Parenting partnerships, or co-parenting as it’s often referred to isn’t something we just decide we want to do one day and make happen overnight. There are so many variables to consider and discuss prior to entering into a non-romantic parenting relationship with someone else. From the basics of responsibility to the more complex issues of education, living arrangements and of course, finances, co-parenting comes with a lot of obstacles. These obstacles can hopefully be avoided by careful planning ahead of time as well as having open conversations with your parenting partner prior to becoming parents.

Excerpted from a Parent Chat on stltoday.com.

My granddaughter is 24, a nurse and expecting. She is not married to the father, but they’ve dating for a couple of years. She lives with him part-time and with her parents part-time. Everyone is happy about the baby. What the best way to encourage both parents in equally raising the child since they do not live together full-time and are not married?

Aisha Sultan: It seems like you have some feelings about their situation. I’d be careful about giving them the impression that they might not be good parents because they aren’t married yet.

Dr. B: Co-parenting really requires a lot of maturity. I would recommend that legal custody issues be determined soon, while parents are still in a positive relationship. Often co-parenting becomes difficult after one or the other partner enters a separate romantic relationship. It’s very smart to get legal issues such as custody and child support clearly defined while parents are on positive terms together.

Aisha Sultan: Be an engaged and loving grandmother and offer to help out in whatever ways you are able.

Dr. B: Other issues to define clearly to each other include holidays, education, and faith tradition.

Our website is also a great resource of information and suggests what should be discussed prior to entering into a parenting partnership. Below is an excerpt from our “legal issues” portion of our co-parenting issues guide.

Of all the issues that parenting partners need to address, the legal issues are often the most complex. Issues such as drafting a co-parenting agreement, understanding what the law requires of parents, and even figuring out just who is a legal parent can vary by jurisdiction. In the United States alone, where family law is regulated by the individual states, this means 50 sets of rules for prospective parenting partners!

Fortunately, FamilyByDesign is here to help untangle some of this complexity. Our state-by-state analysis will help you figure out the most important issues you should consider for a parenting partnership in your state, and we’ll more broadly tackle the big-picture issues like co-parenting agreements and known donor agreements. Want more info? Ask a question to our legal expert on parenting partnerships!

[Note: Because every person’s situation is different, and because the law frequently changes, is not clearly established, or is interpreted in different ways by different courts, you should not rely on the information presented herein for legal advice about your specific situation. We always recommend a consultation with local legal counsel before taking action.]

We couldn’t resist posting this amazingly funny comedic piece from the New Yorker by Sarah Miller. There are a lot of parenting studies out there and there will continue to be plenty more. In the end, what’s right for you and your family will depend on you and your family. You might pick and choose what works for you from one study, or agree wholeheartedly with a study and stick to it. Or maybe you will just avoid studies in general. We like to pick and choose what to share with our members and we do it only to share the option of having the information. Now take a moment and read below, it’s hilarious!

As seen in the New Yorker:

A recent study has shown that if American parents read one more long-form think piece about parenting they will go f***ing ape sh*t.

The study was conducted by Susan Waterson, a professor of behavioral psychology at the University of Massachusetts and the author of zero books, because, Waterson says, “another book at this point would just be cruel.” In the course of seven weeks, Waterson interviewed a hundred and twenty-seven families about their reaction to articles that begin with a wryly affectionate parenting anecdote, segue into a dry cataloguing of sociological research enlivened with alternately sarcastic and tender asides, and end with another wryly affectionate anecdote that aims to add a touch of irony or, failing at that, sentimentality. “I wasn’t looking to prove there was too much of this content,” Waterson said. “I’m a behaviorist, not a sociologist. Only one part of this equation interested me—the f***ing ape sh*t part.”

New York (Reuters) – Recollections of strict, unaffectionate parents were more common among young adults with an unhealthy attachment to Internet use, compared to their peers, in a new Greek study.

Young adults who recall their parents being tough or demanding without showing affection tend to be sad or to have trouble making friends, and those personality traits raise their risk of Internet addiction, the researchers say.

“In short, good parenting, including parental warmth and affection, that is caring and protective parents, has been associated with lower risk for Internet addiction,” said lead author Argyroula E. Kalaitzaki of the Technological Education Institute (TEI) of Crete in Heraklion, “whereas bad parenting, including parental control and intrusion, that is authoritarian and neglectful parents, has been associated with higher risk for addiction.”

Research on Internet addiction is still relatively new, and there are no actual criteria for diagnosing the disorder, though there are many inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities in the U.S., Australia and Asia.

Some of the studies done to date suggest that kids who have trouble relating to others in person might be at higher risk for a problematically high level of Internet use. Those who are socially withdrawn or lonely might also be more likely to spend excessive time online.

