The Benefits of Shared Parenting for Children
If you’re a co-parent, you probably agree that it’s key to always keep your child’s best interests at heart. Though you will likely face some tough challenges while sharing custody, it’s important to remember that there are many benefits for your kids. Additionally, while it may not always be obvious, shared parenting also comes with positives for you.
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Make Co-Parenting Easier with Better Communication
About TalkingParents
TalkingParents is an all-in-one co-parenting communication service that keeps interactions organized and documented. Parents who are divorced, separated, or were never legally married use this comprehensive solution to communicate regarding their kids.
Whether co-parents are dealing with low or high levels of conflict, TalkingParents allows them to manage messages, calls, schedules, expenses, and all other child-related information efficiently. By streamlining and recording interactions, TalkingParents aims to simplify the co-parenting journey through better communication, enabling parents to prioritize their children’s well-being.
How does shared parenting benefit children?
Research shows that shared parenting is linked to many favorable outcomes for kids. In fact, global studies indicate that children who spend at least 35% of their time with each parent:
- Have better relationships with both their mother and father.
- Do better in school and receive better grades.
- Do better psychologically and socially.
- Are less likely to smoke, do drugs, and drink.
Are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other stress-related issues.
On the flip side, single parenting is associated with many negative impacts on children, including developmental problems, economic hardships, and psychological effects like psychiatric illness, alcohol abuse, and suicide.
Ultimately, Co-parenting is about two people coming together to provide care and support to their child, which is linked to a more stable psyche for kids overall. Research shows that shared parenting relationships are linked to higher self-esteem, an increased sense of security, and decreased stress for your children both inside and outside the home.
How does shared parenting benefit parents?
For many parents, one of the hardest parts about joint custody is being away from their children. Because of this, sometimes the positives of shared parenting get pushed aside. As certified parent coach, Jennifer Wolf, writes in an article for Verywellfamily, the benefits of shared custody for parents include:
- Sharing the responsibility of disciplining your kids
- Scheduling parenting time with your ex forces you into a routine
- Joint custody makes it easier to date
- Joint custody increases the opportunity for cost-sharing on everyday items
- More time for yourself
- Missing your kids helps you appreciate them
- More freedom to focus on your career or education
Focusing on the benefits of shared parenting can help take some of the negativity out of your co-parenting situation, allowing you to maintain a more positive relationship. You might also find that placing value on the little things can have a huge impact on your mental state, in turn, positively impacting your kids.
How TalkingParents makes shared parenting easier
Utilizing a dedicated co-parenting communication service can help simplify all aspects of your shared parenting life. TalkingParents was specifically designed to make co-parenting easier through:
Organization
Parenthood is chaotic enough without the added complication of shared custody. As a co-parent, you are tasked with juggling everything involving your child between two homes, making organization absolutely key for you and your kids.
TalkingParents helps keep all communication and coordination with your co-parent organized and accessible in one central location, allowing you to stay on top of your child’s schedule, information, expenses, documents, and more. With features like Secure Messaging, Accountable Calling, the Shared Calendar, Accountable Payments, and the Info Library, streamlining all shared parenting discussions and responsibilities between two family units has never been simpler.
Documentation
Documentation is crucial for parents in all types of shared custody situations, especially those involving outside professionals or the court system. Documenting all co-parenting communication and coordination helps:
- Keep both individuals accountable to their words and actions, making it easier to reduce conflict and eliminate the “he said, she said.”
- Streamline the evidence gathering process for you and your attorney should you need to go to court for a case involving custody, child support, a restraining order, and more.
- Provide context to mental health professionals who might be helping you or your child through divorce, separation, or other shared parenting related experiences.
In TalkingParents, messages are timestamped and searchable and calls are recorded and transcribed, making it easy to go back and reference any conversation as needed. TalkingParents also keeps all interactions between co-parents saved to Unalterable Records, meaning all communication and coordination is documented without room for deletion. These Records are trusted by family law professionals and admissible in courtrooms across the country, giving peace of mind to co-parents who may need to seek legal counsel or take legal action. Records are easy for parents to obtain, available in PDF or printed format.
Compartmentalization
For parents in shared custody situations, compartmentalization can have an overwhelmingly positive impact on mental wellbeing. Keeping interactions with your co-parent siloed to one method of communication can help create a healthy distance and boundaries within your shared parenting relationship. These elements can also help shield your child from parenting matters they are not meant to be involved in.
TalkingParents’ all-inclusive tools give you the ability to compartmentalize co-parenting interactions, providing some separation from your and your child’s daily life. Users say that the ability to keep communication with their co-parent “in a box” allows them to respond more concisely and intentionally. Parents also say that compartmentalization through TalkingParents acts as a natural defense for their own mental state, allowing them to be more present with their loved ones, including their kids.
Effective Co-Parenting Communication is brought to you by TalkingParents
