Parents, you and your co-parent are going to be in your children’s lives for the rest of your life. If you want the best for your children, then you will want to find calm, respectful, polite ways to communicate to your co-parent. Your children want that from you. Your children will benefit from observing you interacting with their other parent with calm, grace, and respect. An added benefit is that your children will also learn these effective communication skills from watching you; and believe me, they are watching! They are watching and learning about how to respect others (or not), communicate clearly and with kindness (or not), and get along (or not). Remember that you could someday be on the receiving end of what they learn by observing your communication.

Your children have a better chance of adjusting well during and after divorce when you and your coparent minimize conflicts and keep your children out of the middle and out of loyalty binds. Following these communication do’s and don’ts can help you minimize conflicts and serve your children’s interests well.

DO:

  • Keep your feelings in check. Pause and breathe before saying anything. Wait to reply to email or text until you have calmed down. Draft something, walk away, return to edit before sending. Resist being reactive to your feelings in the moment. Wait until you can be calm. All communication needs to be calm, respectful, and business-like.  If it’s not, edit.
  • Keep the topic focused on your shared child and their needs. Share relevant information about your child’s health, education, social, and behavioral topics. Resist engaging in talk about the other parent or the past. Remain solution-focused and positive.
  • Respond to your co-parent in a timely manner. If you are unable to reply within 48 hours, indicate when you will be able to reply.
  • Be a good listener. Show interest, summarize what you heard, offer acknowledgment of feelings or understanding of your co-parent’s point of view.
  • Use “I” statements rather than “you’ statements. When you talk about yourself  and your requests or proposals, you reduce the potential for defensiveness. “You” statements encourage defensiveness and can add to conflict.
  • Begin with agreement. Identify any places where you agree or share common ground. Offer proposals to resolve the issue that take into account your co-parent’s concerns, ideas, or view point.
  • Make polite requests. Use please and thank you generously.

DON’T

  • Say negative things about your co-parent to or in front of your child. This will back-fire!  Kids hate it when parents do this.
  • Use your child as a messenger to relay messages to the other parent. This puts kids in the middle. You are the parent and need to communicate directly to your co-parent. Kids hate being messengers between their parents.
  • Use sarcasm, condescension, criticism, or righteous indignation. These communication styles create conflict. Be aware of your tone, both in your voice and in your written communication.
  • Blame the other parent. Blame creates defensiveness, counter-blaming, or a tendency to avoid responding. None of these leads anywhere useful.
  • Use any form of name calling, curse words, negative labeling, all-nothing or judging language such as “always”, “never”, “should”, “but”, “wrong”.
  • Interrupt. If you are interrupting, you are not listening.
  • Make demands or demanding statements. If your communication has “you need to” or some version of this in it, re-think or re-write how you can make a request instead. People don’t respond well to being told what to do. You are likely to met with resistance.

Pay attention to these do’s and don’ts when communicating with your co-parent. In fact, save these tips and use them to edit your written communications. These tips will help you keep conflict low and that is good for your children’s post-divorce adjustment.