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Co-Parenting During the Holiday Season

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Co-parenting isn’t always the easiest to navigate during normal times of the year but when you inject the holidays into the mix it can seem downright impossible. The important thing to keep in mind is that it isn’t really about you or your ex, it’s really about your children. When you remember this, it can help you through anything the holiday season might throw your way. And with a little advanced planning with your co-parent, this holiday season can go off without a hitch!

The biggest thing to remember is that your children are the focus this holiday season. Try to make things as easy as possible for them even if that means you won’t get them on exactly the days that you want. This will require advanced planning between you and your co-parent, seeing which days make sense for whom so that your children get to visit with family and still enjoy their time. This will also require some flexibility on your part in case things don’t go exactly as planned. If you need to go with the flow the stress shouldn’t felt by your children.

You will also want to make sure that you coordinate gifts with your co-parent. Not only do you not want to repeat a gift for your child, but you also want to make sure that you both agree upon a certain level of spend. You’ll want to make sure that one co-parent doesn’t feel alienated because the other buys extravagantly. You also want to show a united front and to do so you must make sure that things off limits in one household aren’t being provided in another.

Finally, make sure that you prioritize a little bit of time for yourself. If you aren’t going to have your children the entire holiday season don’t let that time alone daunt you. Use this time for yourself, to relax and enjoy yourself. Spend some quality time with friends you haven’t seen in a while and catch up. Or you can use the time to take a relaxing bath and watch your favorite movies. Whatever helps you destress, use the time you have alone to do just that and you’ll feel rejuvenated.