How do you experience working together in parenting/caregiving? Co-parenting involves the extent to which parents experience working together or against each other. Important questions here include: do partners feel they share parenting? Do you feel supported by your partner? Do you feel you are opposed by your partner in parenting? Do you feel that the partner is undermining authority? How do partners divide the care of their child? Are both parents involved in the daily organization of the lives of the child(ren)?

The 5 steps to better collaboration

1 The degree of cooperation in parenting greatly affects the individual relationships of both parents with their child (Feinberg & Kan, 2008). Ensure that both parents have a significant role in parenting.

2 The degree to which you value each other's handling of your child. It is important that you support each other in how you both interact with your child. That you feel that your role as a parent is valued.

3 Respect each other's judgment on how to raise a child. Everyone has different ideas about parenting because, after all, everyone was raised differently. It is important to respect each other's opinions and not to invariably undercut one of the parents in how he/she handles parenting.

4 The degree of investment that each parent separately makes in their child is also important. It is important that both parents separately invest time and energy in handling, playing and caring for their own children.

5 And finally, the extent to which you want to discuss information about your child with your partner (Weissman & Cohen, 1985). It is important to communicate openly about how you see and experience parenting. It is important to continue to exchange different ideas about this. It may well be that this remains an area of tension, but make sure that in order to keep the peace you do not refrain from making clear how you think about it.

The basis for working well together is knowing about yourself and each other what you would like. How to find that out in an easy and enjoyable way? With the online parenting course from Ouders Inc.

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