Make Your Child-Up Parenting Plan Today
When two parents split up, it can oftentimes be a difficult task to negotiate the roles in the children’s lives, and how things will change. Consider our divorce lawyers in Toronto to help you with this task. However, it is crucial that there is meaningful parent involvement from both parents in order to create a positive lifelong relationship with children. This may be achieved through a “child-up parenting plan”, instead of thinking of access to or custody of the children.
This plan assumes that the children would like to have a positive relationship with both of their parents, and that this is what is needed in their lives. It is built on the idea that the emotional health of children is dependent on involvement of both parents. It is important to know what is developmentally necessary at each stage in a child’s life, up until they leave the home as young adults.
Needs that are included in this plan include, but are not limited to the following: religion, education, residence, health, and daily care. This approach takes all of these different areas into account, and looks at the availability and desire of each parent to address these areas over the long term. Counseling or parenting courses may be taken if one or both parents are not knowledgeable in certain areas sufficiently to care for his or her children. It is generally believed that most parents are able to fulfill these needs, and if they are not prepared, they will do what is necessary to become better equipped.
Each parent will have to adapt to different stages in the children’s lives. The child-up parenting plan must be dynamic. This means that it will be flexible enough to allow for changes to be written into it over time. Family lawyers can help you with this process.
In the case of children who are infants, one of the parents may be the one to provide the majority of the daily care. The other parent should be included in some way, by allowing visits and bonding time with the child or children. As children become more social and interested in outside activities, it will be necessary to bring them to sports practices and games, as well as various other extracurricular activities. Parents can make an agreement on who is to provide the transportation to these activities. The shift in parenting duties and time spent with each parent is very natural.
The role that each parent plays will be task-directed, as well as time-directed. One parent can help the child with a certain subject or hobby, while the other can help with something else. Another benefit of having a child-up parenting plan, is that the parents can each be essentially on an equal plane, without one being the nice guy and the other being the disciplinarian. It also means that demands are distributed equally among the parents, thus decreasing their stress.
Positive parental involvement from both parties into their adolescence will lead them to ask for advice and listen to guidance. Peer pressure is far more of a risk for kids who have difficult relationships with their parents. This is where an effective, well thought out parenting plan will benefit everyone involved.