This Is the Best Visual Co-Parenting Calendar for Young Children

Transitions are a pain point for most parents of young children. Even the smallest of moves from one activity to another can cause a meltdown in a toddler anxious over not knowing what’s coming up next. So it only makes sense that one of the biggest transition a little kid can make — going from mum’s house to dad’s house and back again — can cause them some stress. That’s why one parent created a visual calendar to clearly illustrate to their daughter when she was coming and when she was going.

The calendar, which Kinsey Morlang posted on TikTok, uses a colour-coded system of numbers and dots, like so:

The days she’ll be with her dad are written in black marker; the days she’ll be with her mum are in blue. They also include red dots in either the top-left or top-right corner of the day’s box to indicate when the child is coming back to the home or leaving the home.

As Good Morning America reports:

Since Dylann is a visual learner, Morlang wanted to create something that simplifies how the weekly schedule works.

“I found that when she’d ask, ‘When will I see Dad again?’ and I’d say, ‘[In] two days.’ Or ‘One day,’ she just wasn’t grasping it,” Morlang, a resident of Chino, told “Good Morning America.” “It planted a seed in my head and I said, ‘OK, I’m going to colour code.’”

Once a day is over, Morlang erases that day’s number and dots so their daughter can more easily see what’s coming up in immediate future. If their daughter wants to know how many more days until she’s back with dad again, she can simply count out the squares until she gets to the next black number.

This calendar system is an especially good solution for preschool-aged kids who are old enough to count out the days themselves but too young to keep track of the schedule or the days of the week on their own.