Cooperation after separation

How Toxic Messages to Your Co-Parent Affect Your Child

Hostile texts and emails to your co-parent reach your child even if they never read them. Child psychologist Malin Bergström explains why — and what helps.

Making a Parenting Plan in England

England

A clear plan can reduce last-minute messages and misunderstandings. Here is what a parenting plan can cover in England, and how it differs from a court order.

Making a Parenting Agreement in the United States

United States

A written plan can reduce uncertainty about school weeks, holidays and handovers. In the United States, its legal effect depends on your state and whether the court has approved it.

Making a Parenting Plan in Canada

Canada

A parenting plan puts the everyday arrangements in one place. For families in Canada, a useful plan explains both the weekly routine and how bigger decisions will be made.

How to Manage Summer Planning in a Co-parenting Family

Summer planning when you share custody: start early, agree on the holiday weeks, swap days when you need to, and balance old traditions with new ones.

How Should We Communicate About the Children?

How to talk to your co-parent about the children without it turning into a fight: treat each other as colleagues, agree what you discuss and how often.

How to Tell Others About Your Separation

Agreeing on a shared message about your separation can feel awkward, but it means you back each other up publicly — even if you feel deeply betrayed inside (that's okay). Here are tips for simple, clear communication that reassures your children and you.

Insults Between Parents

Good communication is the backbone of co-parenting — but sometimes one or both parents cross the line of what's acceptable, occasionally or as a recurring pattern. How do you tell ordinary disagreement from real insults, and when does it become destructive?

More Tips to Minimize Conflict Between Parents

Practical ways to reduce conflict with your co-parent: keep your agreements, use I statements, stay out of their parenting and help out when you can.

When Kids Favor One Parent

It is common for a child to prefer one parent, and it is usually a phase. Why it happens, and what helps both the favorite and the left-out parent.

When Your Child Ignores You or Turns to the "Wrong" Parent

If your child ignores you or only wants the other parent, it's usually a way of coping — not rejection. A child psychologist explains how to respond.

When Your Co-Parent Badmouths You in Front of the Children

Is your co-parent speaking badly about you in front of the children? Child psychologist Malin Bergström on how to respond and help your child cope.

How Can I Reduce Conflict With My Co-Parent?

Conflict between separated parents hurts children of every age, and anger and disappointment weigh on the whole parent-child relationship. The good news: you don't have to accept the arguing — there are concrete steps you can take to reduce conflict and keep new fights from starting.

How to Introduce a New Partner to Your Child

When should a new partner meet your children? Advice on timing, telling your co-parent first, keeping the focus on your child, and how bonus families work.

Benefits of Every-Other-Week Living for Children

Is living every other week good for children? The upsides kids themselves mention: more time with both parents, more adults around, and a calmer home.

How to Support Your Child During Parental Conflict

It's hard for children when their parents argue. Even when conflict can't be avoided, you can help your child feel safe and make sense of what's happening — child psychologist Malin Bergström explains how.

How Does Severe Parental Conflict Affect Children?

All children are affected when their parents are in conflict, silent moods included. A child psychologist on the signs and how to protect your children.

Making a Parenting Agreement in Sweden

Sweden

A clear plan can make handovers and everyday decisions easier. In Sweden, a practical parenting plan and an officially approved agreement have different purposes.

Are You Being Targeted by Your Co-parent?

It's hard to be a good parent when your relationship with your co-parent is strained — that's one of the reasons we built the Co-parenting app. Here's how to think about a tough situation, and what you can do to calm things down.

Co-Parenting Agreements Make Life Easier

When everyday life changes, planning and clear agreements make everything easier. Priorities vary from family to family, but communication, living arrangements, and logistics are all worth agreeing on — here's how to approach each part before you move on to "Creating Sustainable Agreements".

How to Build Trust With Your Child

Your child needs to know they can come to you with anything. How to build trust, listen without defending yourself, and talk about their other parent.

How to Help Your Child Build Resilience

How to strengthen your child's resilience: what it is, and how trust, support and age-appropriate involvement help children cope with big changes.

Parallel Parenting: When Conflicts Run Too Deep

Parallel parenting means each parent runs their own home and contact stays minimal. Learn how to limit communication and shield your child from conflict.

Do You Need to Step Up or Let Go of Control?

After a separation, one parent — often the mother — carries most of the practical responsibility for the children, while the other feels their way of caring isn't fully trusted. Rebalancing that takes real effort: one of you may need to step up, and the other to let go.

A New Kind of Parenting - Ideally as a Team

You don't have to parent the same way to parent well together. What helps your child most is mutual respect, a healthy distance, and a few shared ground rules — so everyone knows roughly what applies in both homes.

How to Build a Co-parenting Team

Build a co-parenting team after separation: why your different strengths help your child, and how neutral, correct and friendly contact keeps the peace.

Why Parental Cooperation Is Important

Parental cooperation after a separation gives the child security. How to become a parenting team with your co-parent, and what your child gains from it.