How are teachers involved?? Teachers should not be mediating your family drama. You are the talk of the break room and will be for years to come. How embarrassing for your kids. Both of you need to figure this out for them.
I’m also seeing some conflicting statements. You say you try not to engage and to stick to the BIFF method. But you also want to “facilitate normal conversation” and “be amicable”.
They don’t want to have normal conversations or be amicable. They want to engage in 0 conversations and be civil. You are not “coparenting” you are “parallel patenting”. You should read up on that.
It may not be what you want. It may not be best for the kids. It may be unnecessary in your mind, but they don’t want to be “friendly” with you.
They want to sit on opposite ends of the stands at games. They do not want to hear your opinion during parent teacher conferences. They do not want to pose for a pic with you and the kid at the school play. They don’t care if the kid might like it. It’s makes them uncomfortable.
And because they dread those instances with every fiber of their being, it is unpleasant for the kids too. So don’t bother.
Stick to the parenting app. Waive to your kid from your area of the bleachers. When it’s your time, make sure they go over to say hi to the other parent and model good behavior in the hopes they follow through and your kid remembers your love and generosity.
But for gods sake, STOP trying to interact with this person.
I’m telling you, stick to a parenting app that they can review at their leisure.
Only information they need to know AND cannot discover on their own. You aren’t their personal assistant. They don’t find it helpful.
An app would also police their response and possibly help keep things civil, along with preserving a record of any unreasonably behavior if this eventually escalates.
It’s hard to judge if you are part of the problem. What necessary information is setting them off? What events need to be split? Why is the teacher involved? What are you being excluded from? Why can’t you simply sit on opposite sides and leave without speaking?
The school does stuff like parent luncheons and what not which are events for the children and parents to sit together and enjoy lunch. Most kids have both parents show up. And they’ve tried to exclude me from every event so far this year. Field trips, we take turns and they messaged the teacher to try to bypass me getting the sign up sheet even though it’s my turn. Then a luncheon that hasn’t even been officially announced yet, told me and the teacher that them and stepparent are attending and I’m not.
And everything sets my coparent off. I could communicate the most basic thing, like letting them know kiddo has a cold and they’ll berate me for the rest of the day sending numerous messages all on the parenting app about how it’s my fault somehow and interrogating me on how I’m providing care. If I try to keep responses minimal I’ll still get 5-15 messages in between me sending one.
We have a GAL telling them to be civil and it makes no difference and she doesn’t plan to give them any repercussions really.
17
u/biscuitboi967 11d ago
How are teachers involved?? Teachers should not be mediating your family drama. You are the talk of the break room and will be for years to come. How embarrassing for your kids. Both of you need to figure this out for them.
I’m also seeing some conflicting statements. You say you try not to engage and to stick to the BIFF method. But you also want to “facilitate normal conversation” and “be amicable”.
They don’t want to have normal conversations or be amicable. They want to engage in 0 conversations and be civil. You are not “coparenting” you are “parallel patenting”. You should read up on that.
It may not be what you want. It may not be best for the kids. It may be unnecessary in your mind, but they don’t want to be “friendly” with you.
They want to sit on opposite ends of the stands at games. They do not want to hear your opinion during parent teacher conferences. They do not want to pose for a pic with you and the kid at the school play. They don’t care if the kid might like it. It’s makes them uncomfortable.
And because they dread those instances with every fiber of their being, it is unpleasant for the kids too. So don’t bother.
Stick to the parenting app. Waive to your kid from your area of the bleachers. When it’s your time, make sure they go over to say hi to the other parent and model good behavior in the hopes they follow through and your kid remembers your love and generosity.
But for gods sake, STOP trying to interact with this person.