Arizona parents who are not a couple but will be co-parenting their children might at first struggle with making it work smoothly, healthily and productively. However, there are many ways they can reflect and see if their co-parenting relationship is working well.
One way to measure how productively the co-parenting relationship is going is by looking at the communication between the parents. Parents who can talk openly about their children is a good indicator that things are going well. Agreeing in the important things related to raising children, such as decisions involving the children’s healthcare, education, discipline and religious upbringing, can be sign that things are going well.
Another way parents can tell if they are successfully co-parenting their children is through the children’s perception of how their parents get along. If the children believe that their parents get along, then parents can feel like they are co-parenting well. This also involves respecting the boundaries set by each parent, encouraging the relationship of the children with the other parent and offering flexibility when needed, even if it strays from the parenting plan. Successful co-parents also speak with each other before they need to introduce changes into children’s routines and depend on each other when emergency child care might be needed. For many people, a detailed parenting plan that covers all these areas is a valuable tool as is a concrete schedule that highlights the children’s routines.
Getting to the point of productive co-parenting is not always easy, but it can be done. Arizona residents who find themselves in a situation that will lead to co-parenting might seek the assistance of a lawyer with family law experience. The lawyer may help them design a parenting plan that is beneficial to all involved and that will help the parents successfully bring up their children together.