Miss Manners for the Divorced Set…times 2 // Co-Parenting 101

I found some most excellent co-parenting resources today, all under the umbrella of an organization called Bonus Families:

Bonus Families®, as an organization was founded in 1999, but the ground work was laid years before. The founders, Jann Blackstone-Ford, PsyD., a divorce and stepfamily mediator, and Sharyl Jupe, had weathered the ups and downs of co-parenting children after divorce for ten years before they felt qualified to form an organization to help others. How did these two women meet? Sharyl is Jann’s husband’s ex-wife.

That’s right…An ex-wife and a current wife have teamed up to provide support and resources to other co-parenting families. But…

Jann and Sharyl did not get along at first. It took years of butting heads before they realized they could actually work together. This effort evolved into what is now known as Bonus Families®. The goal of the Bonus Families® organization is to offer mediation, conflict management, support, and education to people attempting to combine families after a divorce or separation. It combines Jann and Sharyl’s practical experience with the expertise of professionals to offer down-to-earth real advice that works.

Bonus Families®, a 501 c 3 non-profit organization, promotes a positive image for stepfamilies and prefers the word bonus rather than the word step. Step implies negative things—wicked, evil, certainly not a contributing member of a family. However, a bonus is something positive, a reward for a job well done. Using the word bonus instead of step is an acknowledgement of the hard work it takes to make a stepfamily successful. The term bonus also supplies a positive label to a family that lives together and the parent figures are not married to each other.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the Bonus Families® philosophy is that we recognize how important it is for all the parent figures, both bio and bonus, to work together to raise healthy, well-adjusted kids after their parents split up. Our efforts start with what is conventionally called a “stepfamily, but extends past that to promote good communication between ex-partners, plus look for ways to successfully integrate the new parent figure’s efforts, as well. Bonus Families® believes that parents have a moral obligation to put their own interests aside for the sake of their children–or their partner’s children.

I am standing up and applauding right now.

Sharyl and Jann write an advice column called “Ex-Etiquette” (which was my intro to them after I found the column at DallasNews.com). Read their advice to a question about a parent who wants to use her 8-year-old child as a go-between, here.

When I read the following quote from another Ex-Etiquette, I was reminded of a divorced couple I know in which the ex-wife is really having a hard time adjusting to co-parenting:

We think when we get older and have children of our own that we will automatically become more secure within ourselves and no longer have feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. And, divorce? If you ever had an insecure bone in your body, divorce will find it and shake it until it really hurts.

Among the many resources BonusFamilies offers are books by Sharyl and Jann, covering topics such as general ex-etiquette, ex-etiquette for weddings, and ex-etiquette for holidays and other family celebrations.

Kudos and much appreciation to BonusFamilies!