Coparent Academy Podcast
Lifechanging Coparenting
Coparent Academy Podcast
#177 - Extracurriculars - A Practical Guide for Cooperative Coparents
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Extracurriculars are meant to be fun, but they can be a source of tension for coparents. In this video, we provide practical advice to help you and your coparent make decisions smoothly. We cover everything from the importance of trial periods for new activities to setting boundaries for mutual respect, both on the sidelines and online. By working as a team, you can give your child the gift of a positive experience, preventing them from being soured on activities they love.
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In this video we're going to start talking about the Co-Parents Guide to Extracurricular Activities and in this one we're going to start off with the Cooperative Co-Parents Guide. In other episodes within this series we're going to talk about high-conflict co-parenting and extracurriculars, including the idea that sometimes co-parents unfortunately, either intentionally or not, will kind of sabotage the extracurricular decision-making for the extended family. We're going to do this in a few different parts. The first part is going to be the decision-making framework itself, starting off with a kickoff meeting to try to get on the same page about extracurriculars. Then we're going to talk about selecting the extracurricular. After you've had that process done, we're going to get into age-specific considerations, the issue of having multiple children and how that can impact extracurriculars for a family. Then we'll talk about a framework for cooperative disagreements because, remember, not all conflict is bad. Conflict can be really productive. So we'll talk about how to do that well. Then we'll talk about some boundaries for maintaining mutual respect. So first let's get into the decision-making framework.
Speaker 1:Before you start signing up for extracurriculars, it's important to have a shared idea about what you're going to do. So I think a good idea is, if you're working cooperatively, once a year just have essentially a kickoff meeting. You can do this depending on when things are important in your part of the world. There may be some seasons that are more important to you than others and that could dictate when you have this meeting. But you schedule a dedicated, kid-free meeting between the co-parents to talk about big picture ideas, and so here's some examples about the kinds of things that you could talk about in a kickoff meeting. First, have a review of what happened before. You can take a look at the last year and see okay, this worked well, this didn't work well last year with extracurriculars, and it gives you some ideas about maybe what you want to work towards and what you want to avoid Child's input. Now, without the child present, without putting them in the middle of it, you could both talk about. Well, this is what I've heard our kids saying that they might be interested in, or this is something they've definitely said they don't want to do again this year.
Speaker 1:Next is the goal, and I think this is a really important one, because this is where I think a lot of co-parents go wrong. You have to have an understanding of what are we doing this extracurricular for. I mean, is it just to have fun? Is it because we're skill building. Are we looking to help our child learn teamwork or leadership? Is our child someone who's established in an extracurricular already and we're looking to give them a push towards, maybe scholarship options? So understanding what the goal is for the extracurricular is really important.
Speaker 1:Next is budgeting. Money is always a limiting factor, and especially as we start talking about having more than one kid. So you have to come up with a specific budget per child per year that you can agree on, and you have to figure out how you're going to split the costs. So easiest you can do a 50-50s parents to split all costs down the middle. Another option is a percentage income share all costs down the middle. Another option is a percentage income share. If the two of you together make a total of $10,000, one of you makes $6,000, the other makes $4,000, then one person's percentage income share would be 60% $6,000 out of 10. Another person's would be 40% $4,000 out of 10. Another way to try to handle it is designating a certain extracurricular expense to a certain parent. So maybe one parent agrees to cover piano lessons while the other parent covers softball.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever it is, whichever budget proposal that you find works for you is great. You just have to be on the same page and have to talk about it and have an understanding of how you're gonna handle it. You don't want any surprises when it comes to finances, because that puts a big pinch on you as a co-parent, especially if it's last minute. You want to avoid getting into a situation where your child has this expectation of playing this extracurricular and then it turns out that money is a real limiting factor that you can't do anything about. Also, a lot of times for parents, this is where shame comes in. You feel bad that you can't provide for your child what you know that they would like to do, and so having you both be on the same page in advance about what is realistic in terms of budgets is extremely important to having a cooperative co-parenting exchange about extracurriculars.
