Parenting Best Practices in Divorce

by | Feb 28, 2021

Parenting and co-parenting in divorce requires some special attention. None of us wants to bring harm to our own children but there are times when the best decision for everyone in the family is a divorce. While divorce presents its own set of issues to be worked through, it can also give each parent the opportunity to build a stronger relationship with their children and teach them about how to deal effectively with life’s difficult times.

Overall, parenting isn’t easy and this holds as true for married couples as it does for divorced ones. Divorce does, though, bring a new set of challenges. TruNorth Divorce has written before on parenting through divorce. In this piece we want to provide a short list of best practices to help divorcing and newly divorced couples navigate the unique issues that parenting as you transition from a single household to two separate ones.

1. Talk to Your Child(ren) About Your Decision to Divorce

Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own emotions that it’s hard to step outside of them and take the time to check in with our children. Talking to your kids about your decision to divorce can create a safe space in which you can help them better understand your choice, and it can provide them with a platform to express difficult emotions.

Divorce impacts the entire household, and it’s not an easy topic to broach when emotions are still raw. Opening a dialog with your children about your divorce in a neutral and calm way and allowing them to ask tough questions and to express their fears will help your children better accept your decision to divorce and work through their feeling about it in a healthy way.

2. Create a Coparenting Plan

How you decide to move forward with parenting after divorce can have a profound impact on family dynamics and your children. To a significant degree, consistency and harmony between their parents is key to children’s mental well-being in the future.

CustodyXChange.com helps parents build sound parenting plans. Per the experts behind CustodyXChange.com, here are some of the reasons why negotiating a parenting plan can benefit your children:

It allows you and the other parent to state your goals for your children

  • It sets up communication habits between you and the other parent
  • It states the legal consequences if one of you don’t keep to the plan
  • It results in a clear visitation schedule you can both refer to
  • It lessens tension between parents and children because the basic daily decisions are already established
  • It forces you to get familiar with divorce and custody laws in your state
  • It often reduces your legal fees when you don’t have it created by a third party

3. Don’t Put Your Children in the Middle

Make a good faith effort to put any hurt feelings aside and shift your attention to what’s best for your children. Establishing some good ground rules can help minimize the impact of your emotions and will help you focus on fostering healthy communication and collaboration. 

Using children as messengers, sharing negative feelings, and venting or speaking negatively about your ex-partner drags them into the middle of things. Any conflict or issues between you and your ex are just that—between you and your ex. Children want a solid relationship with both parents. Keeping these emotions out things will help you turn your attention to your children’s happiness and wellbeing.

4. Keep Lines of Communication Open

Communication is a substantial ingredient in the recipe for successful parenting, and it’s arguably even more important for divorced parents living separately but parenting together. While you are both full-time parents, the time spent with your children is now divided. Operating in silos can leave your coparent in the dark and create conflict—reiterating how important it is for coparents to be on the same page. The only way to ensure that is through open communication.

Discuss issues that crop up with your former spouse and do so as they arise. Don’t just enumerate the problems, fill your co-parent in on the positives too. Communication between households is crucial to maintaining a united parenting front and making sure that both parents are aware of what’s going on in their children’s lives. One resource you may consider to assist with effective communication is Our Family Wizard, an online custody and co-parenting app

There is no greater common ground between two individuals than the well-being of their children and divorce doesn’t change that. Hopefully, these post-divorce parenting practices can help you negotiate the murky waters of post-divorce coparenting. For more resources on all things divorce, explore our blog.

 

 

Five Sure-Fire Ways to Screw Up Your Kids in Divorce

by | Jun 29, 2017

Originally published June 29, 2017. Updated October 2026.

You’re devastated by the end of your marriage. Your children are the most important people in your world, and you want more than anything to protect them from the harmful effects of their parents’ divorce.

But you’re also hurt, disappointed, angry, frightened, or struggling financially. Maybe you were left for someone else. Maybe the divorce caught you completely off guard. Maybe you’re trying to figure out who you are now that you’re no longer part of a couple.

It’s extraordinarily difficult to manage all the emotions and uncertainty of divorce while continuing to be the calm, stable parent your children need. I know. I’ve been through it—as a parent and as a child.

In moments of weakness, fear, or frustration, parents sometimes use their children to lash out at the other parent, gather information, deliver messages, or provide emotional support. They may not even realize they’re doing it. They tell themselves that the children deserve to know the truth—or that the children will eventually recognize who the “good parent” is.

Unfortunately, children rarely experience it that way.

If you want to make divorce as painful as possible for your children, here are five highly effective ways to do it.

