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The Web address of this two-page article is http://sfhelp.org/10/effective-co-p.htm

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        This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological wounds, building high-nurtur-ance family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness] cycle, and preventing divorce. This intro-duction describes the Web site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Each article is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make.

        These articles augment, vs. replace, other qualified professional help. The "/" in re/marriage and re/divorce notes that it may be a stepparent's first union. "Co-parents" means both bioparents, or any of the three or more related stepparents and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear stepfamily. 

        Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this - what do you need?

+ + +

        Try saying out loud why you're reading this article - what do you need? This article offers (a) definitions of parenting and effective co-parenting, and (b) common long-term co-parenting goals (outcomes). The last part of this article offers a way of evaluating "What is an effective stepparent?"

         This article assumes you're familiar with these concepts...

• this introduction  to normal personality subselves (like yours) - slides or text

• the [wounds + unawareness] cycle that burdens many families - slides or text

• common traits of a high-nurturance family

• five hazards that burden typical families,

• 12 Projects co-parents can commit to protect against the hazards

• typical kids' developmental tasks,

• Dr. Erik Erikson's eight stages of normal human development;

• overview of co-parent Project 10: overcome barriers to building an effective co-parenting team

        In this site, nurturing means "intentionally acting to fill a person's current or long-term needs."  Families exist in every age and culture because they fill key adult and child needs better than other social groups. A co-parent is any adult in a divorcing family or stepfamily who nurtures one or more minor or adult children "significantly." This can include part-time or full-time bioparents, stepparents, godpar-ents, active aunts, uncles, and grandparents; and regular baby sitters, nannies, au pairs, coaches, tutors, and teachers.

        Can you say why some families are more effective at filling members' key needs than others? Were your childhood caregivers effective enough at filling your physical, psychological, and spiritual needs? Try saying your definition of "effective co-parenting" out loud. Then compare it with what follows. 

        Premise: patiently (a) raising one or more children effectively while (b) nurturing yourself well enough over several decades is one of the most challenging, satisfying long-term activities and social contributions adults can commit to. Doing this is specially hard in low-nurturance intact biofamilies, and multi-home divorcing families and stepfamilies.

        Give yourself a baseline before continuing. On a scale of one (very low nurturance) to 10 (consistently high nurturance), how effective have the co-parents in your family been (a) in the last 12 months ___, and (b) since the birth or adoption of the oldest child ___ ? How effective were each of your childhood co-parents at preparing you for successful adult independence ___ and ___?

What is Parenting?

        As you know, a parent (noun) is a male or female who contributes genes to a fertilized female egg. To parent (verb) describes adult decisions and actions over time that aim to fill (a) minor and grown kids' developmental and special needs and (b) their own primary needs "well enough" over several decades.

        Thus Mother and Father describe (a) a biological trait or condition, and/or (b) primal social roles (a set of caregiving responsibilities). Any adult or older teen can choose (or endure) a parental role, whether they share contribute genes to a child or not. The roles of Father and Mother are paired with the biological relationships and social roles of son and daughter.

What is Effective Parenting?

        Think of something you feel effective at, like balancing your checkbook, listening well, raising orchids, or making a healthy, delicious meal. Would you agree that to be effective at something requires (a) achieving one or more desired effects or outcomes (b) in a way that pleases all people involved "well enough"? The second factor reflects the premise that both persons in a relationship or two related roles (like co-parent and child) have needs which are equally valid and important.

Requisites for Effective Parenting 

        Premise: to achieve co-parenting effectiveness, each adult must steadily...

• want to (vs. feeling s/he has to) co-parent, and...

• feel s/he's qualified to be a "good enough" co-parent, and want to...

• be clear on (a) her or his own primary needs, and (b) each child's current and long-term needs; and each nurturing adult must want to...

• be clear on who's responsible to fill each set of needs, and...

• want to admit and reduce any significant barriers to co-parenting teamwork in the family, and...

• be clear on the specific long-term co-parenting outcomes they're striving for.