Speaker 1:Another important one is the time cap. How much time are we willing, as an extended family, to dedicate to this extracurricular activity? This could be a maximum number of activities per season. It could be a number of evenings per week. It could be a number of hours per week, depending on what the extracurricular is and how it's organized. There's going to be different time requirements and it's going to be sort of measured in different ways, be different time requirements, and it's going to be sort of measured in different ways and maybe practices per week and maybe hours of practice of a skill, but it's important to have that time commitment cap, something that is agreed upon, and then you end your meeting with whatever research needs to be done. And this is helpful to divvy that up as well. Maybe one parent can take a look at the cost and the schedule for one activity and one parent will look at the cost and the schedule for the other. You can both come back with objective information, links to websites, pamphlets that you received, whatever it is, so you can both come back together after this kickoff meeting and make a decision that is well informed and fair to everybody.
Speaker 1:Now step two is the selection process. Now, this is where you actually bring your child into the process. Depending on the age of your child, you're going to give them different levels of input and autonomy in terms of how extracurriculars are chosen. You don't want to bring your child in before you've had this kickoff meeting. You don't want to bring your child into the process before you and your co-parent have reached some mutual understandings about the budget, the time commitment and the purpose of the extracurricular.
Speaker 1:When you come back for this meeting, what you're going to do is share the findings of your research. Part of this research is having spoken with your child, asking your child hey, you know what is it that you've experienced at school? That's been fun. You know what do you like to do? Or what do you hear your friends talking about? What are they doing? Are they playing certain sports? Are they on certain teams or in certain leagues? Because a lot of times, depending on the age of your child, it may be more about being on the same team with their friend in a particular sport, especially if they don't have a lot of experience with different activities already.
Speaker 1:So you share this information that you learned from your child. You share the information that you've learned from doing your research online, and now you can run all of this information that you've received through a series of filters, and really there's three main filters that you need to run this information through. The first filter is going to be child filter. So is this an extracurricular that actually speaks to your child? Do they really want to do this? Sometimes, parents can just relive their dreams through their kids and that doesn't work out well, I think almost ever. So the first filter is this really what my child wants? Is this really appropriate for my child given their age or abilities as I know them already? Will this work for my kid?
Speaker 1:Next, the schedule filter. Is this an activity that's going to fit well within the time constraints of both households? Each household is going to be different. One parent may be remarried and have stepkids. There may be multiple burdens on one particular co-parent's time that the other co-parent doesn't feel. It has to be an extracurricular that works with the scheduling requirements of both households, and maybe that means that there is an agreement by one of the co-parents who has less pressure on their time to do more of the actual work. When it comes to the extracurriculars of picking up and transporting and doing that kind of thing, it's possible that something that may wind up being fair, given everyone's interests all put together, isn't necessarily equal. Then that can be okay, as long as everybody's on the same page about it from the very beginning.
Speaker 1:Next is the budget filter. Is this proposal for an extracurricular something that fits within the pre-approved budget that we talked about? Because, remember, in that kickoff meeting, you were both going to be very honest about. This is what I can afford and this is what I can't afford. Now I'm going to remind you if you're thinking to yourself well, yeah, this is where they're going to start to say things that aren't true just because they don't want to pay. This is the cooperative co-parenting video. We'll get into all those other issues when they get into the high conflict video. And then next I typically recommend some trial periods.
Speaker 1:If this is a new extracurricular, a new activity that hasn't been tried before, keep it as low key as possible. You know, if it's a musical instrument, if your child's going to start playing the trumpet, don't go get them a fancy, brand new trumpet. You know. Get them a used one. See if you can rent one for a period of time. If it's a sport, see if there's a short season that you can get into. That's not very long, just several weeks to let your kid you know if they're thinking about getting into jujitsu or something. See if you can do some walking classes where you don't really have a commitment. You just get to go in and try it. Do things that are as low-key as possible to give your child the opportunity to experience what it's actually like and for you to experience what it's going to be like to deal with this extracurricular. Don't go buying lots of equipment, fancy gear, fancy stuff. Keep it low-key.
Speaker 1:Now I want to talk about age-specific considerations. Kids' needs change dramatically as they grow. If you have a very small child toddler, preschool age the focus at this age is just on exploration. It's supposed to be play, social exposure. You're not looking to master skills here. You just want to give them an opportunity to have some fun with some friends and maybe start to get a sense of what kind of activities that they like.
