Divorce is something parents never wish to have to experience, but sometimes, it's a necessity. For their children, however, it's a shock that is difficult to understand and transition into.
So that's why one mom developed a visual co-parenting calendar to help their daughter better process living between two households, and the hack has gone viral on TikTok.
Meet Kinsey
Kinsey Morlang is a mother, and on social media is known as @skywalkeraa16_18.
Co-parenting can be a challenge for families to get used to, especially when there are young children involved. But Kinsey recently shared their hack for making this transition easier for kids to understand, and parents are applauding the simple yet creative solution.
The TikTok Hack
Kinsey's parenting hack has gone viral after receiving half a million views and over 40,000 likes on TikTok. In it, Kinsey shows a calendar that is designed for children who live between two households and is a visual guide that helps them understand when they'll be at each respective parent's home.
"This has been huge at our house!" Kinsey writes.
A Calendar Just For Kids
The video begins by showcasing a large dry-erase calendar that's been filled out with each day of the month and written in color-coordinated markers—in this case, blue and black.
Before diving into the video, Kinsey issues a disclaimer explaining this isn't their 4-year-old daughter's actual schedule, but one they put together just to illustrate how the process works.
Dad's Days And Mom's Days
Throughout the calendar, you see different days of the month labeled in either blue or black marker, and Kinsey says that this design choice is for a very specific reason.
"So anything in black is her dad's days, and anything in blue would be my days," they explain.
Coming And Going
In the corners of several calendar dates are red dots, and while the dots may be small, they have a very important significance for Kinsey's daughter and being able to understand her schedule.
Kinsey explains that the red dots signify "coming and going." So in this particular example, the first red dot signifies their daughter is starting the day at her dad's home, but then the second dot means that sometime during the day, she'd leave and come back to Kinsey's home.
Counting Days
Kinsey says that each night before bedtime, they and their daughter erase the previous date, so that way if their daughter wakes up the next morning and asks when she gets to see her dad again, Kinsey will tell her to go look at her calendar.
"She will go and count 'one day, two days, three days, oh, I'm seeing my dad on the fourth day,' and she will know that sometime on this day she is leaving to go see her dad."
"A Sense Of Control"
"My daughter had been struggling with transitions, so giving her a visual to look at gives her a sense of control over the situation which in turn, has given her comfort," Kinsey says.
In the TikTok, Kinsey also notes that this co-parenting calendar hack has been helpful to their daughter to also learn time management skills.
Loving The Idea
Kinsey's co-parenting hack went viral and parents everywhere loved the idea. Some said that they are currently implementing a similar calendar for their kids, while other parents said they wish this had been a thing when they were children whose parents were going through a divorce.
"So much respect for you for taking time to make things more simplified for your baby. Kids need that," commented one user.
