Shared Parenting Raising Your Child Cooperatively After Separation

by Burrett, Jill; Green, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781587613463
• ISBN10: 1587613468
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780307808158
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-04
• Publisher: Celestial Arts

Summary

Few changes in life are as emotionally taxing for families as separation. In this practical book, two experts provide straightforward advice to parents facing this situation who wish to pursue the shared parenting approach. Drawing on their extensive experience and research, the authors emphasize the importance of children having significant time with both parents, allowing them to maintain meaningful relationships. By presenting the benefits and challenges, debunking the myths, giving practical tips on communication between the two households, and providing concrete tools to aid in creating parenting plans, this book steers parents past their personal feelings toward a successful resolution that is in everyone's best interest. Book jacket.

Author Biography

JILL BURRETT is a psychologist with more than 30 years of experience helping parents manage challenging family changes. She is the author of Parenting After Separation.

MICHAEL GREEN is a lawyer who runs a private mediation practice specializing in family conferencing, life skills programs, and dispute resolution. He is the author of Fathers After Divorce.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vii
Personal reflections	p. 1
Parenting after separation	p. 7
Benefits and challenges	p. 15
Popular myths	p. 30
Some its and buts	p. 42
Sorting out your motives	p. 53
Considering children's choices	p. 67
Working out a timetable	p. 76
Designing a parenting plan	p. 85
Sample parenting plans	p. 94
Communicating between households	p. 113
Authors' notes	p. 125
Acknowledgments	p. 137
Helpful resources	p. 139
Index	p. 141
About the authors	p. 145
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Chapter One

Parenting after separation
Separation always disrupts the familiar patterns of family life. Routines and responsibilities that have established themselves as the family grew and developed have to be renegotiated. How your family operated probably came about without a lot of proac­tive planning. It’s unlikely that either of you parents worried too much, especially in happier times, about who did what and how much actual time you each spent doing the hands-on stuff of day-to-day family life, even though sometimes one of you might have felt unfairly overloaded or unsupported!

It was the biggest emotional upheaval of my life. There are so many clichés about breakups being bad, damaging, and bitter, although ours wasn’t. It was just the sheer sadness and disappointment that things didn’t work out how we’d planned, which at times I found overwhelming, that was the hardest part to deal with while trying to be positive about the future for the kids. –Naomi


Why families work well
Even though today’s breakup rates seem to seriously suggest that something about committed partnerships isn’t working, traditional family life does work for children, if not always for parents. It has its own built-in efficiencies, which are useful, even if whatever might be happening between Mom and Dad isn’t too good. Children can see both of the most important people in their lives (you two!) every day. Busy parents can feel in touch and connected with everyone on very little time. One parent covers the lion’s share of the domestic minutiae of lunch boxes and spelling lists, and gets increasingly efficient at it. The other spends more time at work away from home (and becomes increasingly efficient at it), and spends more time with the family on weekends. Each parent takes on areas of responsibility that fit his or her skills, availability, and interests, and a natural divi­sion with commonsense delegation of domestic activities develops. Your adult partnership needs are met at home with your children’s other parent. Whatever partnership frustrations and disappoint­ments you are struggling with, the family you have created is the only one your children know and is what they depend on totally for their security. It’s an effective and uncomplicated arrangement for your kids that meets their growing needs even if it doesn’t always work for you.


Why separating means facing big changes
Because you’re living separately in two different homes, everything changes. There’s no overlapping. When you’re on duty, you have to be able to meet all the kids’ needs, and at the same time find a way to have a life for yourself outside of the parenting arena. You have to adjust to a system of parenting in shifts, in which you are completely on or off. You may have to go for days without seeing your kids, and you might not have bargained on making that adjustment until they were much older. You might have blended your working life during the week with brief family interactions in the mornings and evenings, with the really fun stuff on weekends and on family vaca­tions. But separation puts an end to this. You might have expected your hands-on weekday routine to last for years to come, and your future was already set. Now the kids are off to their other home for parts of the week, leaving you feeling stranded and unsettled.

At the beginning, I really missed my son when he went to his father’s home. I felt cheated of my motherhood, restless, and unsettled when he wasn’t around me. I cried a lot. But gradually it all fell into place. –Jane

Staying in a relationship that isn’t working because you’re dread­ing being an out-of-touch, occasional parent is about as unsatisfac­tory as staying in one because you’re

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Excerpted from Shared Parenting: Raising Your Children Cooperatively after Separation by Jill Burrett, Michael Green, Jill F. Burrett
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.