Your Parenting Plan: The Coparenting Continuum

Parenting after divorce is full of challenges. Beyond adjusting to your new life, you’re also adjusting to new ways of interacting with your child’s other parent — and it’s not always easy.

No matter how well you and your ex get along, especially in the early stages following divorce, coparenting is new and therefore hard. If you’re in a situation where your ex is hostile or even abusive, it can be objectively awful.

Fortunately, coparenting exists on a continuum, with parallel parenting at one end and cooperative parenting at the other. Finding the right balance between the two will help you be your best self, so you can focus on supporting your child through this transition. Trial and error is typical, so be patient with yourself.

The coparenting continuum

We all worry about how our children will adjust to their lives post-divorce. We hope they’ll feel secure, supported, and open with their feelings. And while there are no guarantees in life, we can certainly bolster their chances. 

“One of the most impactful things we can do is demonstrate healthy conflict with their other parent. 

And if we can’t do that (because it’s not always possible), we need to reduce their exposure to unhealthy conflict. 

The coparenting continuum can help. 

The coparenting continuum recognizes that conflict is often unavoidable, and as such, it will be the biggest indicator of which coparenting style you and your ex-partner lean toward. 

On the one end is parallel parenting. That is, parenting with minimal contact (and therefore minimal opportunity for high-conflict situations to occur). On the other end is cooperative parenting. That is, parenting with more contact and collaboration. 

Of course, most people will exist somewhere between these two extremes, able to cooperatively parent on some issues but unable to on others. It’s also typical to shift locations on the continuum over time. Ideally that looks like moving toward the cooperative-parenting end, but in reality it might resemble the adage of “two steps forward and one step back.”

Parallel vs. cooperative parenting

So which parenting approach is best for you, and how do you determine that? Let’s compare.