Kalaitzaki’s team predicted that the way kids bonded with their parents would predict aspects of their personality as young adults, which in turn would predict their likelihood of Internet addiction.

For the study, more than 700 young adults at technical schools, all around age 20, filled out questionnaires during class time. They answered questions about their feelings of loneliness, sadness and anxiety, and about their Internet use. They also answered questions about how they recalled being brought up during their first 16 years of life.

In Greece, previous studies have found that between 1 percent and 8 percent of teens are addicted to the Internet. The current study classified almost 2 percent of the men and 0.6 percent of the women as severely addicted, according to the results published in Addictive Behaviors. The authors did not find a link between anxiety or loneliness and Internet addiction, nor could they directly link any particular parenting style with addiction. But Kalaitzaki and her colleagues did find indirect connections. The kids who remembered their fathers as controlling and not affectionate tended to have more trouble relating to others as young adults, and those who had trouble relating to others were more likely to be addicted.

Those who remembered their mothers as just not being very good parents were more likely to report sadness as young adults, which was also linked to Internet addiction.

“Parents should be made aware of the harmful impact that a potential negative parental rearing style may have upon their children in later life,” Kalaitzaki told Reuters Health.

Kalaitzaki studies interpersonal relationships and psychotherapy in the Department of Social Work at TEI. Other international studies suggest that Internet addiction may harm a person’s mental and physical health, she said. Those who go online excessively tend to be distressed, tense, nervous and irritable, and to have trouble sleeping and fatigue.

“This discussion is of large interest for the technological society at large, given that Internet addiction is related to a medium present in virtually all homes and not regulated, like drugs of abuse,” George Floros, who studies the emerging addiction at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, told Reuters Health.

“Parents would do well to examine the kind of model they present,” said Floros, an adjunct professor of medicine. “Being preoccupied with technology to the detriment of social contacts is something we are seeing more frequently in young parents and this offers a negative model for their children.”

Problematic parenting can go one of two ways, both of which might up the risk of Internet addiction in theory, he said. Overly permissive parents might use the Internet early on as a way to give up responsibility for the kids – an unattended child in front of a computer requires less effort from the parents than an active, present child. On the other hand, overly controlling parents can end up with kids who rebel or turn inwards, which might also lead to excessive Internet use, he said.

“Parents that identify their children to have some symptoms of addiction, like excessive time spent online or need to spend increasingly longer periods online, inadequate sleep and fatigue, apathy, nervousness, or irritability when offline, impairments in relationships and schoolwork or employment, should contact a health care professional as soon as possible,” Kalaitzaki said.

BY KATHRYN DOYLE

It seems like each time we turn on the television or go online, there is a new parenting study telling us that one thing is better than the other or that something we are doing is most likely going to have some sort of impact on someone or something. So are we supposed to live our lives and and or keep adjusting them each time a new study is released? The majority of these studies are coming from reputable sources, but where do you draw the line with too much advice? Generations before us raised kids and although they most likely had similar studies catered to their time era, the vast majority of adults turned out just fine, whether studies were followed or not. So it’s truly up to every parent. You can either listen to every study and live in a world of constant conformity that will most likely be high stress since parenting studies often contradict themselves, or you can pick and choose from all the advice and just raise your child the way in which you feel is best. There’s a humorous blog that dives into the issue of parenting studies a bit further. Below is a preview.

Back when I was a kid, there were no studies deploring the “questionable” parenting tactics of mothers (and to a lesser extent, fathers) who found a variety of uneducational ways to occupy their kids for short periods of time so they could get things done.  But today, it seems, no parenting decision is safe from the watchful eye of the parent police.  And now, a recent study by couponcodes4you.com (which, by the way, is a money saving website, not a parenting authority) concludes disapprovingly that many of us are using tablets and smart phones to keep our kids entertained and occupied.

Read the entire blog here.

How savvy are you with social media? A new research study shows that parents shouldn’t be afraid to learn about social media and get connected. Interacting with your children on social media may create a better and open relationship between parents and kids. Parents who are on their kid’s social media accounts not only have the ability to monitor what they are doing, but also to learn more about them. Kids express themselves more nowadays on social media and having access to those thoughts and feelings can be extremely beneficial when wanting to understand your children more. via phys.org

Brigham Young University professors Sarah Coyne and Laura Padilla-Walker found that teenagers who are connected to their parents on social media feel closer to their parents in real life.

The study of nearly 500 families also found that teens that interact with their parents on social media have higher rates of “pro-social” behavior – meaning that they are more generous, kind and helpful to others.

Lead study author Sarah Coyne did a Q & A about their findings. The full report appears in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Q: How does social media help families feel more connected?

