4 tips for talking to your ex as a divorced parent

You and your ex have to stay in communication, even after the divorce. There is just no way around it since you have children and you both share custody of those kids.

It’s not always going to be easy. However, here are four key communication tips to make things go a bit more smoothly:

1. Pick a neutral location. For instance, instead of having a conversation at your house, go to a local coffee shop. You’ll find that people often reign their emotions in a bit better in public.
2. Schedule your meetings. Both of you may find it frustrating to just get a call and be expected to drop everything and talk. However, if you schedule it and you can both anticipate it, that starts the meeting off on the right foot.
3. Try to keep accusations out of the conversation. It may help to focus on never saying “you” at the beginning of a sentence. It’s a simple trick to keep the focus off of your ex.
4. Pick a topic for your meetings. Tell your ex and agree that that’s all you’ll talk about. This keeps the conversation from turning into an argument about money or blame for the divorce, for example, when it was set up to talk about your child custody needs.

These tips can help, but co-parenting is tricky. You may not see eye-to-eye. You may not always want to communicate with each other or spend time together.

That said, as parents, you do have to work your way through this and put your kids first. Be sure you are well aware of all of your legal rights.