parent (even in high-conflict cases).

In a perfect world, Co-Parent's would co-exist and raise their children without conflict and agree on what is in their child's best interests. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. Navigating a co-parent relationship and effectively communicating schedules, transitions, appropriate discipline, among the many other topics that arise with an ex can be time consuming, emotionally taxing, and if third party intervention is involved, such as attorneys and court, it is expensive!

Disagreeing with a co-parent on your child's important life decisions (especially if joint custody is established) is emotionally stressful. Not being able to control how your child is being raised outside of your parenting time can create anxiety. A secondary emotion for anxiety is anger, an emotion that leads to impulsivity. Your ego may tell you that you are right, and your co-parent is wrong, and something needs to be done to put them in their place right now. This mentality is natural when experiencing an emotionally stressful situation. However, making decisions or sending lengthy strong worded emails or texts in an emotional state is not effective in the long-term and will create further conflict. Here are 5 effective tips to effectively communicate with your co-parent (even in high-conflict cases).

1. BREATHE - Situations that cause anxiety can result in reacting impulsively; and not fully thinking through your response. If you find yourself in this position, stop and take deep breaths. Step away from the situation and come back to it later with a clear mind. Breathing helps increase awareness and guide our mental state into a better, less destructive direction.

2. KEEP IT BUSINESS CASUAL WITH DOCUMENATION - Use a parenting app or email to document your disagreements in the event you ever need to use them in court later on. This will also avoid any miscommunications about the expectations for any future disagreements on that particular topic. Keep your communications short and to the point.

3. UPDATE YOUR CO-PARENT CALENDAR - Have a joint calendar on a parenting app or through google calendars to track parenting start and end times. Note any parenting time days that will be swapped, if needed. This will also help assist with avoiding Holiday schedule disagreements.

4. SET BOUNDARIES - If conflict seems to be the norm and frequent calls/texts are disrupting your ability to enjoy your day-to-day activities, you need to set boundaries! Boundaries define when your parenting time ends, and your co-parents time begins. It is not your responsibility to provide an immediate response to a non-urgent matter; especially if the conversation is evoking hard feelings. In order to provide your best response that is not driven by impulsive emotions, try waiting 24 hours or more before responding. Inform your coparent you need 36-48 hours to reply; and you will only be communicating on the topic through a parenting app or email (unless it truly is time sensitive). This will create the space you need to breathe and gain clarity on the situation before responding. Non-aggressive responses and effective well thought out solutions will help eliminate lengthy drawn-out arguments.

5. USE A PARENTING COACH - If disagreements continue to arise or the co-parent threatens to take legal action on the disagreement, then try finding a local parenting coach to assist you in improving your coparent communications. This is less expensive than paying attorney fees for court, or a parenting consultant. This will also serve as documentation that you are putting in the extra effort to do what is in your child's best interests and avoid conflict, if ever needed for court.