A: You can do a lot on social networking sites. Your kid might post a picture, and you might show support by liking it or making a nice comment, or a status update that does the same kind of thing. It gives more opportunities to give positive feedback or show affection.

Social networks give an intimate look at your teenager’s life. It lets parents know what their kids are going through, what their friends think is cool or fun, and helps them feel more connected to their child. It gives a nice little window into what is going on.

Q: What’s the typical level of family engagement on social media?

A: Our study asked how often they interacted on social media. Half of the teens in our study reported being on social network sites with their parents and 16 percent interacted with parents every day through social media.

Q: Were more frequent interactions linked to more family closeness?

A: Yes, the more frequently parents used social media to interact with teens, the stronger the connection.

Q: Parents could take this too far presumably. Did you see any of that in your study?

A: It is the kind of thing that you can take too far. Parents need to be smart about how they use it. I think it is a really great tool to connect with your kids. But just like everything else, it’s got to be used in moderation. You don’t want to be the parent who posts embarrassing pictures of your kid all the time or makes snarky comments. You have to keep it at the level that’s appropriate and respectful of what the teen wants as well.

A survey carried out for Virgin Holidays and Universal Orlando Resort concluded that families are busier than every these days and don’t have much time to spend with each other. According to the findings, families are spending just over a half an hour a week together having quality time, and these low numbers are attributed to the demands of modern life. Other results showed that parents and children have less than eight hours together in each week. Weekends are the best times for family time with approximately two and a half hours being dedicated to spending time together.

Are we really that busy that we don’t have enough time to spend quality time together as a family? The new norm now is to just accept that we live in times where we are just too busy for our kids. This is just a small survey and doesn’t represent everyone in the United States, but it serves a reminder to take more time out for ourselves and for our families. More info from dailymail.com below:

The poll of 2,000 parents also found that grandparents miss out on time with their children and grandchildren with the average family visiting grandparents six times a year. Some mums and dads are so anxious about the lack of time their parents spend with their grandchildren that 65 per cent have, or are considering, arranging a holiday with them. Over half admitted the only ‘real’ time they get to spend together is when they go on holiday away from the distractions at home. Fifty six per cent said they have booked a holiday for no other reason than to enjoy some real time with their family without the demands of everyday life.

‘Parents are working, children are at school and the evening and weekends are taken up with a host of clubs, sports and play dates with friends. ‘But this means that many families struggle with really getting to spend some time together and just enjoy each other’s company for a while.

‘And grandparents fare even worse as they seem to be a long way down the list of priorities when it comes to squeezing in the visits during the busy weekends.

‘Instead of getting to enjoy their grandchildren growing up, many have to make do with quick visits on special occasions or snatched moments in between weekend activities.

‘From the point of view of the youngsters, while our research found 17 per cent said their children were at an age when they didn’t want to spend time with their parents, we believe that a holiday is the perfect time to do this if they choose a location which can cater to everyone’s needs.’

They added: ‘The pace of modern life can too often mean that multiple generations of families spending time together is the exception, rather than the rule.

‘And when it does happen it’s often an ‘occasion’ requiring everyone to behave in a certain way.

‘With the summer holidays looming though, we’d urge families to see it as a time to re-establish bonds and create some really precious memories.’

According to a new study conducted by Pew Research Center, the number of single dads in the US has risen dramatically since the 1960’s. But how is a single father defined? For the purposes of this research, a single father was determined to be a man who is not married as well as a man who doesn’t have a significant other living in their household. What the study found is that 1 in 4 single parents in the US is a single father. Many factors are responsible for the large number shift, but one is due to the fact of the decline in marriage. 41% of births in the US are now occurring outside of marriage. A quick Wall Street Journal clip about the study can be watched here: The Rise of Single Fathers

The number of single father households has increased about ninefold since 1960, from less than 300,000 to more than 2.6 million in 2011.1 In comparison, the number of single mother households increased more than fourfold during that time period, up to 8.6 million in 2011, from 1.9 million in 1960.

As a result, men make up a growing share of single parent householders.2 In 1960, about 14% of single parent households were headed by fathers, today almost one-quarter (24%) are.

There are some notable differences between single mothers and single fathers. Single fathers are more likely than single mothers to be living with a cohabiting partner (41% versus 16%). Single fathers, on average, have higher incomes than single mothers and are far less likely to be living at or below the poverty line—24% versus 43%. Single fathers are also somewhat less educated than single mothers, older and more likely to be white.

Compared with fathers heading households with two married parents, single dads are younger, less educated, less financially well-off and less likely to be white. To view the entire study, click here.