Does this make sense to you? Are there other requisites you feel should be included? Would it make sense to each other adult in your multi-generational family, and any key family supporters? Let's look more closely at each of these six factors...

1) Nurturing from Desire vs. Duty and/or Guilt

        Do you know adults who don't enjoy or want to accept long-term responsibility for nurturing someone's dependent children? They may choose to endure caregiving roles and relationships to get something they value - like social acceptance, a primary relationship, and/or avoiding discomforts like loneliness and isolation.

        A minority of American stepmoms and stepdads know before - or discover after - cohabiting, that they don't want to nurture their mate's existing child/ren. They may or may not have biological kids of their own. These stepparents...

• prize personal independence, hobbies, and/or their career more than nurturing satisfactions, and/or they...

• distrust their ability to nurture well enough ("I'm not cut out to be a good Mom / Dad"), and/or...

• the disruptions, interruptions, sacrifices, and conflicts inherent in living with typical minor kids are too unpleasant and have too few rewards; and/or... 

• their stepparental responsibilities (roles) feel too unclear, conflictual, and unsatisfying, and/or...

• they have "bad chemistry" with one or more stepkids and/or step-relatives; and...

• they feel significant guilts about one or more of the realities above.

Feeling obliged to nurture dependent kids vs. wanting to will usually reduce a family's long-term nurtur-ance level and co-parenting outcomes (below).

        Reality check: on a scale of one ("I nurture kids out of duty and guilt") to 10 ("I get great satisfaction and joy from nurturing our child/ren!"), rate each co-parent in your family in the last year or so. Option: guesstimate how each other co-parent would rank you all.

        Then ask them to rank each other on parental motivation, discuss your conclusions as partners, vs. competitors, and see what you all learn. Reluctance to do this suggests you distrust or fear something. If so - can you name it?

2) Feeling Qualified to be a Co-parent

        If you were asked to perform brain surgery or fly a passenger jet, how would you respond? Co-par-enting your and/or someone else's kids "well enough" over several decades is just as challenging as the roles of surgeon and pilot. Some adults courageously admit they lack the requisite traits, values, prior-ities, and knowledge to be an adequate co-parent.

        As their lives unfold, they may decide to shift the first three of these somewhat (a second-order change), and/or to eliminate knowledge deficits by studying. Note the relationship between not wanting to co-parent vs. not feeling qualified to co-parent. The former may or may not come from the latter.

        Reality check: on a scale of one ("I'm clearly not qualified to co-parent") to 10 ("I consistently feel well-qualified to co-parent effectively"), rank each co-parent in your family's several homes. Option: guess-timate how each other co-parent would rank you all. Then ask them to rank each other on parental motiva-tion, discuss your conclusions as partners, vs. competitors, and see what you all learn. Reluctance to do this suggests you distrust or fear something. If so - can you name it?

3) Wanting to Identify Current and Long-term Needs...

        See if you agree with these ideas: needs are physical, psychological, and spiritual discomforts. Problems and conflicts are unfilled needs. At any moment, every infant, child, and adult has mosaic of minor to major current ("I need a drink") and future ("I need enough money to retire on.") needs.

        Most distracted, uninformed people (like you?) aren't aware that what they think they need now or later is really a symptom of underlying primary needs. Learning to (a) identify these primary needs and to (b) accept responsibility for filling your own (adult) needs, helps to build enduring, high-nurturance relationships and families. Do your family's adults do these regularly?

Premise: a major reason for epidemic American "family troubles" and divorce is that our society has not motivated average adults to (a) learn how to discern their primary needs and the needs of the people they live and work with, or to (b) want to value the needs, opinions, and dignity of other people as highly as their own in non-emergencies.

        What Needs?

        At each stage of life, kids and adults have (a) normal developmental needs, and (b) local, relation-ship, and situational (communication) needs. When families reorganize from separation and divorce, and again when co-parents re/marry and/or cohabit, all adults and kids have family-adjustment needs to fill. Each of these needs has surface symptoms, and underlying primary causes.

