3. “I just found out, tonight's game starts an hour early.”
“Jessica needs to see the doctor next week.”

We can’t say this often enough:

Keep your co-parent informed.

Whatever your custody label, you and your co-parent are a partnership in carrying out the most important job in your lives: giving your children a safe place to live their one and only childhood.

Co-parenting is not a guessing game.

Over the years your children will give you enough to guess about. Team up with your co-parent, trade information, and give your children what other kids have—the chance to succeed.

Show Extra Tip
  • While all parents should share information and cooperate in raising their children, this is actually what is meant by joint legal custody.
  • It’s amazing to see the number of parents who agree to “joint legal custody” and then proceed to withhold information from each other or make unilateral decisions. We’ve seen parents with joint legal custody enroll children in a full summer of extracurricular activities, even take children to counselors, all without the other parent’s agreement or knowledge. Such short-sightedness is a prescription for disaster. Joint legal custody is becoming more and more common, and some observers think it should be the presumed arrangement for divorced parents. If so, it’s critical that parents understand what it means: that the parents share information, consult, and make together the important decisions in their children’s lives. When it comes to such matters as the children’s medical care, counseling, religion, and education, the parents will be making decisions jointly and by agreement, the same as if they were still married.
  • Don’t sabotage this promising arrangement by withholding information or excluding your co-parent from decision-making. If necessary reach out for counseling to make your joint legal custody work.