Looking for a little advice about your relationship? Perhaps you have questions about parenting in Europe? Ask Andrea! Our social worker, Andrea Liss will pick one question a month and answer it in our mid-month bulletin. You can submit your questions anonymously to her at https://bit.ly/MFSEAndreaSFME.
Hi Andrea! My husband and I seem to be at odds when it comes to raising our children. He takes a much stricter approach than I do. And when I feel like he is being too strict with them, I tell him, and often it is in front of the kids. This understandably upsets him because he feels I am cutting the legs out from under him and we fight about it. But if I wait to bring it up later, I usually forget to do it. I know you may say “then it must not have been that important” but it truly is important to me that we are on the same page. I find we argue about it a lot and it has affected our relationship. How can we work past this?
- Conflicted Mom
Hello Conflicted Mom!
If I get right down to it, I think the issue here is not so much about parenting but about how to manage differences within the couple system. What makes me say this is that even couples who don’t have children have to deal with the different values and approaches taken by their partner on important issues. In the case of parenting, however, what adds to the intensity is that you are always under the ever-present gaze of your participant-witness children and this puts you in a position of modeling conflict resolution. There is so much in your very brave and astute question, Conflicted Mom, that I have decided to break up your question into a few parts and will write a part two and maybe even a part three over the coming months. How we deal with differences, is the focus of this month’s Ask Andrea. I’m going to encourage you, Conflicted Mom, to make a few subtle changes without speaking to your spouse about them. Why keep quiet? I think sometimes that talking is overrated and that change happens by doing. When we change our own behaviour, it essentially influences the other person by putting them in a position to adjust along with us. Here are a few pointers, Conflicted Mom, some of which have come from the books mentioned below and are in the MFS Europe parenting library. If you would like to borrow a parenting book, please contact me.
Kurcinka, M. (2000). Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles. Quill Publishers.
Payne, K. and Ross, Ls. (2009). Simplicity Parenting. Ballantine Books.
Nelsen, J and Lott, L. (2000). Positive Discipline for Teenagers. Three Rivers Press.
Parenting Tip #1 Each parent should have certain exclusive areas of daily family life that they are responsible for
Each parent should have fairly exclusive responsibility for several aspects of daily family caregiving. Shared activities are also super important but when it comes to the daily grind of bathing, making lunches, dressing, and homework, one parent should be exclusively tasked with their own domains of caring. Fulfilling these tasks then also needs to be consistent and without reminders. This allows for the other parent in the couple to truly get a break. Also, it puts each parent in the ‘doer’ role as opposed to the ‘helper’ role. Most importantly, having exclusive responsibility for a daily task will deepen the bond with your child as there is always a level of intimacy in the minutiae of feeding and dressing for example. We get to know our child much better through the repetition and mastery of daily life tasks. This consistency helps keep a very important sense of rhythm that allows families to hum along. This hum provides a sense of safety and security to children. What does this have to do with too strict, too soft you may ask? This is a tip just in case there is an imbalance in caretaking responsibilities in your couple, Conflicted Mom. If dad is not having enough intimate time with the kids he may not be reading their temperaments accurately and misfiring with this approach to discipline. If you are too involved in caretaking you may be too burdened with tasks and not getting the break you need for example.
Parenting Tip #2 Set aside a regular “State of the Union” time for you and your partner
A “State of the Union” meeting is when parents check in with each other about how they are doing. It’s a chance to share pits and peaks that each parent experienced that week. We set aside the time to work out, for date night, and do special family activities, so why not also set an appointment time to check in on parenting? If it made for a calmer week, could you do it? Keep a list on your phone of issues to discuss. Set a time to meet and stick to it. That way, forgetting to discuss it later is not such an issue. Setting aside a dedicated time to work on an emotional problem is a very common strategy in other psychological stresses, for example, people who engage in excessive worry are encouraged to set aside ‘worry time’ at a certain time of the day. The purpose of this is to teach the person to delay reacting and encourage responding. A “State of the Union” meeting has the same purpose- it can teach each person in the couple to raise issues at a later date and thus stay out of the weeds when emotions are high. Postponing discussion also allows us to be less reactive and more responsive. Use this time to communicate about what approach you will both take to an upcoming or recent ongoing situation. “State of the union” gives you a window of time to pull your spouse aside and come up with a collaborative plan.
