How to Successfully Co-parent During the Holidays
The holidays can be one of the most challenging times for co-parents. Trying to navigate both of your schedules, family visits, traditions, and expectations while prioritizing your children's happiness is a lot to deal with. You want to create positive holiday memories for your children, not make them feel worried or anxious that their parents may fight. As long as you have your children’s best interests in mind, plan ahead, and are flexible if schedules change, will help make co-parenting during the holidays so much easier. Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning your children’s schedules this holiday season so they can spend time with both parents, family, and friends.
Review Your Parenting Plan
If you have a custody agreement or parenting plan in place, this will be the most important thing to review. It may already outline how holidays are to be divided. Some common custody agreements are that kids will be with one parent on Christmas Day and one parent on Christmas Eve, or parents rotate who will get Thanksgiving and Christmas each year. If both parents are open to new ways to co-parent on holidays, you may create new traditions that work better for your current family unit.
Create a Holiday Schedule
If there isn’t a set custody agreement in place for holidays, a schedule will be one of the best ways to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure each parent gets a fair amount of time with the children. It helps both parents and the children know where everyone should be at what times.
Prepare Your Children for Transitions
Help your children feel secure by explaining the schedule to them in an age-appropriate way. Let them know when they will be with each parent and what they can look forward to at each home. If you’re being positive about what’s happening, this will help them feel more comfortable and excited.
Gift-Giving
Don’t turn gift-giving into a competition with your ex. To help mitigate this, it could be helpful to set spending limits or coordinate on big-ticket items so you don’t focus on getting your children the best gift so you aren’t trying to outdo the other parent.
Have a Backup Plan
Kids get sick, flights get delayed, and unexpected emergencies happen. Having a backup plan can ease stress and prevent conflicts when your original schedule doesn’t go as expected.
Keep the Focus on the Kids
If a disagreement arises, take a step back and ask yourself: "What is in the children’s best interest and what will be the least disruptive to their holiday schedule." Asking and reflecting on this will allow you to focus less on your own feelings and on your child’s well-being. As long as your child is happy and loved, that’s the most important thing.
Focus on What You Can Control
You can't control how your ex celebrates, if your kids are eating the right foods, or what they’re doing when they are with your ex. If you are focused on micromanaging every aspect of their time during the holidays, this will most likely create conflict that affects your kids.
Manage Your Emotions
The holidays can trigger grief, loneliness, or resentment about how your family has changed and what you had envisioned for your life, is not what it once was. These are all valid and completely normal feelings. It’s important to work on processing these feelings so they don’t fester and cause issues in your life. Seeing a therapist or talking with close family and friends can help give you an outside perspective and ways to cope not seeing your kids for all of the holidays. Even if you're struggling with co-parenting during the holidays, it’s important to be positive when they leave to spend time with your ex, and be interested in what they did and the presents they received when they return.
Don’t forget to take care of yourself. It’s easy to try and take care of everyone so you don’t have to address any emotions you might be feeling, but self-care, both physically and emotionally will help you be a good co-parent for your children. With the holiday season almost here, emotions could be starting to come up about how you will co-parent, so it could be helpful to speak with a therapist that is an experienced co-parent counselor. At GWW, we offer a free 15-minute consultation to discuss what your needs and concerns are. Holidays can be hard for anyone, whether they’re co-parenting or not, and having someone to help guide you through a potentially very stressful time and difficult time to give you coping strategies so you can be present when you have your kids and feel less anxious when you don’t.
Christine Grounds, LCSW
Christine Grounds is a therapist in NYC and the founder of Grounded Women’s Wellness. She specializes in working with women ages 20-50 who are navigating transitions in work, relationships and parenthood. She also has extensive experience working with new parents and parents of children with special needs.
