The Family Partnership - Co-Parenting Concepts 

By Susan Berman, Ph.D.

The Family Partnership

You may not like the other parent, you may not trust or respect the other parent, but you should learn to work with him or her for your children.  It is easy to blame the other parent for anything that has gone wrong; you may even wish he or she would disappear.  Parenting, however, is about you, the other parent, and families learning to work in a businesslike, cooperative relationship.  Good family agreements allow you to set rules about working together.  Every successful business needs to have a good business plan with specific goals. 

A family partnership is a limited partnership or business consisting of two parents or sometimes other family members.  The goal of the partnership is to nurture the parent/child/family adult relationships.  Sometimes businesses must continue to operate under difficult circumstances.  Feelings do not enter into professional business negotiations.  Polite, courteous, and unemotional communication is most effective.  Children need a working, respectful, and cooperative relationship between their parents and families.  Although your adult relationship may no longer exist with the other person, your family partnership will last forever.

Basic Family Partnership Principles

1.  Maintain a business-like relationship with the other parent and communicate accordingly.

2.  Focus on the needs of your children and the strength of your relationship with them.

3.  Set boundaries and respect the other parent's boundaries.

4.  Protect your children from adult issues.

5.  Never allow your children to become your best friend.

6.  Do not use your children as messengers.

7.  Keep children out of the middle.

8.  Do not make negative comments about the other parent in front of the children.

9.  Never ask your children to take sides.

10. Allow your children to develop their own relationship with the other parent regardless of how you feel about them.

11. Avoid supermom/superdad syndrome or competitive parenting.

12. Avoid conflict in front of your children at all times.