How To Be a Great Parent During a Divorce

Parenting after a divorce is rarely simple, but it’s essential to remember who’s most important in all of this: your children. Read this list of ways to be a great parent during a divorce to ensure that your child gets the love, security, and stability they need during this difficult time.

Work With Your Ex

Communication with your former spouse is the key to good post-divorce parenting. Depending on how you left things during the divorce, this may require you to set a business-like tone with your ex—keep everything professional and about your kids.

Establish solid communication habits about things like doctor’s visits, academic performance, and major life events. That way, neither parent has to feel like they’re missing important moments, even if they’re parenting from afar.

Don’t Put Your Kids in the Middle

Your children don’t need to know all the details of your break-up, even if you harbor tons of well-deserved resentment. Do your best to keep conflicts with your ex between you and your ex, and avoid involving your children. Never use your children to send messages to your former spouse, as it puts them right in the center of your conflict and creates an uncomfortable atmosphere for them.

Make Visitation Easier

Transitioning from one parent to the other comes with many emotions for a child—while it’s a reunion with one parent, it’s a separation from the other. Help your kids with these transitions by making sure they remember when visitation days are coming and encouraging them to pack some reminders of the parent or home they’re leaving.

Long-Distance Parenting

Many divorces end with one parent moving away, which leads to a trickier parenting situation. Thankfully, there are many ways to create a workable long-distance parenting plan. The key is in establishing a travel plan, including a breakdown of the travel expenses—talk with your ex about sharing these costs so that one spouse isn’t on the hook for them all the time.

Now that you know how to be a great parent during a divorce, you can set your kids up for a successful and loving life.