Children are often heavily impacted by a divorce. That is why it is critical to ensure you and your former spouse create healthy boundaries when co-parenting. Continue reading to learn more about the dos and don’ts of child custody and reach out to our skilled Monmouth County child custody attorneys.
What are the don’ts?
It is important to understand the actions to avoid when co-parenting with your former spouse. They include the following:
- Hurting your child’s relationship with your former spouse.
- Permitting your child to speak poorly about the other parent.
- Using your child as a means to get back at or harm your former spouse.
- Using your child to receive information or to manipulate and/or control your former spouse.
- Transfering hurt feelings and/or frustrations toward your former spouse onto your child.
- Forcing your child to choose a side when there is a dispute with scheduling.
- Turning the strain on your child.
- Depending too much on your child for friendship or support because you are going through a divorce.
- Become so emotionally dependent that your child starts to feel guilty if they put time into connections with others. You would not want to find out they turned down social outings because they were afraid you would be unable of having alone time.
What are the dos?
You will also want to understand the many dos or helpful ways that you can encourage a healthy co-parenting relationship. You can do this by establishing boundaries, like:
- Create an affirmative plan that puts aside differences you may have. The focus should be on fulfilling the needs of the children you are co-parenting.
- Arrange how you will manage visitation, holidays, and events.
- Create behavioral approaches for raising your children that you will each follow. It is important to understand that you will want your children to have consistency in their lives, no matter which parent they are with. This includes bedtimes, phone privileges, etc.
- Keep in mind that a child will generally test a situation and abuse boundaries. Be prepared and stay strong.
- Set the positions of extended family members.
- Create lines of open communication about all elements of your child’s development. This involves being able to compare notes on a situation before selecting a punishment.
- Even though it can be emotionally challenging, you and your co-parent need to choose to keep each other informed about changes in your life circumstances. The child should never be your immediate source of information.
- Commit yourself to have emotional integrity.
CONTACT OUR EXPERIENCED NEW JERSEY FIRM
If you require strong legal representation for matters of divorce and family law in Rumson, Monmouth County, or anywhere in New Jersey, contact The Law Offices of Paone, Zaleski & Murphy to schedule a consultation with one of our experienced attorneys today.