Co-Parenting is tough, and at times the parents may not be speaking or have extreme difficulty in communicating.  One avenue some take is to relay information to the other parent via the child.  It starts innocently enough, “tell Mom/Dad I said…” and the child will return with “Mom/Dad said…” and with that the child is now responsible for getting the information to and from not only correctly, but may hear some things they may not want to hear or deal with.  

Now what if that same child decides they want to alter the message, to spare one parent’s feelings or out of sense of obedience? If you are not communicating with the other parent, there is no way for you to know and if you do have doubts, that conflict will place your child right where they do not want to be and that is in the middle of you both.  It would be wise to put a neutral adult between you instead.  

If the personal lines of communication are closed for good reason, there are alternatives to using your children to relay information, depending upon your personal circumstance:

1.     Use a Parenting Coordinator, Coach or similar neutral person until such time that communication can resume. In some cases, it is best that it not be a friend or family.

2.    Mediate your disagreements to resolve them and reopen the lines of communication.

3.    Set a date and time each month or week to exchange information about the children using email.

We provide completely independent and neutral Parenting Coordination at Advocate For All where our focus is the health and welfare of your family.  If you are not communicating with your child’s parent, contact us today!