        Typical stepfamily adults need to know when and how to assess their minor kids for significant false self wounds. Their kids are more likely to bear these wounds than peers in average intact biofamilies. If adults find symptoms of these wounds, they need to learn and tailor these options as teammates, and weave them into their family mission statement and respective job (role) descriptions.

        Reality check:

• can each co-parent in your family now (a) name these categories of needs for kids and adults, and (b) name typical examples of each category?

• does each adult usually want to identify (a) their own primary needs and (b) those of each other family member in calm times and conflicts?

• does each adult usually value every child and adult's current and long-term needs equally, in non emergencies?

• does each adult want to solve role and relationship problems by digging down to identify current primary needs, or are they used to automatically trying to fill people's surface needs (symptoms)?

        Premise: effective co-parents will answer these four conditions "yes!"

...and Identify Who's Responsible to Fill the Needs

        Relationship stress occurs when one or both people can't agree on who is responsible to fill who's needs. We expect family adults to want to be responsible for filling (a) their own respective needs, and (b) all local and long-range needs that their dependent kids' aren't able to fill themselves.

        Clear family-adult agreement on who's responsible for which kids' needs can become more conflictual as kids move through their teen years and push for independence. The confusion can continue if immature (wounded) adult children flounder "too much," in someone's opinion.

        One key goal of effective co-parents is to gradually help each child want to assume responsibility for filling her or his own needs, without overwhelming or discouraging them. This is challenging, in the face of normal childhood self-doubt, guilt, and anxiety about "failing." Effective co-parents are adept at identifying and resolving significant internal and interpersonal values conflicts over who's responsible to fill who's needs.

        Many wounded adults who survived low-nurturance childhoods weren't well-coached on accepting self-responsibility. They often (a) see themselves as victims, (b) are defensive ("I can't help it!"), and (c) tend to blame others for their problems (unmet needs).

        As co-parents, such Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) can be confused and conflicted about...

• filling their own and some other adults' needs, and...

• how and when to encourage self-responsibility in dependent children and grandchildren.

This can be specially stressful if co-parents can't problem-solve effectively and/or their children are too insecure and/or shame-based.

        Reality check: on a scale of one (consistently poor) to 10 (consistently excellent), how would you rank each of your co-parents on being (a) appropriately self-responsible, and (b) wise about when and how to coach dependent kids to assume their fears and doubts to assume self-responsibilities?

        Rank all of your co-parents between one (totally ineffective) to 10 (always very effective) on how effectively you all are as a group at resolving values conflicts about personal and co-parental responsibilities ___.

        Recall - we're overviewing six characteristics of effective co-parents. Another is, they want to...

Reduce Co-parenting-teamwork Barriers

        Do you agree with the sage who observed "It takes a village to raise a child"? To attain successful young-adult independence, minor kids need patient, informed nurturing for two decades from all the adults they interact with most often - specially their co-parents. Conflicted co-parents are often unable to nurture dependent kids effectively, and bear the responsibility of admitting their conflicts and resolving them, for everyone's sake.

        This is hard in typical divorcing families, unless the ex mates have progressed well at (a) grieving their many losses and (b) reducing their respective false-self wounds, and have (c) genuinely forgiven themselves and each other for prior hurts and failings.

        When divorced or widowed bioparents remarry too soon, they choose significantly-wounded partners, and have not reduced their co-parenting barriers with their ex mate/s. This promotes the self-amplifying cycle of co-parental strife > ineffective co-parenting > low family nurturance levels > and wounded kids.

        Reality check: on a scale of one (we family adults have major barriers that hinder caregiving team-work) to 10 (we adults consistently act as an effective co-parenting team), rate how effective your co-parents have been in reducing any barriers to cooperative nurturing in and between your homes:___.

Evolve Clear Long-term Co-parenting Goals

        To nurture well, co-parents need to evolve clear goals and plans, clear priorities, "job descriptions" (roles) and rules, based on a consensual family mission statement. Daily caregiving decisions need to be based (in part) on adults' accurate assessment of each child's status with their developmental and family-adjustment needs.

