The definition of high quality co parenting focuses on values and actions that support the other parent parenting efforts. Not aiming for similarity. Focusing on similarity brings up criticism towards the other parent and controlling behaviour in the sense that we are forcing our values onto the other parents as the “right ones” when their choices and values become “the wrong ones'' in our eyes and vice versa.
Consequently it will support getting involved with the other home day to day life, criticism, attempts to set rules for the other household, maybe even harassment to “get things my way” and unavoidably negative feelings between two parents and hidden or open conflict.
Your mental health is the most important factor for your ids to have happy, healthy, stress free upbringing. Their mental health is directly in correlation with your mental health.
Best parenting would be to show your kids what a healthy adult life could look like. Show what your home should be (and is) and stop bringing up or discuss what the other home is and why.
Parallel parenting supports autonomy, accountability, and healing.
By getting divorced you already decided that your ex’s personality and behaviour are not allied with your values of life. With that person you can not build the life you want for yourself and your children.
Parents who are choosing to be parallel parents are cultivating their independent lives that are based on their own values rather than the lowest common denominator between two clashing values that already made it impossible to continue life together.
Trendi-trendi co-parenting is based on the idea that divorced parents should stay together for kids. When the idea of staying together “for sake of kids” has been discarded nowadays it somehow shifted to the advice to remind together “for sake of kids” after divorce/separation.
Trendi-trendi co-parenting is telling people who already decided that they can not stay together even not for the sake of kids to stay together after separation “for the kids”.
It's nonsense! And make no sense when spelled out. Foremost: it's a recipe for endless problems and the golden goose to family lawyers and a large number of family counsellors and mediators who all will earn large sums of money from parents who are under the pressure to perform the trendi-trendi co-parenting model.
Parallel parenting is built from the attitude that it's ok for divorced/separated parents to be separated. To look like separated parents and act like separated parents. Reality is that parents are divorced and parallel parenting is accepting the reality and supports healing, building new independent lives for both households with their full potential and their own values they believe is best for kids and for them as the family unit. Free from the other parent's influence and not modifying their vision of good parenting and supportive family to please the person they values are so different, they could not make joint living work.
Parallel parenting can be ordered by courts in high conflict divorce/separation cases. It also can be reached by negotiating between parents during the separation process between themselves or with the help of a mediator.
Parallel parenting works for families even if you are not in a particularly high conflict situation and your ex is not a total lunatic or a horrible monster narcissist.
Parallel parenting is accepting that parents as ex partners (and sometimes even children themselves) have been going through significant trauma that lead to the divorce/separation or occurred during the divorce/separation process or sometimes happened at some point after divorce was already the reality.
Parallel parenting can be the best course of actions simply because two parents separated and recognised that they have different values in life and they prefer different structure for their day to day lives and that's OK. You simply want to pursue your life goals free from the other parent interference complications (regardless if there is one primary parent and one visiting parent or 50-50 share or anything between) and you want nothing less than seeing your ex to do their own and getting on with their life after separation. (obviously you do not want to do parallel parenting if you are full of anger and want them to “pay and suffer for leaving you”) It Can be a pragmatic, mature and future focused decision. You are allowed to live the life you want without modifying your goals or lowering your life standards to meet the other parent and their preferred lifestyle or their ability and means to parent.
And most of all, you must be a person who values your peaceful stress free homelife over a showcase in social media posts about happy mesh families where exes and their partners and children all skipping happily together in matching outfits as one huge, happy, multiple adult family…
(read about multiple adults family model here):
https://storkdeliveringbabies.blogspot.com/2022/10/co-parenting-or-polyaffective-sub-family.html?m=1
