Are you banging your head against the wall trying to figure out how to parent with a toxic ex???
I’ve been there, and I know how frustrating and upsetting the whole ordeal can be!
But once I figured out I was dealing with a toxic ex, I started to learn about how to deal with his behaviors and sort out how to parent with him.
So I took everything I learned and threw it all into this post!
You’ll learn about what parallel parenting is, how to create a parallel parenting plan, how to deal with parallel parenting challenges and more.
Trust me, by using a parallel plan and following this advice, you will notice a difference in the way your toxic ex treats you and interacts with you.
Will they turn into angels? Hell, no!
But it will help calm the conflict and chaos so you can focus on yourself and your child in a more harmonious environment.
Ready to get started?
Here is your ultimate parallel parenting guide!
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Conflicted Co-Parenting: Why Parenting With a Toxic Ex is Sometimes Impossible
Successful parenting with an ex-partner is based on respect and good communication, even if there is some initial conflict or arguments from time to time.
However, it can be extremely difficult to co-parent when your ex is toxic!
In order to understand how to parallel parent, it’s important to recognize the reasons why toxic exes make it difficult to parent:
Inability to Communicate
Overall, toxic people are either unable or unwilling to communicate. This is because they always need to be right, and they need to create conflict in order to try and maintain their control of you.
If you try to bring up an innocent concern with them, they will turn it around and make it your fault. They will also take advantage of every conversation to put you down or try to make themselves look better.
There can be no effective communication when the other parent responds by attacking or deflecting. It’s impossible to approach topics in a civil manner.
Counter-Parenting
Toxic people often focus on how they can control you and exact revenge on you, and they will emotionally manipulate their child against you to hurt you.
They will also purposely do the opposite of what you do parent-wise. If you ask them not to allow your child to use a sippy cup, they will let the child use a sippy cup. If you are trying to potty train your child, they will put the child in diapers.
This belligerent behavior is purposeful and makes parenting with them a huge struggle!
No Respect for Boundaries
Many toxic people believe that they are entitled to unfettered access to your life simply because you have a child together.
While they will not be forthcoming about sharing details of their life, they will expect you to tell them things about yours, such as your job, your financial status, your current relationships, etc.
They may also use your child to invade your personal life by questioning them about what you are doing, who you are seeing, and how much money you have.
Toxic people tend to ignore any boundaries you try to establish, such as what things you don’t want your child to eat and places you don’t want your child to go.
Check Out More: Why Is It Difficult to Parent With a Toxic Ex?
Parallel Parenting Guide: What Is Parallel Parenting?
Now that we know why toxic people often can’t co-parent, let’s look at what you can do instead: Parallel Parenting.
Parallel parenting involves completely disengaging from the other parent and avoiding conflict through controlled communication. Basically, you are parenting alongside them instead of with them.
Is this ideal for your child? Not compared to co-parenting, but it is the best situation compared to constant chaos and conflict in your child’s life.
You need to disengage yourself from your toxic ex by limiting your communication and making specific plans. These are the main elements of parallel parenting!
Here are the rules for parallel parenting:
Establish Communication Boundaries
In order to parallel parent, you don’t need to get along with your ex or even talk face-to-face. All you need to do is adhere to any court-appointed arrangements (if you have a court order) and share any important or emergency information about your child.
Otherwise, you can block your ex on social media and restrict communication to written forms such as text or email. With written communication, you can keep proof of what has been said and what has been agreed to.
Make Specific Arrangements
While you don’t need a court order to create a parallel parenting situation, it is helpful to have details of custody, access, and visitation written in a legal document. This way, if arrangements are ignored or your ex tries to change them, you can have these issues addressed in court.
But when it comes to making specific arrangements, avoid vague information that can be misconstrued and misinterpreted. Toxic people often love to comb over details to use against you, so you need to make sure any agreements are clear and concise.
The best way you can do this is to use text or email to solidify plans. This way, if your ex tries to argue the agreement, you have written proof.
Don’t Give In
Toxic people will often poke and prod you to get a reaction, saying things they know will anger you. It’s important that you do not engage with their accusations and attacks – don’t try to defend yourself!
There is no changing their mind, so defending yourself will only give in to their bids for attention. The problems will then escalate, and parallel parenting won’t work.
As hard as it may be, it’s important to bite your tongue and only say things if 100% necessary.
Learn More: Why A Parallel Parenting Plan Is Important in High Conflict Situations
How Does Parallel Parenting Affect a Child?
