Co-Parenting WELL (in Intact Families)

"You heard your mother!" is what qualifies perhaps in many families as positive or supportive co-parenting. "Don't come to me because you didn't like what your father told you" represents a similar comment that many a child may also hear as one parent supports the position articulated by their partner. Even though the last thing I want to convey is that these kinds of co-parenting practices are inherently problematic--because there are all-too-many truly bad ones, the subject of my next blog--I do want to assert that they are fundamentally limited. Nevertheless, they do reflect the essence of positive co-parenting, namely, parents presenting a united front when it comes to raising their children, the focus of this blog.

Before proceeding to discuss ways to co-parent well, even skillfully, it needs to be made clear that this united-equals-positive equation should not be taken too literally or to extremes. Not only are parents individuals who will not always be on the same exact page, but being united should not be considered in the best interests of children and families if the parenting that parents agree on is itself questionable, to say nothing of abusive, neglectful, etc.

The game of curling, which most of us have little understanding of, to say nothing of interest in, represents to me a nice metaphor for co-parenting enacted at the highest level. Curling is a Scottish game played on ice in which a reasonably heavy weight with a flat bottom and a handle on top

is "thrown" by one player toward a precise target some distance away; think bowling except that there are no pins to knock down, no alley with gutters to constrain the weight's movement and the thing that is throw is neither round nor dropped as a bowling ball is. Hopefully you've got the idea. What makes curling interesting to me from a co-parenting perspective is what the other players do if they judge the speed of the weight that has been thrown by the first player to be moving too quickly or too slowly relative to the precise target which teammates desire the weight to reach: They use a broom of sorts to sweep the ice in front of the weight as it moves toward the target.

If the weight is judged to be moving too fast and likely to over-shoot the target, the sweepers sweep across the ice, exactly perpendicular to the direction of the movement of the weight and immediately in front of it. This creates (very shallow) channels in the ice that generate friction when the weight crosses them, thereby slowing the weight, reducing its speed and likelihood of over-shooting the target. But if the weight is judged to be moving too slowly or slowing down too much so that it is likely to stop short of the target, the sweeper sweeps the ice in front of the weight in exactly the same direction that it is travelling. This has just the opposite effect of sweeping crossways; it reduces friction between the ice and the weight, thereby increasing its speedy and thus the energy available (from the original throw) to move the weight along. Because judgements of when to sweep, how much to sweep and with what vigor to sweep are fallible, the players in the sweeping roles can sweep in various ways as the weight moves along and is judged to be moving too fast or too slow relative to its current position at any particular moment. In other words, the sweepers do not just get a single chance to speed up or slow down the weight's velocity; indeed, if they have induced too much speed there will be a need to slow the weight down.

Returning to the topic at hand--co-parenting well--the thrower is, metaphorically, one parent dealing with the child and the sweeper is the other parent. It is the sweeper-parent's job to aid and abet the goal set for the child by the thrower parent. Now consider a situation that often arises in lots of families. One parent tells the child that it is time for bed or time for a bath or time to do something. What does the other parent do? Well sometimes doing nothing is not a bad choice, co-parenting-wise, especially if co-operation seems to be forthcoming from the child. Moreover, simply repeating a parenting directive stipulated by one's partner can actually undermine that parent's authority--rather than supporting it--if it conveys a sense that "you only need to do what mother (or father) says when I also say it." It would be a mistake, though, to leave the impression that reiterating the demands, requests, or directives of a partner is fundamentally misguided; nothing could be further from the truth.

But often the more skillful approach, especially when a child is not reasonably complying with a parent's request, is for the other parent to take out the metaphorical broom to sweep the child in a way that will facilitate it reaching the destination which the thrower parent has set--be it putting on pygamas, getting into bed, taking a bath, cleaning up of toys... So when a mother says to the child, "Okay, time for a bath; let's go", but the child does not prove responsive, a great co-parenting action, to sweep the child-weight along, is to say something to the effect "once you do, I'll read you a story." The key thing here is that the co-parent is not just reiterating what the first parent said, which again is not necessarily a bad thing and can certainly be useful at times, but is engaging in complementary parenting, not just matching or reiterating what the other parent said or did but extending it. Try it; you'll like it--and so, most importantly, will your partner and child!