When navigating co-parenting decisions, it's essential to pause and consider what truly serves your unique child's best interests. The most effective way to determine this is by viewing the situation through your child's eyes rather than your own.

If the coffee shop visualization feels challenging, try this alternative approach. Simply ask yourself what you genuinely believe serves your child's best interests, focusing on two key areas:

This is where you can fill in the co-parenting questionnaire.

The co-parenting vision questionnaire serves as a practical tool to help you articulate these concepts. It offers various ideas and common responses to guide your thinking.

Your completed answers will form your personal definition of your child's best interests, creating a "north star" guiding both your decisions during the separation process in Divii and your ongoing co-parenting relationship as implement your agreement.

You have flexibility in how you approach this exercise. You can complete the questionnaire together as a team, or work on it separately and then compare results.

If you choose the separate approach and email your completed documents to each other you’ll at least be able to identify where you have things in common and where you don’t, allowing you to discuss differences and potentially modify your vision to meet both parents' needs in the best interests of the child.

If trust has significantly broken down between you and your co-parent, consider reviewing the trust in co-parenting document. This resource, adapted from Brené Brown's Anatomy of Trust, identifies the essential elements of trust and how they apply to co-parenting relationships.

By examining which trust elements might be missing from your relationship, you can identify specific additions to incorporate into your co-parenting vision that will help rebuild trust in your new dynamic.

When discussing your co-parenting vision, try to keep a future-focus. Keep that image of your 25-year-old child in the coffee shop firmly in mind. This exercise isn't about going back time and ruminating over past grievances or dwelling on past conflicts. While those issues may continue to exist and should inform your decision-making, the goal is to create a collaborative vision for how co-parenting will function moving forward.

For example, if your former spouse tends to dominate conversations and make unilateral decisions, you might establish that both parents will consult each other on parenting matters and work together to make joint decisions. This approach transforms past problems into future-focused co-parenting goals.

The co-parenting communication sheet provides valuable support for these important conversations. It helps you structure your statements to focus on your own feelings and needs while making clear, assertive proposals for future parenting decisions. Additionally, this resource includes extensive lists of values and interests commonly important in co-parenting situations, helping to spark ideas and ensure you've considered all relevant factors.

By taking the time to create a thoughtful co-parenting vision, you're investing in your child's future well-being and setting the foundation for a more collaborative, child-focused relationship with your co-parent.