As a parent, you often have to put aside your feelings and thoughts on certain matters in order to better serve your child’s needs. Even the courts will defer to options that serve your child’s best interest, especially when it comes to custody and visitation.
This means you may want to try out parallel parenting if you currently feel like you cannot get along well enough to move right to cooperative co-parenting options.
Reducing interpersonal friction
Healthline discusses parallel parenting plans that benefit every member of a family. First, it helps reduce friction between you and your co-parent. It does this through the limitation of your communication methods. When you cannot communicate directly with each other, you often lose the volatile atmosphere that leads to arguments and temper explosions.
Parallel parenting restricts your communication so that you can only talk to one another through the written word. This includes handwritten letters, text messages, emails and even indirect correspondence like keeping a journal or log of updates about your child to pass back and forward.
Supporting your child
This also benefits your child, because it provides them with the support of having two active parental units in their life. At the same time, it protects them from the possibility of witnessing their parents arguing. Many children of divorce claim this is one of the most traumatic aspects of the split, so you want to try avoiding it at all costs.
Over time, a judge will reevaluate your case to see if you are ready to move on to other forms of parenting. But right after a divorce, parallel parenting will likely suit your needs well.