Difficult co-parenting situations often propel us into EMOTIONALLY REACTIVE STATES. When we are in these states, we react in ways that are often not helpful, and actually wind up working against our own best interests and the best interests of our children.

There is a good reason for this. When we are in emotionally reactive states, like anger, frustration, anxiety or resentment, we actually lose access to the part of our brain that is intelligent and can consider the consequences of our actions.

In emotionally reactive states, we act out habitually and our habitual ways of reacting are usually not effective. When you react out of difficult emotions, your emotions are in control, as opposed to you being in control of your emotions.

One of the most important skills of being an effective parent and co-parent, is learning to work with the difficult emotional states. Wise co-parents have  knowledge about how emotions work and use skills such as MINDFULNESS for working with difficult emotional states.