If you are divorced [Divorced parenting], then shared parenting plays a positive role in your children’s lives.
This helps your children to choose with whom they what to live after the break down of the family.
It is the great responsibility of the parents to take care of their children.
The shared parenting helps your children to maintain and build up relationship with both the parents.
Some advantages of shared parenting:
- It ensures the continuation with the family for your child.
- It makes your child to feel that they have two parents, even if they live in different places.
- It ensures that not only one parent is burdened with the responsibility of your child.
- Children will do better under shared parenting than living with one parent.
Designing the plan for parenting:
You have to consider your own situations before planning for your family. For the individualized plan, you have to develop the frame work by the family assessment set that will help you.
The relationships will be more complicated, when you are living in separate homes. Raising the children will be difficult for you. One parent may disagree about the time spent for the child with the other.
This will help you before planning time-sharing arrangements:
- Daily schedule of each child.
- Each parent should be available as a caregiver.
- The temperament, social adjustment and age of each child.
- The relationship between extended family members and the siblings.
- The needs of your children (medical, educational, social, emotional or developmental).
- The cooperation and communication of the parents with each other.
- The care giving skills like bathing, changing and feeding of young children, preparing your child for school or day care, helping in home work, attending and assessing to each child and special emotional and social needs should be learnt by each parent.
If you are not active prior to separation, you can wish to involve afterwards. The changes can be made to the schedule, if you strengthen the bond between you and your child.
You should be specific about some things during parenting plan:
- Who will pick up and drop your child?
- At what time vacations and holidays begin or end?
- When the child is sick and cannot go to the school, who is responsible to look after him?
- For dental and medical appointments, who is responsible?
- Who will buy the birthday gifts to which your child will be invited?
- For your child’s birthday celebrations, how will you share the responsibilities?
- In the absence of one parent during their schedule time, will the other one be offered the responsibility of the child?
Co-parenting may be challenging after separation and it will not be so easy to put your child’s needs. If you follow these things, you will avoid the conflicts in the future.
The relationship between you and your children can be improved by shared parenting plans.
