LONG-TERM PARENTING PLAN

So you have made the decision to support your children as they grow up and to be a positive influence in their lives. Now you have to consider how to be a great dad in the future.

Your relationship with your child is a result of the time and energy that you spend with them. The purpose of a long-term plan is to ensure that you have a balanced relationship which caters for the needs of your children, as well as your own needs. Clearly, dealing with children of different ages will involve different criteria. If your child is preschool, their needs will be different to a teenager. But at whatever level or age your child is, try to communicate with them and let them know what to expect.

Most divorced dads don’t consider a long-term plan, but the process does have significant benefits. You don’t have to have a plan straight way – it can evolve.

• A plan can clarify your thinking and consolidate ideas, or help you realise that you are not doing enough.
• It can help to talk to other divorced dads to get some ideas.
• Think about what shared interests you can develop with your children.
• Don’t be afraid to realise that there are things that you cannot achieve.
• Don’t be overly ambitious; you can always expand it later.

Making a plan involves a great deal of thinking; you will need to think about future changes, and not make promises that you cannot keep in the future. The more that you think about how best to achieve your goal of being a great dad the better you will probably turn out.

Remember that you are one of a few hundred thousand divorced dads in the UK, who are all going through the same process as you. If you can talk to some of them to find out what they have done to make things work, it is a good place to start in putting together your long-term parenting plan.

You need to consider the following areas:

• Money: what you need to pay for.
• Home: where the children will live and how you will create a second home for them.
• School: what involvement you want at school.
• Family: how you want other members of your family to be involved.
• New family: how you will deal with their step dad, or your new partner.
• Holidays: what you can do.
• Religion: if you have any beliefs that you want them to follow.

In addition to these you need to think about your own life:

• Balancing your life with the needs of the kids.
• Your home – what it needs to be.
• Communicating with your ex-partner: how you are going to do it, especially if there is friction.
• Joint issues – you will need to agree with your ex-partner on issues affecting your children such as smoking, drinking, staying up late and so on.

The benefit of a parenting plan

For some divorced dads there is very little benefit as they are very much isolated in their role, and don’t have any influence with their ex-partner on how the children should be brought up. But any responsible dad should at least try to agree with his ex some shared principles on the upbringing of their kids. It’s important to try to be on the same team.

Some divorced dads who have limited contact find that their role in the children’s daily life is superficial, but that does not mean to say that they have to totally abdicate their responsibility to be a positive influence. Even Sunday dads can, in the time that they have, uphold views that they want their child to absorb as they grow older.

A Sunday dad can at least do the following:

• Eat a good meal on the day rather than having fast food – promoting healthy eating.
• Do some form of sport – promoting exercise.
• Discuss the importance of qualifications – promoting academic success.
• Take an interest in the activities of the child – encouraging endeavour.
• Show love – always what every child needs.

Communicating with your ex

If you have a greater influence in your children’s lives, it is critical to develop a plan for their future that you and your ex-partner agree on. Work out when, where and how often you are going to discuss matters, and when communicating with her, think about the following:

• Respect her view if she offers a different one.
• Support her as a parent – and that support will come back to you.
• Think about the continuing needs of the child – not about how it was in the past.
• Remember that mistakes will be made – be prepared to be flexible.

The more you can get your ex-partner to agree to, the less of a struggle you will have in getting the time with your children. For example, if your ex-partner agrees to let you take your children to swimming lessons – because the children need to learn to swim – then you will automatically get the time with your children. You can then build on this, especially if it means no work or inconvenience for your ex, who quite naturally will justify to herself letting you take them swimming because the kids benefit.