Unless your family went through substance abuse, domestic violence or neglect and deprivation, your children will be co-parented both by you and your former spouse. If you will be doing co-parenting for the first time, it will be a major learning curve. It will not be easy, especially that children and divorce do not usually go well together. There would be a lot of changes and adjustments and at the onset, it can be stressful not just for you, but for your kids as well.

Below are some ideas how you can make co-parenting easier for you, your former spouse, and your children.

Plan out custody arrangements.

When it comes to divorce, children and separation are two things that need to be planned out properly. This will prevent major headaches in the future. The sooner you plan out arrangements and establish routines, the less you are going to get stressed later on.

After the divorce is finalized, one of the things that should be given serious thought is who will have the main custody of your children, unless of course, it was already specified in the divorce proceedings or if the court decided on the matter. If you want to have full custody of your children, you may want to seek legal advice from a family law expert to find out how you will go about the matter.

However, if you and your former spouse are able to settle matters amicably outside of court, you can just discuss parenting schedules between you, such as how many days your children will stay with you and the number of days they will stay at your former spouse’s place. Part of the arrangements is where the children will stay during holidays, special occasions, and weekends.

Important Discussions

Apart from the numerous things that need to be discussed regarding children and separation, there are two that need to be discussed thoroughly. These two are the following:

• Medical care needs. After you have agreed on custodial arrangements or if it was already established by the court, the next important thing to discuss is the medical needs of your children.

  For instance, it is important for you to decide who will set up schedules with the doctors, who will pay for the children’s medical insurance, how the medical bills will be divided, and similar other issues. It is important to iron things out after the divorce in order to prevent disagreements in the future.

• Educational aspects. Another important aspect to discuss is the children’s education. Just like children’s medical care needs, it is essential that these be discussed to smoothen children and divorce issues. It is important to settle as to whether the children will remain in their school or need to be transferred to another school.

  It is also equally important to discuss who will pay for the tuition fees and what will be the division of school expenses. It is likewise urgent to settle who will attend parent-teacher conferences and other school affairs and who will receive notices from school. It is important to discuss these things to avoid confusion and also for both parents to know what to do whenever they are contacted by the school.

Provide emotional support.

Children react to divorce differently compared to adults, and the reaction and coping mechanisms from one child to another can also differ. While you, an adult, are grieving over the divorce, your children are also grieving but to what extent, you can never tell.

Because of this, it is important to offer and actually provide emotional, mental, and psychological support to your children. Allow your children to grieve; in fact, let them know it is alright to grieve but you should also show them that there has to be an end to grieving and at some point, they would have to dust themselves off and live their lives once again.

Seek out help and support.

They say you cannot give from an empty cup. This is the reason why it is important to have a support system during and after the divorce process. Call your family and close friends and spend time with them.

You might also want to engage in activities in your neighbourhood, such as fun drives or garage sales or you might also want to go back to an old hobby. If you think you need a therapist or a legal intervention by a family law expert, do not hesitate to do so if it would help keep yourself together.