Your Game-Plan for Improving Your Co-parenting

Now that you've taken the time to assess your co-parenting using the OurFamilyWizard co-parenting goals worksheet, you are now ready to brainstorm concrete steps you can take to achieve those goals.

Do you need to improve the tone of your communication? Do you wish to create a new system for smooth exchanges? Do you and your co-parent need to rethink the way you currently share important documents?

Whatever your goals for shared parenting, you'll need to determine realistic ways you can change your behavior in order to move forward. With this worksheet, you'll be able to set timeframes for your goals, detail different actions you wish to take, and anticipate possible obstacles you may need to prepare for along the way. Download the shared parenting improvement game plan worksheet here.

Goal

Use this space to define the goal you wish to achieve. If the scope of your goal seems overwhelming, we've given you plenty of space to break larger goals into smaller pieces.

Achievement Date

Be realistic about how long big changes to your communication may take. Setting unrealistic timeframes can cause you to feel disappointed in the strength of your efforts. Disappointment can, in turn, lead you to abandon those efforts entirely.

The bigger the goal, the further out your achievement date should be. Think about separating larger goals into mini-goals with their own individual achievement dates to give you progress checkpoints along the way. Smaller goals will be easier to commit to when you're beginning to change your communication habits.

Steps Toward Your Goal

Use this section to detail the steps you are going to take to improve your co-parenting. Be as specific as possible when creating these lists. Visualize how you want your shared parenting to look and using that vision, determine concrete actions you will take to accomplish your goals.

Obstacles I May Encounter

Whether they are emotional roadblocks or logistical issues you may need to maneuver, anticipating setbacks and preparing for them will help you stay on track. Fears and doubts can derail us when making big changes in our behavior, but recognizing them where they exist can help us counteract them. Consider including how you'll prevent these obstacles from hindering your efforts when detailing the steps you'll take toward your goal.

Take your co-parenting relationship seriously by implementing changes deliberately and with care. Change won't necessarily happen overnight and improving your communication and other habits incrementally can help those improvements solidify and become a permanent aspect of your co-parenting relationship.