Whether you are facing your first Christmas after separation, or your tenth, the holidays can be a particularly tricky time when navigating co-parenting arrangements.
Following are some tips to help make your holiday season a little more peaceful:
Master your communication
The extra Christmas events and school holiday arrangements often require more communication and negotiation than usual with your co-parent. If you have a high-conflict co-parenting situation, this can be extremely stressful. To protect the children from conflict and take care of your own mental health, we recommend that all communication with your co-parent follows a few simple principles:
- Put it in writing wherever possible. Written communication helps you to edit your messages before you send them and minimises emotional escalation. In fact, we recommend sleeping on it before hitting the send button! Written communication also gives you a record of agreements made that you can refer back to, which can save unnecessary communication and further conflict.
- Be brief. Be clear on why you are writing and what you are hoping to achieve, and only say what needs to be said for that purpose. This will help your communication to be clear and leads us to our next point.
- Stick to the facts. It can be tempting to include long justifications and explanations, but these tend to compromise clarity and increase conflict. The goal in communicating with your co-parent is to seek agreement to arrangements for the children, not to receive validation of your feelings and preferences – take that to your friends, family and therapist.
- We encourage you to read and re-read your messages before you send them and remove any references to emotion, judgements, accusations and interpretations. This can be hard but try to keep the end in mind – positive arrangements for the children and minimised conflict.
- Be respectful. Aim for a ‘friendly professional’ tone.
- Be reasonable. Are you treating your co-parent how you would like to be treated? Are you respecting their contribution and autonomy as a parent? Is this about the best interests of the children, or about winning? If you’re asking for flexibility or additional help, is there something you can also offer in return?
Focus on your home, not theirs
This is a time of year when we can fall into the temptation to compare ourselves and compete with the other home. Are they spending more on presents, or are they going on exciting holidays? Instead of getting caught up in competition, we encourage you to put that mental energy into being present with your children and fostering a peaceful and joyful vibe in your own home. At the end of the day, the children will remember how they felt in your home, not the presents they received.
Take care of yourself
One of the hardest parts of co-parenting can be sending your little ones off to share special celebrations with the other parent. If you know that you will be without the children over certain periods this holiday season, we encourage you to make some plans that you can look forward to in those times. This can be an opportunity to re-connect with friends and relatives, and to re-connect with yourself outside of your role as a parent. There is no need to feel guilty – a rested and refreshed parent has more capacity to shower love and attention on their children when they are together.
In those times that you are feeling down, we encourage you to keep your conversations with the children light-hearted and positive. The children are not responsible for the co-parenting dynamic and should not be made responsible for our feelings about it as parents. If you need extra support over the holiday period, we encourage you to reach out to a friend or therapist, or connect with a free mental health service such as Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
If you are struggling to reach an agreement with your ex-partner on parenting arrangements, we can help. Contact us for a free initial consultation by calling 07 5609 4933 or book an appointment online by clicking here.
