Tips To Help You Resolve Differences In Parenting Styles With Your Spouse
Posted on: 2 May 2016
Having children is a great part of life for many married couples, but adding kids to your family can also create more work, stress, and issues in your marriage. One problem some couples have relates to the differences in their parenting styles. If you and your spouse are arguing and fighting over how to raise your children, you may want to seek help from a professional. Finding common ground and uniting in the ways you choose to raise your children will help your marriage stay stronger and could have a better impact on your children. Here are some tips to help you and your spouse come up with a mutual plan for raising your kids.
Your Way May Not Be The Right Way
The first thing you should understand is that your methods of raising kids may not be the right methods. Just because your family raised you with certain rules or beliefs does not mean you must raise your kids the same way. This is a huge problem with many couples, primarily because both spouses may want to raise the kids according to the way they were raised.
There may be good and bad points in the upbringing each of you had, but there is no rule that states you must raise your kids according to your methods or your spouse's methods. In fact, your marriage and kids are an entirely new entity, and you have the privilege and responsibility of creating your own terms for how you raise your kids. The goal is to create terms you can both live by, agree with, and follow.
If You Don't Agree, Your Kids Will Take Advantage Of You
You should also realize that when parents do not agree, the kids know. Kids are so much smarter than most parents think. They are intuitive and can sense when things are not right, and they will often try to use this to their advantage as they grow up. For example, if your children know that dad will agree to let them stay out later than mom, they will go to dad to ask permission. This may leave mom feeling upset and mad at dad; however, the child got what he or she wanted and is therefore happy with the situation.
If you want to prevent things like this from happening, you will have to come up with ways to work together as a team with your spouse, and this will involve getting on the same page.
You Must Be In Agreement On All Issues
While you and your spouse may have different ideas on every topic of raising children, you will have to get past that and compromise on each of the issues. Here are some simple steps you can take to make decisions on how to parent your kids in a way that you can both agree on:
- Determine the ultimate goals – What are the goals you have as parents? For most parents, the goals might be to raise children who are respectful, kind, hard-working, happy, confident, and well-rounded. Each of you can make a list of what is important to you, and you could then combine this list to satisfy the needs of both spouses. These goals will help you determine the right steps to take with the methods you decide to use when parenting your kids.
- Make a list of all the issues – Next, you should create a list of the issues involved with parenting. Your list may contain chores, extracurricular activities, discipline, schoolwork, bedtime, foods they eat, and bedroom expectations. These are just some of the common issues you may disagree on, but there might be others too.
- Discuss each issue and mutually decide how you will handle it – The toughest step will be to agree on how you will handle each of these issues. The goal is to become a team when it comes to raising your kids, and to do this you must also agree to back each other up when one parent is enforcing the rules you mutually created.
If you would like to learn more about resolving conflicts relating to your kids and parenting styles, you may want to visit a counseling center, such as Comprehensive Behavioral Health Associates Inc, to talk to a professional about this.
Share