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. What’s good ex-etiquette?

A. I understand that you like being friends with your daughter. You may 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.

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. 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.

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.

Then decide together her consequences and present it to her as, “Your father and I have discussed this, and we have decided…”  That’s good ex-etiquette.

Dr. Jann Blackstone is a child custody mediator and the author of “The Bonus Family Handbook.”/Tribune News Service