The Teen Years:  For a parent, these years are stressful even when both parents see eye to eye. This is the time when you are no longer having to do the basics of feeding and dressing your child (but you have to read their mind about what they want to eat and wear). You still are in the whirlwind of shuttling your child to and from school, sports, extracurricular activities and social events. But in addition to that routine, there are new challenges such as:

It can feel like you are spending all of your time at home with your teen acting like a detective or prison guard, when all you want to be is a loving parent.

Add to this situation the stress and challenge of you and your co-parent holding different views on discipline, not seeing eye to eye on how to respond to your teen’s behavior, having different rules across your respective households, and having a lack of trust in your co-parent, and it is much harder to parent and love your child. Without uniformity and consistency of rules, limits and boundaries, your teen may become confused, or exploit the differences between you to prevent effective boundaries.

And what if your “co-parent” is not co-parenting with you, but actually trying to sabotage your parenting, or sees parenting challenges as opportunities to accuse you of being a poor parent? Some high-conflict co-parents resort to videotaping and other recording of each other, sending revisionist history emails to make a false record, speaking negatively about the other parent to their children, and even coaching children to criticize the other parent. A teen complains about a parent when all is well at home. What if the other parent is eager to hear it? Some teens become protective of one or both parents and don’t want to criticize. Others, consciously or not, triangulate, taking advantage of that distrust to get what they want, or to go the path of least resistance and toward the parent with fewer rules and boundaries.

I’ve heard one trial judge in a custody hearing say that even when he disagreed with his spouse in private, the children “never saw daylight” between them. The children need their parents to be a unified team.

Separation and divorce is already a crisis time of life, even in the best of circumstances. It is a major life change and transition for all members of the family. While navigating that change, no matter how difficult or unpleasant your teen’s behavior, they need to see their parents as a reliable backstop who work together. As a team you have a greater impact, and your child is likely to feel safer.

I often refer my clients to mental health professionals who are experienced in working with parents going through a family transition such as separation and divorce. They work with parents to assist them in communicating with each other, communicating with their children, and figuring out how the new reality of divorced parents with two separate homes will look.

As a family lawyer, I have been so impressed by the co-parents who put aside their differences to work together to help their child with a health emergency, school incident or other challenge.

The bottom line is that parenting a teen through separation and divorce is a complicated challenge that can be eased if you have a trusting, healthy communication with your co-parent. If you and your co-parent are unable to work together cooperatively and respectfully, it makes for a rougher road for the whole family.

 If you have questions about your co-parenting arrangement or are seeking guidance on separating from your spouse, contact me at mjust@RKWlawgroup.com.