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I've been in your shoes. Continuing to have open communication with your ex is so important for creating a harmonious environment for your child. Best of luck, and hang in there.
Consider a shared calendar for routines.
Parallel parenting sounds worlds better than co-parenting. My ex is constantly asking for adjustments to our parenting schedule and it's making things far more hectic than they should be. Navigating all of this is hard enough when the schedule is predictable. Aside from trying to stick with the schedule as much as possible, I haven't done much to ensure consistency between houses.
I don’t really understand I guess, whole article seems like it was written by a company to keep their employees on track. Work is a necessary evil, and at higher levels, gets that much more demanding. I feel like the situation is hard enough on everyone, so if you have something that works, stick with it.
OP I am not going to lie to you, it is really hard. One of the reasons we didn't last to begin with was because we have very different parenting styles. So while we really do try to create consistent routines we are still two very different people with two different households.
I’m not sure I get the point of this article (though to be fair, the pop ups made it difficult for me to read the second half). It’s easier when each parent does what they are supposed to do regarding the kids? Uh…no kidding. And water is wet.
I guess (?) my ex and I did “parallel parenting” because we were each responsible for everything on our days.
OP - I think it gets easier when the kids are a little older and their activities dictate much of their schedule. When my kids were really involved in sports after school, there wasn’t much to disagree with - they had to be at practice and games at certain times, regardless of which house they were staying at that day. He was responsible for getting them to their stuff on his days and I was responsible on my days.
I know some ex couples are strict about it, so if you can’t do whatever you need to do for the kids on that day, it’s your responsibility to find a workaround that doesn’t include the other parent. I specifically did NOT do that and had right of first refusal before my ex could call anyone else because I wanted as much time with the kids as I could get (we had 50/50 custody). But - that meant I shifted my schedule from time to time to accommodate his schedule changes (he did the same for me when I started traveling again).
As a child of divorced parents, I ended up happy and well-adjusted. Here are are a few things that my parents did that made me so grateful:
1. My parents always spoke highly of one another, and each other’s new spouses. As a result, I grew up always feeling safe and extra loved. Is that a thing, extra loved? I think it is. It oozed out of all 4 of my parents.
2. All of my parents and grandparents came to school functions and sat together. It was awesome! My siblings and me had a huge rooting section at sporting events, choir/band concerts, graduations…even parent/teacher meetings…all 4 of them came at the same time.
3. I still remember Wednesday evenings as parent pow wow nights, when my mom and dad at home would get on a phone call with my dad and oma (our nickname for “other mom”) to catch up on the week’s happenings.
4. Rules were the same at both houses. If we were put on restriction at home, it carried over to our dad and oma’s house and vice versa. Bedtimes were the same. Chores were the same. We had a few more Disneyland-type days with our dad and oma, but we knew it was because we spent fewer days with them.
5. We had clothes at each house. No packing. Just a backpack with school stuff. It was kind of cool because we had different toys and books to play with when we went to our dad’s house.
6. We never used the words stepchild or stepparent in our family.
I really can’t stress number 1 enough. While growing up, I never knew why my birth parents divorced. They married young and divorced when I was 2. A relative told me later in life about my dad’s faults during the marriage and beyond. I’m sure it was very difficult for my mom, but she NEVER once, not even in my adulthood, spoke negatively about her ex, my dad. I love her so much for that, and unconditionally love my dad. They did it right.