Back-to-school season can be overwhelming for newly separated or divorced co-parents. However, with a little planning and a commitment to work together, you can make it less overwhelming for your child.
If you and your co-parent are both committed to keeping your child’s education on track and minimizing disruption in both their academic and extracurricular activities, you may need to go outside your comfort zone a bit to keep the lines of communication between you open and even be in the same room together when it’s not comfortable for you. Let’s look at just a couple of things you can do to help the school year go more smoothly.
Work out how school expenses will be shared
If you already have at least a temporary child support order, that should include large and/or predictable school expenses like private school tuition, uniforms and school supplies. There will be plenty more – like lunch money, sports equipment and field trip expenses, to name a few.
It’s important to track these on a co-parenting or other shared app so that you know who is paying for what. Your child should never have to be told to ask their other parent for the money or hear any complaints about a parent not paying their fair share. Parents should be a team when it comes to school and related expenses – including when it means saying no to an unnecessary or unreasonably high expenditure.
Stay informed and involved
If your separation is new since last school year or if your child is starting a new school, it’s important to let the necessary people at your child’s school know about it. Assuming that you have shared custody, school administrators and your child’s teacher(s) should also have both parents’ contact information and be instructed to send all notifications to both of you. It’s always best when co-parents keep each other in the loop if they learn about an event the other parent may not know about.
It’s also typically best when both parents can be at their child’s school and important extracurricular events. Even if you attend separately and remain apart, it’s still better than one of you not showing up. Teachers do, however, appreciate it when co-parents attend parent-teacher conferences together, assuming it doesn’t devolve into a fight.
You may find that you need to make some modifications to your child custody or support agreements or your parenting plan with the new school year. With sound legal guidance, you can be sure that your agreements reflect your child’s current needs.