1. Trash the other parent

Tell your children exactly whose fault the divorce was. Explain who lied, who cheated, who spent too much money, or who destroyed the family. Make sure your friends, relatives, neighbors, and anyone else who will listen know that you are the victim—and the better parent.

Here’s the problem: Your children love their other parent. They also partly define themselves through that parent. When you repeatedly tell them that their mother or father is selfish, dishonest, irresponsible, or defective, what do you think they hear about themselves?

Your anger may be completely understandable. But your children cannot be the people who help you carry it.

Talk to a therapist, divorce coach, trusted friend, or other adult who can support you. Give your children permission to love both parents without feeling disloyal to either one.

2. Turn your children into messengers, witnesses, or investigators

Ask your child to tell the other parent about a schedule change, an unpaid expense, or a disagreement about school. Question them when they return: Who was there? What did Mom drink? Where did Dad go? What time did they come home?

Better yet, ask them to write things down, save text messages, take pictures, or report whenever the other parent breaks a rule.

This puts children squarely in the middle of an adult conflict. They begin to feel responsible for protecting one parent from the other. They may become anxious about what to disclose, what to conceal, and whether an innocent comment will ignite another fight.

Children should never be asked to monitor the other parent or gather evidence for a divorce or custody dispute.

Parents need an adult communication system. Use email, a co-parenting application, mediation, or another structured process. If your child independently reports a serious concern, listen calmly and address it through the appropriate adult channels. Don’t turn your child into your informant.

3. Interfere with their relationship with the other parent

The other parent broke up the family, so why should they get happy weekends, holidays, vacations, and uninterrupted time with the children?

Limit phone calls. Schedule competing activities. Arrive late for exchanges. Make the children feel guilty for having fun. Tell them how lonely you’ll be while they’re gone.

Unless there is a genuine concern involving abuse, neglect, addiction, or another threat to a child’s safety, children benefit from having meaningful relationships with both parents. Protecting that relationship—even when you are angry with the other parent—is one of the most loving things you can do.

This does not mean ignoring legitimate safety concerns. Those should be taken seriously and addressed with an attorney, therapist, mediator, child specialist, or the appropriate authorities. But ordinary resentment between adults should not be disguised as protection of the children.

Your children should not have to choose between loving their other parent and loving you.

4. Turn your child into your partner, confidant, or caretaker

You’re overwhelmed, and your mature child genuinely wants to help. At first, it may seem harmless. They take on more chores, watch their younger siblings, listen while you talk about money, or stay home because they’re worried about leaving you alone.

Age-appropriate chores and responsibilities are healthy. Turning a child into a substitute spouse, emotional caretaker, or household adult is not.

Children who feel responsible for a parent’s emotional or practical survival often learn to suppress their own needs. They may become exceptionally responsible and capable—but at a cost. Instead of focusing on friends, school, sports, and their own development, they are managing the household or worrying about whether Mom or Dad is okay.

Your child may be compassionate, mature, and eager to help. That does not mean the responsibility belongs to them.

Let your children contribute to family life, but do not ask them to carry an adult’s emotional burden. Find adult support so your children remain free to be children.

5. Forget to tell them what they most need to hear

Children often believe, however irrationally, that they caused the divorce.

Maybe they misbehaved too much. Maybe they cost too much money. Maybe Mom and Dad fought about them. Maybe if they are especially good—or create the right emergency—their parents will reunite.

Do not assume your children know the divorce is not their fault. Tell them. Then tell them again.

Tell them:

  • This is an adult decision.
  • You did not cause it.
  • You cannot fix it.
  • Both of your parents love you.
  • You are allowed to love both of us.
  • You will continue to be cared for.
  • We will always be your family, even though our family will look different.

Children need reassurance not just once, but repeatedly as they adjust and as their understanding of the divorce changes with age.

Your children should not pay the emotional price of your divorce

Yes, you may be furious. You may have excellent reasons to feel betrayed, frightened, or resentful. But your children love their other parent and partly understand themselves through that relationship.

Do you really want them to believe that half of who they are is bad?

High-conflict divorce can leave lasting marks on children, but serious harm is not inevitable. Children are remarkably resilient when the adults around them provide stability, keep them out of adult disputes, protect their important relationships, and remind them that they are safe, loved, and not responsible for what happened.

Find an adult outlet for your anger, grief, fear, and loneliness. Work with a therapist, divorce coach, mediator, or other professional who understands divorce transition and co-parenting.

Being a good parent during divorce does not require you to be perfectly calm or never make a mistake. It requires you to recognize when your pain is spilling onto your children—and to do something about it.

Your children do not need a perfect parent.

They need you to be the adult.