I got off the phone this morning after a really entertaining and quite delightful phone call with a friend of mine. We'd been chatting about my eldest son, H (8 years) and his most recent school achievements, some funny anecdotes and our plans for the weekend. We'd also covered my two youngest kids and their antics this morning. We shared a few laughs, covered some current affairs discussion and a bit of world politics quite quickly before I needed to tend to the baby. What makes this phone call so delightful, is my friend and I used to be married. We divorced almost 6 years ago and we share a child.
Our situation is not unique. Currently, just under 50,000 Australian children have divorced parents. What possibly makes our situation more rare is that we share parenting 50/50 between our two households. It took a little while to reach our current arrangement, but after the adversarial process of formal parenting orders, family court and Child Support Assessments, we decided there had to be a better way. Both my ex-husband and I had new relationships, new employment and had moved to a new city. Time for a fresh start for everyone. At first it was awkward to have such frank and fearless discussions. When you have been in a long-term relationship and it has ended there remains a lot of baggage. We had to deal with that and our new partners were involved every step of the way. It has been a true team effort and none of us could have made it through successfully without the support of the other three. We are also blessed to both have generous, understanding and loving partners, who have embraced H as their child too.
Four years on; Mr J and I are about to have our 3rd wedding anniversary, we have two littlies of our own, my Ex and his partner will marry next year and H enjoys equal time with his two families. I never thought we'd get here. It's certainly not the usual family set-up. Often H has more parental help at school than he knows what to do with. He has 4 parents, 8 sets of grandparents, 5 great -grandparents and countless extended family, so celebrations like Easter, Christmas and Birthdays extend over several weekends. We have co-parenting meetings about rules, and pocket money and special events, we share joint family meals a few times a year and we 'vote' on all big decisions between the 4 of us (H gets the deciding vote if we draw). There is no rule-book for this type of parenting. That's why friends suggested that I share my experience. It's not the norm for divorced parents to salvage a friendship and co-parent this way. It's curly, but we make it work.
My 5 top tips for post-divorce relationships involving children:
1. RESPECT. Respect the other person, their decisions, their desires, their role, their time and their privacy. That also includes their family, friends and future partners.
2. Be Child Focussed. ALWAYS think about what is best for the child. This may not be the same as what is best for you. By putting their needs ahead of both of your needs you will be in a better place. That includes the need for time with both parents and extended family. The need to feel loved and secure. The need to see respectful communication being modelled and so forth.
3. Make Peace. Find a way to make peace with the past. It makes it much easier to live in the present and focus on the future.
4. Create dialogue. You have to find a way to communicate. That doesn't mean making the other person listen or getting your point across at all costs. It means being prepared to be in the conversation, listen actively, be honest and create common ground.
5. Cut everyone some slack. Parenting is hard. Co-Parenting is therefore also hard. Sometimes you just have to cut everyone some slack, including yourself. Remind yourself that this is a tough gig, and then ask yourself and each other "what do we need to do (say/discuss/think about) to get past this next hurdle?"
No comments:
Post a Comment