By Kids need consistency, especially during their youngest years. Consistent rhythms instill a sense of security that their souls need in order to develop emotional strength and maturity. So, what happens when you get divorced and your kids have to flow between two (or more) households?
I’ve been divorced for over a decade now, and I’ve been raising kids in a shared custody situation for that entire time. This can bring out the best in kids but also adds some frustrations to the mix like we’ve experienced with tupperware, spoons and baseball hats. But it’s not just about missing kitchenware and clothing; two household situations can inject inconsistencies into nearly every part of family life and child development.
If you’re just starting on this two household journey, let me encourage you: Do the best you can to create as much consistency as possible for the sake of your kids.
This is easy to say, but much harder to do.
Coordinating with your ex regarding family rhythms and expectations is difficult even in amicable co-parenting situations. Imagine trying to get two formerly married parents who are now living in two different homes and maybe two different cities or even two different states to coordinate on meal ingredients, dinner times, bedtime rituals, favorite family games, sports teams, music lessons, approaches to discipline, consequences for disobedience, chores and allowance, extracurricular activities, vacation rhythms, spiritual instruction, or music preferences. That’s a lot for a loving couple in one household to agree on, let alone for parents in two households who may have additional partners (or additional exes) who bring their own preferences and personalities into family dynamics. Even if everybody respects each other and gets along well, it’s a huge communication lift to carry in the midst of all the normal demands of life.
In a high-tension parallel parenting situation that stems from mistrust, abuse, or just wildly different personalities or worldviews, this type of coordination and consistency is virtually impossible.
Yes, creating consistency for your kids can get complicated in a hurry. Since we all have unique parenting situations, each of us ultimately has to figure out for ourselves how to cultivate consistency in family rhythms, but we can still learn from each other’s experiences.
My kids were three, five, and seven when I went through a divorce. For a while, I worked really hard to maintain consistency in their lives and make the environment at my house as normal as I could (whatever normal means). I tried to stick with the daily rhythms that I had established during the first part of their life when they only had one household: dinner at 5:30 with prayer before the meal, Bible readings, fun Scripture recitations to help the kids memorize Bible verses, sharing highs and lows from the day, evening family activities, Bible readings and storytime before bed. (Yes, there was a lot of Bible back then.)
As the kids grew older and the households diverged, many of those rhythms changed.
Our households have taken on totally different vibes as far as I can tell. Over the years, Melinda and I have provided more of a hippie type of household–organic homemade meals, flexible schedule (what time is dinner tonight? who knows!), spontaneous mini adventures, high tolerance for messiness, limited technology and screen time, chickens in the backyard, suburban garden (she first met my kids as my farmer friend who introduced them to fresh, raw broccolini), frank conversations about sexuality and politics (lots of these convos!). As far as I can tell from the way they talk about life at their mom’s, the kids experience a totally different environment at their other house–not suggesting that ours is better by any means, just that it’s not the same.
We’ve tried hard to provide a stable, loving home. Yet the reality of two very different households has sometimes made me want to give up trying to create consistent rhythms and expectations like the ones I had when I grew up in my one-household family.
When I was a kid, my mom made us breakfast while my dad led devotions at the same time every morning. I practiced piano in the same living room every day. I ate at the same dinner table at the same supper time. I experienced the same discipline when I disobeyed. I mowed the same lawn, shoveled the same driveway, listened to the same radio shows every Saturday morning (we didn’t have a TV to watch Saturday morning cartoons so we listened to Ranger Bill and Charity Churchmouse on the Christian radio station instead). I ate the same tuna casserole (without onion powder), went to the same municipal pool, shot hoops on the same basketball court, and rode the same bike around the same neighborhood every day in the summer.
My kids didn’t grow up that way–at least for the last decade of their lives. They have had to navigate two different worlds with two different sets of expectations, and I have had to navigate the challenges of disciplining them and developing them despite the inconsistencies of the parental schedule.
Consider chores and jobs for example. My fourteen year old son had a job for the last two years. He was responsible for letting out the neighbor’s dog every day so that it could go potty in the backyard. This needed to happen every weekday while my neighbor was at work. Unfortunately, my kids aren’t at my house all the time, so on the days that he was at his mom’s, I subbed for him and took care of it. Then basketball season started. When basketball ended, after school workouts for speed and strength began. He couldn’t get home in time to let the dog out to do her duty, so I had to cover for him.
I tried to keep him engaged as the primary contact for the job. At first I required him to set an alarm on his phone to remind him every day and ask me every time he needed me to cover. Pretty soon I was subbing for him almost every day, regardless of whether he said anything to me or not. So, I began quietly collecting the money. I gave it back to him in exchange for extra chores around the house or community service of various kinds. This was my attempt to cultivate commitment and create some sense of constant connection to his job despite an inconsistent schedule due to navigating two households.
