The Family Court Services Divison of the Domestic Relations Office in El Paso, Texas has established parenting classes and seminars that teach divorcing parents their rights and responsibilities, as well as how their actions impact their children.

Truly, there’s really only one reason you need to co-parent cooperatively: your child.  But the Division’s Chief,  Rita Ruelas gets more specific about it, nothing that co-parents who “persist in hostile relationships can prompt children to have problems with development, coping skills, depression, adjustment disorders, being impulsive and poor academic performance.”

(Note: This is not to suggest that in all custody situations children should have both parents active in their lives no matter how those parents behave.  Shared custody is of course in the best interest of children ideally, but the specifics of each case must be weighed.  We’ve read research which shows that such blind “pro-shared custody” thinking has been used to justify children’s and ex-spouses’ continued exposure to abuse, which of course is in no one’s best interest.  An abusive relationship should be distinguished from the “hostile” ones that Ruelas is talking about–parents who don’t communicate, who communicate poorly and drag their kids in the middle, and who let their bitterness and pain reign unchecked to the detriment of their children.)

An article about El Paso’s co-parenting plan continues:

[Ruelas] described the stress children feel when they have a fun weekend with their non-custodial parent and aren’t allowed to talk about it when they go back to the custodial parent’s house.

“Think about it, going on a vacation and you get back and get off the airplane and get home and you can’t tell anybody. How not nice is that?” Ruelas said. “Let your children be. If they feel that they’re in an environment that’s not stressful, when they don’t have to hide stuff, you think you enjoy them now, you’ll enjoy them a whole lot more.”

Think about it.