Speaker 1:Next, think about commitment. It should be very low commitment. It should be very short term, just one activity at a time. This is not the time to teach your child about making commitments and sticking with them. There's no way that a toddler or preschooler understands that they're making any sort of commitment. They're not making the decision anyway. So you're just exposing them to activities to get a sense of what they like. And the question that you should be asking yourselves as co-parents is how can I make this experience as fun for my child as possible, as low pressure as possible? How can I make this experience as fun for my child as possible, as low pressure as possible. You don't want to make the mistake of trying to introduce something too quickly and too intensely. That turns them off of activities before they even get a chance really to get started.
Speaker 1:Next we have elementary school age, so six to ten years of age. Here the focus is still having fun with friends, it's sampling different interests. Now we're building in learning teamwork, we're developing some foundational skills. So for the activities that you kind of get a sense that they like, maybe you start getting them a little more practice. Maybe you can even start thinking about getting them some coaching or whatever. It is at a very low level, still low intensity. The commitment can be a little bit broader, not necessarily just a drop-in. Maybe they can do it for a month or two, maybe a longer season, maybe even the length of a semester or a few months.
Speaker 1:Start to get them into more of a committed, more of a structured, more of an intense exposure to extracurriculars, but still primarily fun, primarily socialization, just learning some skills. For parents, questions now become more like how can we set up schedules? Because these extracurriculars are going to start having more. There's going to be team schedules, there's going to be, you know, group chats, there's going to be responsibility for getting to more practices and events. So starting to work on with elementary school age children the logistics end of it is going to be important. As you get into middle school, these kids are going to be really starting to focus on developing their skill. Still, there's social interaction, there's leadership if it's a team sport.
Speaker 1:You're having to think more about balancing the participation in extracurriculars with the academic progress and starting to put some rules in place for your child to understand that extracurriculars are a privilege and they have to be earned through doing the other things that they need to do, including good grades, good conduct in school. In this age, you want to start giving your child more of a say in the extracurriculars. They've got experience with it. They know what they'd like and they don't like. So, within certain bounds, giving your child a little bit more of a say in how these extracurriculars go. But at the same time, your child doesn't understand the pressures on the rest of the family, financially or in terms of time management. So although you're giving them a bit more of a voice, you're letting them be part of the process you still have to make sure that you're the one who's telling your child yeah, we just can't afford that or, yeah, we don't have time for that with all of these other commitments as well.
Speaker 1:There are realistic barriers that are in place to some of these extracurricular activities. Now, as you get into the high school age, this is where you're starting to get into the mastery of the skill if it's something they've been doing for quite a while. Leadership opportunities if it's a team sport. These are now starting to be activities that can really influence future goals. Is your child good enough at soccer that maybe they can get a scholarship? Are they good enough at band that they can get a scholarship in that? Are they an artist? Is this something that is going to turn into them going to an art school Now? Whatever, it is understanding that now this activity, if it's been going on for a while, is really getting ingrained in them. It's becoming really a part of their personality. Their self-esteem is built into it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, even at this age, you have children who are trying an activity for a first time. Whenever you're introducing a new activity that your child hasn't done before, you need to sort of step back and remember that it's just that initial exposure. They may be in high school, but if they're just starting to pick up the trumpet, you're going to do the same slow steps, low commitment, an inexpensive instrument, spending a lot on lessons or things like that at first, just giving them a chance to sort of dabble, see if they like it. A lot of times parents, when teenagers are starting something new, they tend to want to crunch down too hard because of the age of the child, without taking into consideration that this is a brand new thing for them. They have no idea if they're going to like it.
Speaker 1:So although it's appropriate for a child who's been playing soccer for five years to be told hey, if you commit to this team, it's going to count on you. You have to play for the entire season. Commit to this team, that's going to count on you. You have to play for the entire season. It's not the same to tell a child hey, I'm going to get you this inexpensive trumpet, but you have to play for six months. If I get you this trumpet because you made a commitment, you have to follow through. That doesn't make sense. When a child is learning something new, having a new activity for the first time, give them some slack. You don't want to kill any potential enthusiasm they have for the activity.
