Raising a decision with a co-parent is easier when the email has a shape. Fill in the blanks and this will write it for you, whether you are raising something or answering a proposal you did not expect.
This is my co-parenting email template, built into the page. It follows the same shape as the printed one, and it uses the same feeling and need word lists. Pick which kind of email you are writing, fill in what applies, and copy the result.
Click a word to drop it in, or type your own.
Fill in whichever apply. Anything left blank is left out.
Anything still blank shows as a line of underscores, so you can finish it in your email. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere or saved. It stays in your browser and disappears when you close the page, and nobody at Victoria Mediation sees it.
The structure is not politeness for its own sake. Each part of it is there because emails without it tend to come back as an argument or a question rather than an answer.
It costs you nothing and it changes how the rest is read. One line about the weather is enough.
Two subjects in one email halves the chance of a clear answer to either. Send the second one tomorrow.
A sentence about your own feeling and need is very hard to argue with. A sentence about their character starts a different conversation, and you will not get your answer.
A concrete action with a date can be agreed. A principle cannot. "Would you be willing to text me by Thursday" is answerable; "would you be willing to be more considerate" is not.
Who, what, where, when, what it costs, and anything else that matters. An email missing a detail comes back as a question rather than an answer, and the exchange doubles in length.
A no is the start of the next email, not the end of the conversation. Switch this builder to answering a proposal, name the part that does work, and counter on the part that does not.
The same feeling and need sentence on its own, for when you need to say something out loud rather than write it. It is the heart of this email and of a good mediation conversation.
Open the builderEight things trust is built from, written as statements two co-parents can agree to. Worth reading before a run of difficult emails, and worth agreeing to together if you can.
Download itA free thirty-minute consultation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Or take the two-minute quiz and get a roadmap written around your answers.
Book a Free ConsultationTake the Quiz