Keeping the Peace: Co-Parenting in a Military Family

Co-parenting your kids across two or more different households is challenging. And those challenges only seem to multiply when one or both parents serve in the military.

You and your co-parent often cope with address changes more so than the non-military families. Deployments and shiftwork can be unusual at best and downright unpredictable at worst. Odd hours, frequent travel, and relocations challenge child custody arrangements and stability.

And you likely live far away from your extended family. Your challenges (and loneliness) can compound without their help and support.

As a military spouse divorcee, you might wonder how much is reasonable to keep up with the military parent. Do you prioritize a stable living environment or climbing the ranks for better earnings? Do you uproot your life and move to stay close to the military parent?

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. The best choice is what works for you, your co-parent, and your child. However, you’ll find some practical advice below regarding your co-parenting arrangement, divorce proceedings, parenting plan, joint custody, child support, and more.

Simplify Your Arrangement

Just like a civilian family, you’ll need a parenting plan as a military-connected family. As a military member or spouse, your parenting plan is called a Family Care Plan. It includes childcare arrangements through deployments, field duty, training exercises, or temporary or permanent station changes.

To simplify creating your Family Care Plan, look at the big picture—you want a good parent-child relationship and a well-adjusted kid. Achieving these goals involves good communication, parental involvement, and discipline consistency.

Communication

Keep the lines of communication open with your co-parent and child. Understand that remote deployments and training areas might severely limit your communication.

When and where possible, use technology to keep your co-parent in the know and strengthen the parent-child bond. If all else fails, write letters. Help your child write to their parent, too.

Patiently give your military co-parent plenty of time to respond. Consider documenting an agreed-upon response wait time in your parenting plan.

However you choose to stay in touch, schedule communications so they occur at regular intervals.

Parental Involvement

Outline your, your co-parent’s, and any other caregivers’ responsibilities. It’s best to ensure you’re all on the same page to reduce misunderstandings.

Instill respect for every caregiver’s role by never badmouth them in front of your child. Teach your child the essential roles of a military and civilian parent (sacrifice, protection, safety, stability).

Consider granting your co-parent extra time with your child before and after a deployment. Help your child make special deployment or ‘Welcome Home’ packages for your co-parent.

Disciplinary Consistency

Children need discipline to thrive. Discipline revolves around routines. Military life can throw a monkey wrench into routines.

Try to keep predictable sleep, wake, eat, and work patterns for your children. Work refers to school, homework, extracurriculars, and chores. Set expectations about what should be done and when.

Ensure you and your co-parent give your child acceptable consequences for both poor and good choices.

Strike a balance—provide structure while maintaining flexibility to adjust to the changes of military co-parenting life.

Separation and Divorce Proceedings

Being stationed away from home and family can make attending legal proceedings challenging. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act helps you navigate that. Learn your rights under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act¹ and the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act².

The duty station you’re associated with might have a legal assistance office. If not, they or your/your spouse’s leadership chain of command can help connect you to information, legal and financial services, and support systems.

The Military One Source³ and National Military Family Association⁴ websites are excellent sources of information and tools for military members and their families.

While your military installation has services and information to help you, they can’t represent you. Seek a legal representative if you need it. You may wish to hire someone with specific military divorce experience.

Exchanging Info and Paying Child Support

Military co-parents often need remote ways of exchanging information and paying child support. Shared parenting and child support apps can help divorced families maintain contact and make on-time child support payments.

Keep your child’s educational and medical information within the shared app so your co-parent can easily find what they need. Never miss another child support payment—schedule, request, and make payments within the app. Keep track of who owes what with updated records.

Custody

Keep your child’s best interests in mind, especially when deciding how much time they should spend with each parent during the year. There’s no one right or wrong way to split custody. Do what works best for your family.

Your Family Care Plan should spell out who takes care of your child, when, and how for a smooth transfer of responsibilities. Some of these details include:

• Co-parent information
• Custody and visitation arrangements
• Additional caregivers’ names and contact information
• Daily activity schedules
• Copies and locations of important documents
• Educational, legal, medical, monetary, and religious arrangements

Military Co-Parenting Made Easier

Military service can add a layer of complication to co-parenting with its moves and deployments. Educate yourself about your rights as a servicemember or civilian spouse. Take advantage of the resources available to help you navigate your divorce as a military-connected family.

Simplify your plan while structuring it for success and flexibility. Planning and strategizing are more manageable when you keep your child’s best interests in mind.

Video

Infographic

Co-parenting across multiple households can be challenging, especially for military families. Frequent address changes and the unpredictability of deployments and shift work add to the difficulties. Explore this infographic for helpful co-parenting tips specifically tailored for military families.

¹https://www.justice.gov/servicemembers/resources

²https://www.dfas.mil/garnishment/usfspa/legal/

³https://www.militaryonesource.mil/

⁴https://www.militaryfamily.org/