You may have initiated a divorce from your soon-to-be former spouse because you wanted to start fresh with a life independent from them. However, a part of you will always be tied to them if you have a child together. You may not want to affect your child’s relationship with their other parent, but at the same time, you may be unsure how a joint custody arrangement is going to work when you two do not see eye to eye on most things. This is where a parallel parenting plan may come into play. Please continue reading to learn when a court might order parallel parenting and how an experienced Bergen County child custody attorney at McNerney & McAuliffe can help you reach an arrangement that works in your child’s best interests.
What is the difference between parallel parenting and co-parenting?
You may have heard the term “co-parenting” used frequently among divorced or separated parents. Well, this is not an interchangeable concept to parallel parenting. This is because co-parenting is when two parents take a collaborative approach in socializing, caring for, and raising their child, often working together and communicating constantly to ensure they are always aligned in their parenting styles. This is while parallel parenting is arguably a more rigid approach, in which two parents limit direct interactions with one another. Instead, they have autonomy over how they run their separate households, rather than trying to coordinate and replicate every detail of their child’s upbringing.
When will a court order parallel parenting instead of co-parenting?
Initially, you may believe parallel parenting to be a less effective child custody arrangement. However, the New Jersey family court may ultimately rule that instilling this plan is in your child’s best interests if you and your former spouse cannot find a common ground and reduce your conflicts. In other words, the court may find that shielding your child from conflict exposure and subsequent emotional harm is better than trying to make their feuding parents communicate and negotiate every time a decision must be made. This solution may especially be reached if the divorce grounds cited domestic violence, or there has been evidence presented of harassment, manipulation, and coercion during the divorce proceedings.
Or, in another scenario, say the court initially granted a joint custody arrangement where co-parenting was a necessity. But after trying this out for a while, you may realize it is not working and you need to establish boundaries, privacy, and conflict reduction methods. This is when you may petition the court for a post-judgment modification and fight for a parallel parenting plan. Here, you may produce proof of the high-conflict parenting thus far, in the form of harassing text communications, police records of reported domestic disputes, witness testimony of the stress-inducing contentions, etc.
You should not let the pressure of creating a healthy and manageable parenting plan rest solely on your shoulders. Please allow a skilled Bergen County family law attorney from McNerney & McAuliffe to assist you throughout this process. We look forward to helping you set up an arrangement. Give us a call today.