Q. My husband and I are always fighting over how best to bring up our two boys, aged two and four. For example, at bedtime my husband is more laid back, letting them stay up late playing and I want to get them to bed on time, so we can get a good routine established. Which way is best?
A. When your children are demanding, it is easy for your relationship with your partner to come under strain. This is especially if both of you have had different experiences of being brought up and different ideas on how to parent. The important thing to remember is that there is no one right way to parent a child. What counts more is working together as a team rather doing the ‘one right thing’. Put simply, it is more important that you understand each other’s point of view and find agreement than it is being right or wrong. To try and achieve this, I suggest the following
- Set aside time to talk through parenting issues with your husband in advance of the problems arising.
- Make sure that you both listen to each other and appreciate your different point of views.
- Think of ways of managing the situation that respects both your values. For example, the question regarding bedtime could become: How can you establish a bedtime routine that allows for play and fun but which is firm and clear?
- Try to agree on which ideas would work best and arrange to talk again to review how you get on.
- Agree to not criticise each other in front of the kids, but rather to be supportive and encouraging. If you have a disagreement, wait until you are alone to talk it through.
In addition, make sure to look after your relationship with your husband. We can easily get caught up with parenting children and forget that our relationship with our spouse is just as important. For this reason, make sure you set aside an enjoyable time just for the two of you during the week, whether this is getting a babysitter and going out or making sure to chat and share a meal when the children have gone to bed. Investing in your marriage like this will be good for your children as well as for you, as happy and content parents bring up happy content children.