Parenting Tip #3 The importance of “the world of the adult, the world of the child”
In the book, Simplicity Parenting the authors explain the importance of keeping good boundaries with our children. Boundaries are integral to the development of the self. Amongst other things, boundaries are expressions of our emotional preferences and give us strength and poise under pressure. The adult world is a richly developed mind space that emerges from our many and varied experiences. Adult-only topics might include our sex lives or the conversation we just had with a friend about his upcoming divorce. Our filtering out adult-only conversations is an example of boundary-setting between adults and their children. This of course can get blurry and parents can burden their children with too many adult topics which can rush kids along in their development without a full foundation. “I wish we didn’t always have to go to Nana and Popa’s for Christmas, but don't tell Nana that” or “You can go over and play with Siya but don’t let her mom know I still haven’t read the book she loaned me” are examples of this.
Sometimes parents want to be an open book with their kids and so equate honesty with full disclosure. I suspect that the family values of honesty and transparency are values you want your kids to live by and maybe that is what is fuelling your need to share your thoughts about your spouse in front of the kids. From this perspective, your intention makes a tonne of sense. It’s as if you are trying to point out something you feel may be damaging your children and as their protector, your mama bear drive has been activated. Your child will internalize that you wish for them to be protected- there is no doubt about that. This helps children feel seen and heard. At the same time, the correction of a partner probably moves a child too quickly into the adult world. This could be an unintended consequence of something well-intentioned.
Children need boundaries to feel secure and free. They need to know that some topics are for adults and adults alone. The authors of Simplicity Parenting put it this way: “Children need to see your self-restraint, your confidence in meeting your own world. With security and freedom, they can begin to find their own inner voice. They can begin to develop their own abilities to self-direct, to work things out internally. This is the genesis of self and morality: the development of an inner voice. And to develop - to strengthen and be heard- a child’s inner voice cannot be drowned out by unprocessed adult thoughts, feelings, and concerns (p.188). Where the authors are coming from in that last sentence has to do with one of their primary teachings which is that less is more, especially with how much talking parents do. They advocate for fewer words in general. They go on further to state that respect for you as a parent requires some distance and separation.
Parenting Tip # 4 Be the backup your partner needs you to be
Here’s a scenario from Kids, Parents, And Power Struggles - Mom tells daughter to stop bouncing ball in the living room. The daughter keeps bouncing the ball. Dad says to his daughter “You heard your mother, stop bouncing the ball in the living room and go play with it downstairs”. To which the daughter stops dead in her tracks, turns on her heels, and takes the ball downstairs. In this situation, it might look like the mother isn’t effective, however, research indicates that if one adult says what the standard is, children may or may not get it. However, if two people say what the standard is, even weeks later, children will know what the standard is and follow it. If you want to increase your effectiveness, get backup. If you want to increase your partner’s effectiveness, back him up. You may disagree on the intensity of his approach sometimes, but on the places you agree, big or small, back him up. That shows a united front to your kids and validates your partner. This is all very regulating to the family system.
Parenting Tip # 5: Articulate your standard as the first step in responding to questionable child conduct
Family standards form a family’s foundation. They are guidelines for what is acceptable and what is not in your family. Standards don’t change whether you are four or eighty-four. Standards are the rules of conduct that you return to over and over as a family to help your child make healthy choices. Your goal as you enforce standards is to communicate clearly to your child: “This is not acceptable behaviour. You need to make a different choice”. The first goal in shaping your child’s behaviour is to communicate your standard. Things run more smoothly for you if you realize that this is your one and only goal at this stage. That knowledge will help you keep your cool when your child doesn’t immediately change what they are doing. You have not failed. You are just not finished yet, you are just in the first stage of the standard-setting process. More on standards can be found in Simplicity Parenting.
Think about the last thing your child did that got you going. Did your child lose it at Christmas dinner? Did your teen call you the B word when you said they couldn't go out?
Often we can move into the role of intimidator but looking at what family standard needs life-skilling, can help calm us and our children down. For us, the focus on standards will keep our words down to a minimum. Being practised at articulating family standards can buy you time to simmer down. Your inner sage will appear. Your wise mind can be activated by the ritual and repetition inherent in communicating a standard. Don’t be too wordy. Ask yourself “What behaviours or words did my child express that I have deemed unacceptable for myself?
Thanks Conflicted Mom. Stay tuned for more on kids, couples, and parenting in next month’s mid-month bulletin.
If you would like to pose a question for the Ask Andrea column, please send your anonymous question to https://bit.ly/MFSEAndreaSFME and Andrea will do her best to share some of her ideas.
Andrea has a master’s degree in Social Work and is a Registered Social Worker and Registered Psychotherapist (Ontario) with over 20 years of experience. She maintains a faculty appointment at McMaster University where she teaches in the Masters of Science in Psychotherapy program.