While you’re trying to deal with a toxic ex, it’s important to remember that you’re child is involved as well!
Since there’s not much you can do to keep your ex away from your child if they want to be involved in their life, you need to ensure that your children are supported and loved.
Here are some ways you can parent your child through the conflict:
Provide Consistency
By providing consistency in your own home, your child is going to learn behavioral expectations and eventually be able to implement that consistency into other aspects of their lives.
Plus, providing kids with consistency at home helps to create a safe and supportive environment. They’ll know that no matter what they go through with their other parent, they will be safe with you.
Proper Discipline
Along with consistency in your home, you also need to use proper discipline to help your children learn what is appropriate and not appropriate.
Discipline is all about setting expectations and dishing out consequences that make sense. It’s a learning experience that will never leave the child feeling afraid or shamed.
Give Them Love and Understanding
Supporting your child through the conflict means giving them everything that your ex will not or cannot – mainly, love and understanding.
Apart from showing your child how much you love them, be sure to encourage them to talk to you. Always be listening and never judge what they say.
You want them to be able to unload their stresses and seek guidance from you during tough situations. Maintaining an environment of open communication in your home is key to making your child feel loved and understood.
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How to Talk to Your Toxic Ex
Even though it’s best to limit communication with your ex as much as possible, you will eventually have to talk to them when you have a child together.
When doing so, it’s best to remain unemotional and straightforward. Think of it as talking to them in a business-like manner.
Here are some tips to help you talk to your toxic ex even though they make communicating horridly difficult:
- Don’t Defend Yourself. When you talk to your ex, they are likely going to say things to upset you just to get a reaction. Avoid defending yourself during these conversations – nothing you say will change how they treat you, so there’s no point.
- Stick to Need-to-Know Information. When talking about your child, stick to pertinent information. Don’t answer any personal questions or get pulled into a fake apology.
- Only Respond When You Need To. You don’t have to respond every time your ex texts or emails you. Reply only when you absolutely have to.
- Write Your Messages Carefully. If you have to reach out to your toxic ex or reply to their message, think about what you want to say. Stick to one-word answers if you can. If they upset you, take some time to calm down before replying.
Talking to your ex is all about controlling communication. Don’t let them get their way by upsetting – just stick to what you have to say!
Check This Out: How to Parent Your Child When Your Ex is Toxic
Creating a Parallel Parenting Plan
Now that you know what a parallel plan is and how it works, let’s look at how to create one!
(Psst! Click here for a free parallel parenting plan PDF template!)
Here are the things you should try to document:
Visitation Details
A parallel parenting plan should include which days your child will be with your ex, including details about holidays, vacations, and birthdays.
You should also specify pick-up and drop-off times, locations, and who will be transporting your child, as well as cancellation notice guidelines and whether or not missed time will be made up.
Disputes
Disputes happen even between split parents who get along, but they are highly likely to happen when your ex is a toxic person.
In your parallel parenting plan, you should stipulate what happens if you guys disagree about something (such as involving lawyers or a mediator).
Just remember to pick your battles with your ex. It’s not worth creating conflict over minor issues.
Speak to a Lawyer
You should have a lawyer involved even if you are creating your own parallel parenting plan. They can give you guidance and help you ensure the plan is airtight.
Otherwise, a lawyer can help you if you land in court to have a court order created.
Contact your local family courthouse to see if they have free advice lawyers available to speak with!
Read More: What Is Parallel Parenting? 10 Tips for Success
Want ready-to-use tools to keep things calm and organized?
My co-parenting printables include trackers, logs, and scripts you can download and use right away.
Starting at just $0.99!
Setting Boundaries While Parallel Parenting
Toxic people often lack respect, so it’s unlikely that will respect boundaries with you.
So how do you set boundaries when it comes to parallel parenting?
It all comes down to creating a plan and deciding what you are willing to accept and not accept. But apart from creating a parallel plan and getting a court order, here are some other ways you can set boundaries while parallel parenting:
- Limit communication
- Keep your personal lives separate
- Worry about your own parenting
- Ignore toxic behavior
You can easily set boundaries with your ex without actually communicating them. It’s all about choosing what you share with them and how you react to their behaviors.
Parallel Parenting Challenges
Even though parallel parenting is the best solution to dealing with a toxic ex, it’s not without its challenges!
You can take all of the steps necessary to follow a parallel parenting guide, and your ex still finds a way to throw a wrench in the works.
