6 Proven Co-Parenting Strategies for Divorced Parents

While moving through divorce can seem like an insurmountable obstacle, for many parents it is just the beginning of a new and equally intimidating challenge: co-parenting your children.  Divorced parents who choose to live relatively close to one another so as not to disturb the school, sports and other related schedules of their children, certainly deserve credit and acknowledgement.

In this excellent blog posting Rosalind Sedacca offers six guidelines to remember that will help make your new co-parenting relationship work:

• Don’t bad-mouth your ex around the kids, ever!

• Never fight around your children. 

• Always offer your ex the opportunity for special times with the kids – before involving a new relationship partner, i.e.: taking your teen for their drivers test or tryouts for a new sport.

• Prioritize Mom and Dad being together for special occasions: celebrating birthdays, graduations and other significant events. 

• You and your ex won’t agree on all things so decide to pick your battles regarding parenting issues. 

• Use an online scheduling tool to keep straight about visit swaps, school activities, sports, vacations, holidays, parties and who is doing what – when! 

The Importance of Life Insurance in the Divorce Settlement

In this excellent blog posting, Roseann Vanella writes that life insurance policies are typically used as security to ensure that full child and spousal support payments will be made in the event that the paying ex-spouse dies.

Life Insurance to Secure Child Support Payments

If there are younger children at the time of the divorce, child support payments will continue for many years. The life insurance policy needs to have enough to compensate the custodial spouse until the last child turns 18  paid as a lump sum death benefit to the custodial spouse (for the benefit of the children).

Life Insurance to Secure Alimony

After a divorce, alimony may be required until the receiving spouse is deemed to be able to become self-sufficient or to receive the education and/or training necessary to become self-sufficient.

Who Should Own the Life Insurance Policy?

One of the most important details is which spouse should be the actual owner of the insurance policy. In some divorces, the paying spouse owns the policy, and provides frequent updates to the receiving spouse to prove the policy is still in force. To provide additional security, some receiving spouses insist on being the policy owners, with the paying spouse still making the premium payments as part of their support payment.