3. Appreciate the difference you can make alone.

 

You have no control over your co-parent. (That’s why you’re reading this article.)

The good news is that children are helped by having even one parent who gives them a safe sanctuary from a storm.

Parents who pollute their children’s lives with conflict can never really blame each other. Each can give the children the gift of withdrawing from the fight.

Here are a few things you alone can do for your children:

  • Live by the Child Safety Zone Pledge—your promise to keep all conflict away from your children.
  • Write 10 compliments and good memories about your co-parent—and make these kind of comments the theme of everything you say to your children about their other parent.
  • Celebrate things your children get to do with their other parent.
  • At least every other day your children are with you, cheerfully encourage them to call their other parent.
  • Make it easy for your children to love their other parent—whatever your co-parent does, make sure your children always have one sanctuary to live, love, and grow.

    • “If both parents join the parental battle, children lose emotional access to both of them. There is no safe shelter from the storm. But if one parent can exercise restraint and not retaliate destructively, children lose psychological access to the other parent but still have emotional contact with the restrained parent.”

    Helping Children Cope with Divorce, p. 83.

    —Edward Teyber