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Difference between revisions of "Parenting Apart"
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The | The section is all about putting your children first. It provides a brief introduction to parenting after separation and look at different types of parenting issues, including parenting schedules and parenting plans. A selection of related parenting resources and reading materials is also provided. | ||
While the other sections in this chapter discuss the legal issues involved in determining how children will be cared for after a couple separate, they do not talk about the non-legal issues: what it means to parent after separation, how separation affects children, and how parents talk to their children about their separation. | |||
==Introduction== | ==Introduction== | ||
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If you've got children and you've separated from your partner, you'll find you've got three enormous problems to deal with. First, you've got to get a grip on all the emotional baggage that comes along with the end of a relationship. Second, you've got a pile of legal issues you have to sort through. Finally, but most importantly, you have to develop a strategy for parenting your children after the relationship ends. | If you've got children and you've separated from your partner, you'll find you've got three enormous problems to deal with. First, you've got to get a grip on all the emotional baggage that comes along with the end of a relationship. Second, you've got a pile of legal issues you have to sort through. Finally, but most importantly, you have to develop a strategy for parenting your children after the relationship ends. | ||
No matter how pressing the first two issues are, you must remember that the post-separation parenting of your children must take priority over everything else. If you think the end of your relationship is difficult for you, imagine how confusing and unsettling it must be for your children. Their needs and best interests must come ahead of your own, and those of your partner | No matter how pressing the first two issues are, you must remember that the post-separation parenting of your children must take priority over everything else. If you think the end of your relationship is difficult for you, imagine how confusing and unsettling it must be for your children. Their needs and best interests must come ahead of your own, and those of your partner. This is certainly the view that the court will take. | ||
You will have found that during your relationship, issues involving the care of your children just sort of worked themselves out, perhaps smoothly, perhaps not. In general, you will have developed a routine, a routine that you and your partner were comfy with and one that your children had become accustomed to. | You will have found that during your relationship, issues involving the care of your children just sort of worked themselves out, perhaps smoothly, perhaps not. In general, you will have developed a routine, a routine that you and your partner were comfy with and one that your children had become accustomed to. | ||
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After separation, that routine isn't possible anymore, especially if you and your partner are living in separate homes. Suddenly, the children can no longer rely on both parents being around the house, on the schedules each parent used to keep, or on all the little things like the bedtime story from a particular parent, the special breakfast, playing catch after school with the other parent and so forth. On top of all that change and uncertainty, the children will be fully aware that something isn't right between their parents, even if they don't quite grasp exactly what's going on. | After separation, that routine isn't possible anymore, especially if you and your partner are living in separate homes. Suddenly, the children can no longer rely on both parents being around the house, on the schedules each parent used to keep, or on all the little things like the bedtime story from a particular parent, the special breakfast, playing catch after school with the other parent and so forth. On top of all that change and uncertainty, the children will be fully aware that something isn't right between their parents, even if they don't quite grasp exactly what's going on. | ||
This is all a little preachy, but the fact is that no matter how adults are able to intellectually rationalize the consequences of the end of their relationship, children can't. The job of the parents, regardless of their own emotional and legal entanglements, is to protect their children from their dispute as much as possible, and to develop a parenting regime | This is all a little preachy, but the fact is that no matter how adults are able to intellectually rationalize the consequences of the end of their relationship, children can't. The job of the parents, regardless of their own emotional and legal entanglements, is to protect their children from their dispute as much as possible, and to develop a parenting regime that will maximize their respective involvement in the children's lives. | ||
===Language=== | ===Language=== | ||
