Coparenting Tips for Improving Communication from the expert authors of Overcoming the Alienation Crisis: 33 Coparenting Solutions. For more information about OCB Publications go here.
My child doesn’t get their homework done when they are with their other parent. What can I do?
Coordinating homework between households can spark coparenting conflicts, even when the guidelines of parallel coparenting (see Chapter 14) are being followed.
Let’s assume each parent is accessing the school’s homework portal to find out when assignments are due. Let’s also assume each parent says they are carefully monitoring the children’s homework when the children are at their home. Still, homework completion is a problem.
An Escalated Coparent fires off nasty emails or takes one-sided actions to address the problem, such as hiring a tutor or arranging for a parent-teacher meeting without telling the other parent.
A Neutral Coparent communicates with their coparent to make sure they have a shared understanding of what is expected of each of them. They develop a shared strategy for ensuring that test preparation and homework are done.
For coparents who do not communicate well, it can be useful to simply scan and email to the other parent which assignments the child brought home from school and what was completed at the end of the night. This strategy can seem time-consuming, but it provides each parent a complete picture of homework assignments and what came home in the school bag. Of course, kids lose and misplace things, and the dog ate it. But if each parent has a complete record of schoolwork, when something does go wrong, or a completed assignment never makes it to the teacher, it is easier to talk with the child about personal responsibility, rather than the parents fighting about who is more irresponsible and who lost what.