        Though individual co-parents will have unique goals, most parents will  strive for some general long-term co-parenting outcomes like those below. Premise: one sign of effective co-parenting is family adults wanting to agree on some specific long-term child-raising outcomes like these:

Traits of a Well-nurtured Adult Child

        Before you read this, pause and say out loud your opinion of the key attributes of a young man or woman who has been "well raised." Then compare that with these:

        A Grown Nurtured Child (GNC) is a socially, spiritually, physiologically, and financially independent, self-responsible adult person who...

is genuinely interested in developing spiritual awareness and faith on a benign Higher Power, and s/he...

can selectively form and keep healthy relationships with other adults and kids,...

based on her or his capacities to bond, and love and respect themselves and other people equally. And a GNC...

is realistically clear on, and calmly accepts, his or her unique (a) talents and (b) limitations, and s/he can describe both without excessive shame, guilts, and anxiety; and s/he...

is steadily self-motivated to (a) clarify her or his true life purpose, ("self-actualize"); and to (b) pursue it steadily, courageously, and enthusiastically, over time; in order to...

benefit other living things, local or global society, and the Earth, while s/he…

empowers selected other adults and kids to do the same, within his or her  limits, without taking responsibility for others' success; and a GNC is someone who can...

use these seven skills to think and communicate effectively in calm and conflictual social situations; and s/he can...

adapt to personal, social, and environmental changes as they happen (like family separation, divorce, and re/marriage), regain personal wholistic balance (grieve well), and "keep on keeping on" toward their life purposes; while…

knowing (a) when and (b) how to rest, relax, and refresh at times, without undue guilt or self-doubt. And a true Grown Nurtured Child...

maintains his or her dignity, integrity (self-respect), and identity in the face of personal and social temptations and criticisms, while s/he...

compassionately encourages other kids and adults to...

• develop and use their talents,

• respect and be themselves,

• assert their personal rights,

• learn from their problems and losses; and...

• enjoy and treasure their lives despite setbacks, frustrations, and sorrows.

Finally, typical GNCs...

choose a GNC as a life partner, and they nurture each other and any children effectively across their years.

Overall, an effectively-parented adult child (GNC) steadily lives on purpose, empowers others to appreciate and use their gifts, live and grow healthily; promotes the health, growth, and productivity of other living things and society, and leaves the Earth a better place than when s/he was born. Do you agree?

Recap: over two decades, effective co-parenting produces young adults who are  wholistically-heal-thy, balanced, independent, socially productive, reasonably content (vs. "happy") women and men, who are qualified and motivated to (a) nurture children effectively without (b) neglecting their own needs.

        Implication: co-parents can only guess at the long-term outcome of their efforts. They have to invent their expertise as they go, and "get it right" the first time. This is one reason that having a close extended family is vital: if caregivers were effectively-parented themselves, the love and counsel of veteran grand-parents and older parenting mentors along the way are priceless assets. Though the world your senior relatives grew up in differs significantly from your and their grandkids’ worlds, the principles of effective parenting don't change.

        Moms and Dads who parent effectively without adequate early-childhood nurturing themselves deserve Olympic gold. Psychological or legal separation or divorce suggests that each partner was not effectively nurtured.

        Our "developed" society is just beginning to understand and care about what a high-nurturance family is, and how to break the widespread cycle of low-nurturance families and psychological injury. Our unaware, wounded caregivers did the best they could with what they had. They deserve our compassion, honor, and respect.

        With awareness, determination, healing, and informed help, any co-parent (like you) can nurture well, over time!

        Note with interest what you're thinking and feeling now. How do these ideas pertain to your child-hood and current families? Your partner's families? How would each of your family adults define "effective co-parenting" now? How would they react to this article? Option: ask them!

        Are there stepmothers and stepfathers in your life? The ideas above pertain to any adult who influen-ces minor children over time. The complex, important, challenging role of stepparent deserves special focus.

Continue with ideas on "What is effective stepparenting?"
 

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