Speaker 1:Next is the issue of having multiple children, for whom you have to figure out extracurriculars, whether it's multiple children within this parent group, the original family, or maybe you have set families that have multiple children as well and now you're dealing with this whole unit of children across two extended families. It gets infinitely more complicated and expensive, as anyone with multiple children can tell you. The first thing is to not focus on things being equal, so individualize, don't equalize. It may be the case that one child has a really strong passion about something that doesn't take a lot of time or money. Another child may have a passion about something that doesn't take a lot of time or money. Another child may have a passion about something that takes way more time and money. Just because the two children are not receiving the same amount of financial backing or time commitment from the parents doesn't mean that it's unfair. It may match exactly what the passions of the children are.
Speaker 1:So look at each child individually, consider each child's extracurricular activity individually and as part of a whole, but don't think that everything has to be equal. When you have so many children, it becomes even more important to be sitting down and talking about the budget and the time constraints. It's just not the case that every child is going to be able to do everything that they want and lots of families just don't have the money or the time to make it happen, and that is realistic. So again, be sure to sit down and make sure that whatever you're committing to, whatever you're letting the child know they can do, is something that you as a parent can commit to in terms of time and in terms of money. If it's not, don't get your kids hope up about it.
Speaker 1:It becomes really important in this cooperative co-parenting setting when you have multiple children across two different households to divide and conquer strategically the best you can. You know you very likely will have two children and two different activities in two different places at the same time, so that's not going to work for both of you to be with both children at both places. So one way to do it is you each take a child with their activity for that week and you do it for that week and then you switch off the next. It gives everybody an opportunity to see the child in the activity. It lets the child see that both parents are supporting the activity and that works well. Another way to do it is to maybe rotate weekends. You know, on this weekend I'm going to be in charge of activities and you get the weekend off. On this next weekend we switch. Whatever way works for you to divide and conquer, you're going to have to do it. If you were still in the same household and you had multiple children and multiple activities, you'd be dividing and conquering. Just because you're in two different households doesn't mean it's going to be any different.
Speaker 1:Next is thinking about a framework for cooperative disagreement. So, even though you guys are on the same team, you're co-parenting cooperatively there's going to be disagreements. There are going to be impasses that you reach where you just fundamentally disagree in good faith. But you fundamentally disagree and it's good to have a pre-planned process for what you do when you reach that kind of fundamental disagreement. I think the first step is to reiterate what that shared goal was, to remind each other hey, we both want what's best for our kid. This is what that shared goal was. We maybe are looking at it a little bit differently, but we still have the same goal. Our goal was for our child to have fun, or our goal was for our child to learn these skills. Whatever that goal is, reiterate that you both had the same goal, so that I think it'll put you both back on the same team and realize that it's a you versus the problem situation and not you versus each other.
Speaker 1:Next, each parent should really get into a good explanation of why their preference is the way it is. Just saying because I want it isn't really good enough. If you're going to come to a mutually beneficial and respectful conclusion to this, you have to explain your position. I mean, it may be that once you explain your position, the other parent's like oh yeah, I see that you're right. You know, if you don't actually give the opportunity for the other parent to agree with you, then they're probably not going to. So give them that chance.
Speaker 1:If you can't reach an agreement maybe one parent wants, you know, soccer to happen and the other parent doesn't then maybe what you do is agree by default to a trial period, some short camp or some just community activity that doesn't require a lot of commitment, so you can try it out. You can then reevaluate. Or if there's nothing available like that, maybe what you do is you say, hey, we're going to agree to one season as a default, but there's no agreement after that and our child's going to know in advance that we're not sure if it's going to happen after that. We're not getting anybody's hopes up. And then another potential tiebreaker that you can have is which parent is going to be most influenced by it. It is possible that there's a parent whose household is going to be more negatively influenced than the other parents by this activity. If there's a clear difference in how the impact is going to fall, then my perspective is the household who's most negatively impacted gets to have a tiebreaker. Or alternatively, the parent who is not as affected needs to step up and take more of that burden. Parent who is not as affected needs to step up and take more of that burden. That leveling in the playing field can make sometimes the disagreement go away. All right.
Speaker 1:Last, we have some boundaries for maintaining mutual respect. So if you're going to have this cooperative system, as with anything in co-parenting, you're going to wind up having to have really clear boundaries. And one thing is where the gear stays. For some activities there's very minimal gear and it's not a problem. If you have kids playing hockey, for example, or football, you may have tons of gear. There's lots of different options to figure out where the gear is going to stay, and you should work together to try to come up with some different solutions about what makes most sense. I mean, depending on the level of your co-parenting relationship, it may be the case that one parent lives right next to the activity and so the gear stays at their place. There's lots of different options, so work together to try to find an option that makes the most sense.
