Q. My child’s father and I share custody of our 14-year-old daughter. She and I have always been great friends, and she often confides in me. Evidently, she recently cut first period, got caught and the school requires an email from a parent to allow her to return to class. She wants me to write the letter and not tell her dad. I’m torn because her dad and I have recently made great strides in our ability to trust one another. I think he should know, but I don’t want to betray her trust. What’s good ex-etiquette?

A. I understand that you like being friends with your daughter. You may even regard yourself as the “cool” parent and tell yourself she likes you best because she confides in you. But I caution your rationale if this is true.

When a child tells a parent not to tell the other parent, they are setting up a strategy, even if it seems innocent or unintentional. Now mom and child have a secret, or dad and child have a secret, but the decision makers don’t have the straight scoop. The child could be coloring the information to protect themselves in some way — to not get in trouble, for example, or even to protect one parent from the wrath of the other. The child has control, not the parents, so the parents are unable to bond together in the child’s name and guide the child properly.

Basically, you and dad are no longer raising your child. She’s raising herself, and at 14 she does not have the emotional, psychological or intellectual intelligence to raise herself.

It may be helpful to establish a sort of personal pecking order in your mind and then you will not have this kind of moral decision to make each time you are faced with a choice like this.

That personal pecking order is this: Dad and you are parents. She is the child. Your child must know that you do not keep secrets from her other parent when it involves her health and well-being. Period.

A good rule of thumb I often pass on to co-parents is “A child should never know more than one of their parents.” If you two keep a secret from dad, she has been officially put right in the middle of her parents, having to choose whose side she is on, constantly weighing her allegiance.

You have now set a precedent. Next week when she wants to keep something from you, she will tell dad not to tell and he will feel like the preferred parent. That’s the cycle. You and dad are teaching your child to lie and manipulate to get her way.

So, my advice is to let dad know that you think it is important he knows and caution him against any possible overreaction because that’s why she wanted to keep it a secret in the first place. Out and out tell him that you want to co-parent together and value your new found co-parenting relationship.

Then decide together her consequences and present it to her as, “Your father and I have discussed this, and we have decided…” You will no longer be the “cool” mom. But you will be the cool co-parent, and she will be better for it. That’s good ex-etiquette.

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