In many divorces involving children where both parents plan to take an active role in their kids’ lives, the divorcing couple enters a “co-parenting” relationship in which they make important decisions about education, health care and activities their children are involved in together. They also maintain similar rules, reward systems and consequences in their respective households.

Experts say this helps kids by creating consistency and stability in their lives. It also provides a model for children in problem-solving and compromise.

However, successful co-parenting requires that parents put aside personal grievances and engage in open communication and show mutual respect for one another. This can be challenging for many former couples, particularly in high-conflict situations in which parents can’t even be in the same room with each other, much less communicate effectively.

This is where “parallel parenting” may enter the picture. Parallel parenting is an alternative to co-parenting. Each parent makes their own decisions for the kids during their own time with them. This can minimize direct conflict, resulting in less stress for the children.

However, parallel parenting can also be challenging. For one thing, it requires each parent to respect the other parent’s decisions. It can also sometimes be confusing for children, who have to adjust to separate rules in separate places.

And since a major purpose of parallel parenting is to reduce the need for hostile parents to communicate directly, a key to success is developing a detailed parenting plan that makes clear each parent’s responsibilities and how holidays, vacations and school events will be handled. Such a plan may even have detailed arrangements for handoffs, such as having a third party deliver the children from one parent to the other so they don’t have to see each other.

If you are in a high-conflict situation with your ex and don’t feel that the co-parenting model is working for you, it could be worth a call to a local family law attorney to discuss the possibility of negotiating and drafting a parallel parenting plan that might create a better situation for your children.