Speaker 1:Make sure that you've remained unified on the finances. Use a shared app for reimbursements, like our Family Wizard, for example. You've got the pre-agreed budget that you came up with, so make sure that you're connecting those expenses that come up with the pre-agreed budget. If something comes outside of that budget, if some surprise happens, talk about it as soon as possible. Don't let it become a situation in which one parent becomes disproportionately responsible, in violation of the agreement that you reached beforehand. You've got to keep honest about these finances and transparent as well. No surprises.
Speaker 1:Be respectful on the sidelines, and the sidelines means both physically, if you're at an event like a soccer field, or online, if you're at an event like a soccer field or online. When you're at an event, you guys are a team. You should be on the same page. If you're both going to be at the event, then your number one rule is make sure my child feels supported and loved by both of us and doesn't have to pick and doesn't have to be embarrassed by our behavior. That's unbecoming. And then, in terms of social media, don't do a social media war related to these extracurriculars. Sometimes you can have these vague posts that seem to be implying something negative about your other co-parent, even if you didn't really mean it. Sometimes you know that it can be taken that way and you kind of don't care at the moment, because even the best of relationships has its rocky patches.
Speaker 1:So have a unified and respectful sideline game, both in person and also online, and then talk about what happens when a parent just can't take the child. Life happens, things occur. If it's the situation that you both have an agreed-upon extracurricular that has a schedule and one parent parent A is supposed to take the child and something comes up and they can't, then you should have a plan in place about what's going to happen. Is the other parent going to come and get the child and take them to the activity? If they can? How does that work? How does the transportation work? And then what happens if the other parent can't either? What's the explanation to the child? Again, it should be a united front and it should be hey, we're so sorry, but life happens and it turns out that neither of us could get you to that activity today. We're really sorry. You know, maybe you have some backup plans with some carpooling that you can arrange in advance.
Speaker 1:That's something tons of parents do. They get together with the parents on the teams and they have a phone tree with backups in terms of who can pick up the child if there's an issue. So work together to present a united front to the team as well. You don't want to have a situation in which none of the other parents wants to interact with you or participate in any sort of backup plan like that because you make it so uncomfortable because of the co-parenting dynamic. That's another reason to be cooperative with each other is you make it more likely that others will want to be cooperative with you as a team. And then in terms of exchange of information, to the extent that there's a group chat for the team, both parents should be on the group chat. If a parent has the opportunity to receive the information directly from the organization, then they should do everything they can to make sure that they have provided their contact information so they get it directly. But if one parent receives information that the other parent didn't receive maybe it was parent A's turn to take the child to the activity and there was something on paper or something that was said only at that event and it wasn't online the other parent couldn't have gotten it then the parent received the information needs to immediately provide it to the other parent so that everybody stays on the same page.
Speaker 1:A bottom line regarding extracurriculars is that these are opportunities for your child to experience new things, to gain in self-esteem, to build skills, to build social skills that it can also go horribly wrong. I've seen lots of kids working as a guardian ad litem and a parenting coordinator whose parents have so soured extracurricular activities that they want none of it Inside. They would love to go play basketball or they love to play soccer, but their parents have turned it into such a nightmare that they just don't want to do it anymore. To the extent that co-parents are arguing and fighting and making extracurriculars toxic, you're taking something viable away from your children the opportunity to experience something that we as adults don't get to do that much to go out and play a game and have fun with your friends. So if you're watching this and you're a cooperative co-parent, I applaud you because it is a fantastic gift you're giving your child to work together, cooperatively with their co-parent to allow them the privilege of enjoying an extracurricular activity that may become a lifelong passion for them. That's a gift you're giving your kid.
Speaker 1:If you found this content helpful, if you would please share it and like it. If you like this content, please ring that bell so that you'll get notified when there's new video content coming out. This is the first part of our extracurricular series. We'll be doing more next week. We will be talking about when you have, unfortunately, high conflict co-parenting and we're going to be talking about some of the ways subtle and not so subtle that high conflict co-parents are able to manipulate children and to interfere with a good faith resolution of the question of what are we going to do about extracurriculars. That's next time, take care.