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Supporting Relationships with Both Parents

Ellie McCann, Extension Educator, Family Relations

If you are divorcing, there need not be a winner nor loser with any parent-child relationship. As parents, your child loves you both more than anyone. Continue to foster that love over time to help your child. Here are tips on supporting your children’s relationship with both of you.

These tips come from the We Agree: Creating a Parenting Plan book from the University of Minnesota Extension.

• When you talk about the other parent to your children, keep your comments positive or neutral. If you need to vent about the other parent, find an adult you can talk to in a place where your child will not hear.
• Ask others not to criticize the other parent in front of your children. You cannot control what others say to your child, but you can make your wishes known to them.
• Encourage your children’s contact with the other parent. They will feel more secure and loved if both parents are involved in their lives.
• Always get your information about the other parent some other way rather than from your children.
• Act from the belief that your children love you equally, and never ask them to choose between you.

Two things you always have control over are your actions and your responses.