But there was an additional challenge in this scenario: inconsistent chores. I would save up opportunities for him to earn that cash by reserving special chores around the house or in the woods with the local trail project I help lead. Maybe dusting all the cobwebs in the house or hauling cement blocks for a new patio or sweeping the garage or cutting buckthorn at a local park. I’d save the task for a weekend that he was at my house, but then he’d be sick or it would rain all weekend or we would have some other family commitment. The next weekend he was at his mom’s, so he couldn’t do the chore then. Sometimes I couldn’t wait two weeks to give him the opportunity again, so I would end up doing the work myself.
Last weekend, the chore I wanted to assign for him was scrubbing the bathroom floor to clean up the construction mess that had accumulated after my bathtub renovation project. The photo below shows part of the mess. I call this piece of art “Unrequited Chore”. Unfortunately, it couldn’t wait for him to return from his mom’s, so it had to be done by his dad (yours truly).
This type of thing happens over and over again. If you have kids who share time with another household, you know what I’m talking about. The schedule makes it challenging to create consistency with household and community responsibilities. I’m not saying it’s impossible to teach your kids important life lessons when they’re not at your house all the time. But it can be more difficult, especially since more is caught than taught when it comes to character, work ethic, values, political perspectives, spiritual beliefs, and just about everything else in life.
Now that my kids are older, the inconsistencies fade a bit. They’re making their own choices about what to eat, where to work, and how to organize their day. They have cars and bikes and can get themselves places on their own timelines. The 5-2-2-5 schedule doesn’t matter very much anymore.
The challenges of inconsistent parenting crop up in new ways now. In the last year, I’ve listened to dozens of podcasts from The Ready State about parents who create patterns in their families to cultivate optimal environments for growth and to maximize athletic performance (Both of my teenagers are gifted athletes, so I’m paying close attention to these podcasts.) Sometimes it’s the sleep-focused parents who dim the lights at night and put phones in a basket at 8:00 to prepare the body for a good night’s rest. Or the food-focused parents who restrict sugars and beef up proteins and have their kids help make whole-food meals from organic ingredients and grass-fed, free-range animals.
The podcast guests talking about these strategies are parents in one-household families. But how does this work in families where kids are raised in two or more households? How does one family cultivate an organic lifestyle when they eat primarily ultra processed foods at the other home? How does one parent create a consistent workout plan when they’re only at her house half the time? How does one parent enforce screen time limits and cell phone restrictions when the expectations are different at the other house? What if one house wants to build lots of freetime into their schedules for free play and exploration when the other house wants to structure every moment with organized, fee-based activities?
I emailed Kelly and Juliet Starett of The Ready State to get their thoughts about how to create consistent family rhythms across multiple households. I suggested that it would be great if they could ask their podcast guests to talk about how to apply the principles to divorced families. I asked: “Any thoughts, resources, or suggestions for divorced parents as they try to raise healthy, high performing kids?”
Their response: “I can’t think of anyone addressing it! I’ll think on it! In the meantime, you got this!”
They didn’t have any answers. How about you? What are your thoughts? Send us a message. We’d like to know.
For now, here’s my suggestion: Do the best you can. Plan ahead but be flexible. Model what you want to see in them. It’s amazing how much more gets caught than taught. You got this!
Here’s how it’s going for us: All my kids make their own breakfast and lunch for school. It’s pretty impressive what they make. They do their own laundry. They get themselves ready for school and figure out solutions to their problems. They write their own workouts and craft their own meal plans to maximize performance. They manage their environment to prioritize sleep. They’re building healthy habits into their life. They’ve watched me do it, and we’ve done it together (e.g., family workouts in the driveway or the basement, group yoga in the living room, Wim Hof breathing sessions on a cold, dark winter evening).
They’re well into their teens (and one is grown and gone), but they’ve been doing some of these things since elementary school.
Despite the inconsistencies of their weekly rhythms, living in two households may have helped them become self-sufficient and responsible and cultivate their own forms of consistency in ways that they might not have experienced in a single family situation.
We have a four week old in the house now. He’s here with us full time, because Melinda is his mother. So, now we enter a new world of 24/7 parenting instead of the split parenting that has been my family’s norm for the last decade. We have a new factor in the equation that will impact all of our rhythms. Stay tuned for how that goes. If you have any advice for navigating this new reality, we’re all ears.
Well, it’s been nice chatting. Now it’s time for me to change a poopy diaper. Ruck on!
Israel and Melinda 