Love is served!

This post first appeared at CoParenting101.org.

At first glance, what you see is just Sunday dinner. But perhaps what you can’t see are the ingredients that went into making this wonderful spread: time, attention, thought, patience, laughter, fun…and love.

My (Deesha’s) oldest stepdaughter made sautéed greens (a method of preparing greens that I introduced her and her dad to recently). Tell me these don’t look like something straight off of Food Network (and no, mine never look this good!):

My youngest stepdaughter made the corn bread and macaroni and cheese. My husband helped her fry the chicken (and by “helped”, I mean he fried the chicken while she was off doing something else, lol).

What does any of this have to do with co-parenting? Only this: This spread really brought home something that we write about on this site daily. We try to encourage parents who are co-parenting under difficult circumstances, who may be discouraged or worried about the impact of parental conflict on their children. Time and time again, we tell them not to underestimate the power of their positive influence in the face of negativity. We tell them that their character and their actions do matter, and that the children are always watching.

We tell them we understand that it’s hard to be the Bigger Parent. We tell them to just hold on, with the hope that their kids will “get it”, in their own time.

We urge them to focus on the power they do have to impact their children’s lives for the better, even though they may feel powerless when their children are not in their care.

We tell them that the time, attention, thought, patience, laughter, fun…and yes love, that they share with their children means the world.

Peace to the parents who do not get a chance to connect in this way with their children because of parental alienation.

Peace to the parents who feel like they messed up at the outset of the break-up and want another chance with their children to do better.

Peace to the parents who are afraid that their children’s love for the other parent somehow diminishes their love for them. (It doesn’t.)

Peace to the children who live between two households and who simply want…peace.

Speaking of my dear husband, you can hear him, El Ex, and some other wonderful co-parenting dads on the most recent episode of Co-Parenting Matters, “Dads’ Roundtable Discussion.”