Co-Parenting Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Custody Case (and Your Relationship With Your Child)

If you are in a custody case, or sharing children with someone you are no longer with, the temptation is real: make the other parent a little smaller. A little less time, a little less information, a little less standing in your child’s eyes.

I am a family lawyer and I have been a Guardian ad Litem, which means courts appointed me to speak for children in exactly these disputes. Virginia judges decide custody on the child’s best interests, and the child development research on what that means is remarkably consistent. Sidelining your co-parent does not bring your child closer to you. It tends to do the opposite. Here is what not to do during a custody case, and what to do instead.

1. Don’t Bad-Mouth the Other Parent

Researchers Jenna Rowen and Robert Emery at the University of Virginia asked 676 young adults how their parents had talked about each other. They did not feel closer to the parent doing the criticizing. They felt more distant from that parent than from the one being put down. Emery calls it the boomerang effect. A child who hears that Dad is lazy or Mom is unstable learns little about that parent. They learn that you are not a safe place to love both of you.

Do instead: Speak about your co-parent neutrally or kindly in front of your child. Saying nothing counts.

2. Don’t Squeeze Their Parenting Time

Late pickups, unanswered calls, activities booked on the other parent’s weekend, makeup time that never happens, an easy fluid switch in custodial time. An analysis of dozens of studies found that commute time for a parent who lived a little further away mattered far less than whether that parent was actually having time and parenting, this includes: homework, limits, talking through problems. That kind of parenting takes ordinary time, including school nights. Shrink it and you take away your child’s second fully functioning parent.

Do instead: Follow the schedule, protect their ordinary time together, and offer makeup time in writing when life interferes. When there are special occasions and opportunities for your child to build a bond with a parent and their family those should be prioritized.

3. Don’t Make Your Child Your Confidant or Messenger

The affair, the money, who filed first, what the other lawyer said. You want your child to know the truth. But researchers children who often felt caught between their parents, carrying messages, being quizzed about the other household, hearing one parent criticized, were more depressed and more likely to act out. A teen’s sense that a parent’s disclosures were inappropriate predicted the teen’s well-being better than the parent’s own view did. You are not the best judge of whether you are oversharing. Your child is.

Do instead: Send your own messages, and keep adult topics and court business with adults. Age-appropriate honesty sounds like, “We could not stay together, and we both love you.”

4. Don’t Swap In a Stepparent

A new partner who shows up and cares is a gift. The trouble starts when they are positioned as a substitute: nudging your child to call them Mom or Dad, listing them on school forms in the other parent’s place, sending them to the conference the other parent never heard about. Leading psychologists on stepfamilies, notes that children often experience a new stepparent first as a loss, and feel a loyalty bind: if I care about my stepmom, am I betraying my mom? Pushing a child tightens that bind, and it often costs the stepparent their own relationship with the child.

Do instead: Let that bond grow slowly, as its own thing. Tell your child out loud that they are allowed to love everyone in their life, and be honest about the roles.

5. Don’t Assume Your Child Will Get Used to the Conflict

Parents often assume kids tune out the tension. Decades of work by psychologists point the other way: children exposed to hostility between their parents become more watchful and reactive over time, not less, and that insecurity is linked to emotional and behavioral problems years later.

Do instead: Keep disagreements out of earshot and out of exchanges. Take real disputes to a mediator, your lawyer, or the court.

When Your Concern Is Real

None of this applies to a parent who is abusive or unsafe. Protecting a child from real danger is not gatekeeping. Document your concern and bring it to a lawyer or the court rather than handling it alone, and call 911 if anyone is in immediate danger.

Supporting your co-parent is not a concession. It is the most reliable way to stay close to your own child, and it is what a judge wants to see. If you are facing a custody case in Northern Virginia, or a co-parenting relationship that has gone sideways, Family First Law Group can help you build a plan that keeps your child at the center.

Lastly, I want to give a nod to my Father’s first wife, Betty, as the anniversary of her passing approaches. Betty did not have to let me come to her house, feed me, buy me Christmas presents, let me sleep on her couch so I could be with my half-siblings. Betty didn’t have to smile at me, always say positive things to me, give me hugs. But Betty did, she allowed me to just be a child and not to burden me with what the adults had done. I will always remember her love, poise and grace, we need more Bettys in this world.

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