Reports in the UK show that dads are using technology in order to bond with their children. Some are even finding unique ways of parenting by using mobile phones or tablets. Is this the next generation of parenting? Would you use your tablet or mobile phone to spend quality time with your kid?

According to the report, just under a quarter of dads surveyed in the UK said that they use their tablet to play games with their children in order to bond. One in ten said they would watch Youtube videos together with their children and that they consider that to be spending quality time with one another.

Moms on the other hand prefer the traditional texting method of communication. Almost half of the parents said they have pretended to call the police on their phones to stop their children from acting up. Some even go as far as filming their children’s tantrums and then showing it back to their kids.

With technology at our fingertips, maybe it’s better to embrace the new resources? At least now, helping kids with homework has become much easier do to massive search engines like Google!

Joe Parker, Director of Online at Three, who conducted the research, says, “British families and dads in particular have embraced mobile technology in a bid to facilitate everyday Parenting. From being able to connect to your child at the touch of a button, to helping to answer difficult questions and taking photos to share with friends and family both here and abroad.

“Our research has also found that the mobile internet is allowing parents across the UK to boast about their child’s talent. One in 10 dads has posted a funny video of their child to YouTube in the hope that it will go viral like ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’. Being a fan of the silly stuff, we’re hoping to see more mini YouTube sensations making it big thanks to their digital savvy dads and mums.”

Read more: http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/parenting/parenting-news-dads-are-using-technology-to-bond-with-their-kids-297743.html#ixzz2WwkLxQud

This may come off as a no-brainer to some, but researchers at Duke Medicine have taken this general statement and focused entirely on children’s health, as well as dietary and physical behaviors. According to the study, parents who encourage their children to exercise and eat well, and model those healthy behaviors themselves  are more likely to be active and healthy eaters. Note the key point of the parents modeling that behavior. It’s easy to preach health but it’s important to lead by example.

The study was focused on mothers and obesity. From The Times of India:

In this study, lead author Truls Ostbye and his colleagues examined the relationship between the home environment and behaviors related to obesity -dietary and exercise habits – among preschoolers.

The researchers studied data from 190 kids, ages two to five, whose mothers were overweight or obese.

They collected information on the children’s food intake over the past week, with foods rated as junk food or healthy food. To gauge their levels of physical activity, the children wore accelerometers for a week, which measured moderate to vigorous physical activity as well as sedentary time.

The mothers reported information about their children’s environments, including family policies around food and physical activity, accessibility of healthy versus junk foods, availability of physical activity equipment, and whether they model healthy eating or exercise for their kids.

The researchers found significant associations between these environmental measures and the preschoolers” physical activity and healthy versus junk food intake.

They concluded that to promote healthy behaviors in children, a healthy home environment and parental role modeling are important.

Their study was published online in the International Journal of Obesity on June 18, 2013.

A national study from the Center on Media and Human Development Northwestern University sheds light on the ways digital technologies have changed parenting practices in the United States. With so many new gadgets, some parents are using mobile phones and tablets in different ways. Sometimes, mobile devices are used for learning, to calm a child down or even as a reward. The days of playing music and dancing around the room, or using educational learning toys are long gone. Or are they?

The new study looks at the ways digital technologies have changed parenting practices. What part do interactive and mobile technologies play in 21st century parenting?

Alexis R. Lauricella, one of the study’s authors, wrote in a Joan Ganz Cooney Center blog post,:

In contrast to thepopular pressimage that mobile technology is the new pacifier used to calm and quiet down children, our survey shows that parents today have a range of tools at their disposal and other tools are used more often than mobile technologies.  Parents are more likely to use toys or activities (88%), books (79%), and TV (78%) when they need to keep children occupied than mobile media devices like smartphones or iPads (37% among those who have one).

A few other interesting findings:

• Sibling rivalry and parental bouts: 78% of parents “disagree with the statement ‘negotiating media use causes conflict in our home.’” And most spouses (83%) agree with each other around questions of parenting with media.
• The income gap:  65% of high-income households ($100,000+ per year) own tablets, only 19% of low-income (less than $25,000). Smartphones: 80% (high-income), 61% (low-income).
• There’s still a video game stigma: “more parents rate video games as having a negative effect on children’s reading, math, speaking skills, attention span, creativity, social skills, behavior, physical activity, and sleep than any other activity.”
• Weaning from the new coviewing: joint media engagement among parents and their children decreases substantially above the age of six.
• Like parent, like child: the amount of media consumed by the parents is directly correlative to the amount media consumed by the children. 23% of “media-centric parents,” (who spend 11 hours per day, on average, engaged with TV, computer, smartphones, and video games) use media as a way to connect with their children.

What methods do you use or plan to use with your children? Do you think the use of digital technologies within parenting is going to continue to evolve?

Adapted from Forbes.com