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Basic Principles of Parenting after Separation

4 bytes added, 06:15, 21 September 2022
Parallel parenting
"Parallel parenting" is another way of dealing with parental responsibilities or decision-making responsibilities when the level of conflict between parents is extreme and they rarely agree on any decisions that have to be made about their children. The idea with parallel parenting is that each parent has complete and sole responsibility for making decisions about their children when the children are in their care, so that no discussions, consultations or negotiations between the parents are ever necessary. As you can imagine, there are lots of challenges involved in this model of managing decisions.
First, this approach can make it very difficult to schedule things during the other parent's parenting time. The timing of medical and dental appointments is usually based on the availability of the medical professional rather than the parents' schedule of parenting time. Common activities, like sports, music lessons and art lessons, tend to be scheduled every week and it can be challenging to find activities that match the parents' parenting time. And parent-teacher meetings happen when the school calendar says they happen.
Second, a lot of really important decisions aren't limited to a particular schedule of parenting time. Decisions about children's education, healthcare, diet and religious instruction affect the children no matter whose home they're living at. These handling these decisions requires either that one parent have sole responsibility for the decision, that the parents must consult each other about the decision, or that the decision is given to a judge or an arbitrator to resolve.
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