To help you deal with their shenanigans, here are some common parallel parenting struggles and how you can deal with them:
Your Ex Goes Against Your Parenting Choices
Your toxic ex may purposefully find ways to work against your parenting decisions, but unless they are putting your child in danger, there’s not a whole lot you can do about their parenting choices.
Except that you can keep your side of the street clean, so to speak. Even though you can’t control how your ex parents your child, you can control how you parent your child by sticking to the decisions you feel are best for your little one and providing them with consistency.
This is especially true when it comes to discipline! Rules are important for children, but it’s likely that your ex is either not going to discipline them or be inconsistent when it comes to those rules.
Make sure your disciplinary guidelines in your home are clear, consistent, and appropriate – and make sure you are praising and rewarding good behavior.
Your Ex Causes Issues With Pick-Up and Drop-Off
Having a parallel parenting plan means that you can clearly establish things like pick-up and drop-off times, but that doesn’t mean your ex is going to adhere to them.
They may show up late, go to the wrong location, or miss it altogether. While we are all human, and this may happen accidentally, you’ll know it’s an issue when your ex does it consistently and on purpose.
Start by approaching your ex diplomatically to see if another arrangement would work better for them.
If they are resistant to your suggestions (they refuse to change, they blame you or something else for missing visits and being late, etc.), keep a record of the conversation and take it to court if the issues can’t be resolved.
Your Ex Messes With the Visitation Schedule
There has to be some flexibility when it comes to the visitation schedule. You never know when your child may be sick, invited to a birthday party, etc. – and that flexibility applies to your ex as well.
However, there may come a time when your ex starts switching days, canceling visits, and not even showing up for them.
The purpose of pinning down a consistent visitation schedule is to make life easier for your child by providing them with expectations, and inconsistent visitations can be frustrating for both you and your child.
To keep your visitation schedule tight, include provisions in your court order that covers switching days, cancellation notice, and make-up days.
If your ex is inconsistent with visitations, calmly approach them to see if there is a way to remedy the schedule. However, if that doesn’t work, it’s time to revisit the court order.
Your Ex Bad Mouths You and Is Trying to Alienate Your Child From You
Toxic people are known to use their children against their exes in an effort to manipulate and gain control.
If your ex is feeding lies to your child about you, the best you can do is take a “show, don’t tell” approach to the situation. This means not trying to “prove” their other parent wrong but instead demonstrating to your child how you are not what their other parent says you are.
Also, you should avoid bad-talking your ex in front of your child in order to set a good example, so your child understands that what their other parent is doing is wrong. Create a safe space for your child to express themselves without fear of punishment or judgment.
But if your ex continues to make negative remarks about you to your child or in front of the child, you are within your rights to speak to a lawyer.
Parallel Parenting Questions & Answers
I’m always keeping my eyes and ears open for questions that my readers have! Through FB lives and my support group, there are always parents seeking answers about parallel parenting.
Here are some of the most common questions I am asked:
My child says they don’t love their father and thinks he is mean. How do I respond to that?
Absolutely don’t agree with your child – even if it’s true! However, you also don’t want to disregard what they are saying to you or convince them that their parent is not a mean person.
Validate your child’s feelings and emphasize how people are different, and treat people in different ways. Make sure your child also knows that they do not have to accept behavior from their other parent that they don’t like.
How would parallel parenting work in regard to potty training?
Again, there’s not much you can do about the way your ex parents your child unless the child is in danger.
When it comes to potty training, it can be hard to see progress when both parents are not on the same page. If your ex won’t follow your plan or parallel parenting guide, try to be as consistent as you can in your own home.
When they don’t adhere to court orders, and the court chooses to let them off every time, how do you navigate that?
The courts aren’t there to side with either parent, and they recognize that you and your ex are people who make mistakes, so it depends on what exactly your ex is doing that doesn’t adhere to the court order.
For minor offenses, like being a few minutes late or canceling visitations, the judge isn’t going to do much in way of “punishment.” Instead, they will try to fix the situation going forward.
The courts want to be involved as minimally as possible to encourage parents to sort out their own issues.
That being said, judges are people, too, and can become frustrated. If your ex continually breaks the court order in major ways, continue taking them to court until something is done.
Parallel Parenting With a Toxic Ex-Partner
There you have it!
I’m glad you made it to the end of this post because everything you need to parallel parent with your toxic ex is here.
Don’t forget to check out the free parallel parenting plan!
Looking for more co-parenting help? I’ve got you covered with these posts! Check them out:
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