When mum says ‘yes’ and dad says ‘no’, or vice-versa, the question of discipline can become a tad tricky. Helen Raine seeks some advice about dealing with parental disagreements.
There have been times in my life as a parent when I have had to literally bite my cheek to stop myself from contradicting my partner while he disciplines our children. He assures me that the feeling is mutual. It’s normal to have minor disagreements about the punishment of the day and the way it’s meted out.
What happens though, when a couple’s parenting styles are so radically different that almost every intervention from one parent seems wrong to the other? It can seem impossible for a strict disciplinarian to reconcile himself or herself with a free and easy approach and vice versa.
Mary Wheatley is the author of www.inspiredparentcoach.com. She is a graduate of the Parent Coach International programme of Seattle Pacific University and helps parents to work through the challenges of bringing up their children together.
Mary says that differing parenting styles do not necessarily cause problems if they are approached with an understanding that each offers benefits to the parenting partner as well as the child. In this interview, she explains how parents can make their different parenting styles work for the family and how the PCI approach to parent counselling works.
How important is a united front when parenting?
A united front in parenting is not necessarily the greatest opportunity met. Parents addressing the daily challenges of parenting greatly benefit from exchanging differing opinions and positions. In this, they allow for consideration of new ideas to transpire between them. This exchange of ideas teaches respect and appreciation for differences to their children.
Children model what they learn at home. The majority of parents would be pleasantly surprised to learn of their child’s choice to consider another’s point of view as a result of their parents’ choice to do the same.
What happens to children when parents are not in agreement about how to discipline their children?
When parents disagree over discipline choices they create a confused environment for the child where the child becomes unsure of what the actual expectations are from their parents. Thus, the child may behave one way with one parent and yet another with the other in an effort to satisfy both perceived expectations and maintain a sense of security with each parent.
Disagreements are always teaching and learning opportunities. Each parent brings different strengths to his or her parenting role. Children desire love, acceptance and security. Adults displaying behaviors that offer these to one another transfer these to the child, leaving the child with a sense of trust despite differences.
How much does a parent’s own background influence the way that they parent and how can they change this if they want or need to?
Humans are notorious for repeating past behaviours, even if these behaviours have proven to be less than productive. As with most behaviours, change only occurs with acknowledgement of the need to change.
Parenting in today’s world offers a whole host of challenges that parents of decades ago did not have to deal with. Much of our world revolves around media influences; adults and children alike are not immune to these influences. In addition, there are never ending demands on parents to be everywhere and everything to everyone. This continual, ‘on the go’ scheduling of their days does not allow for the realities of life to enter the mix. Exhaustion and discontentment settles in and affects the entire family dynamic.
Is it worse to argue in front of the kids or for one parent to opt out completely when it comes to disagreements?
Children are never unaffected by arguments. Some have an innate ability to tune out but never find relief from the fear associated with this experience. When parents fall into patterns of behaving like frustrated children themselves, they miss a teaching opportunity for their children’s benefit.
Differences in parenting and life issues are inevitable for all of us. The experience of witnessing parents negotiating through their differences allows the child to see that he/she can do the same with the differences that they will encounter in their lives. Parents who argue in front of their children raise children to know conflict as commonplace. Parents who choose compromise and consideration over arguing, raise children who become accommodating and thoughtful.
How do you help parents to reconcile very different styles of parenting?
As a parent coach, I seek to raise their awareness of their own and each others parenting styles first. I emphasise the strengths to be found in each parenting style and seek to shine a light of recognition in how each style offers benefits to one another as well as the child’s well being.
PCI acknowledges four basic parenting styles that parents engage in and each has value of its own. Most parents will engage in one or several of these styles throughout their parenting years.
The first is a ‘caring and nurturing’ style, which values relationships. This parent is considered the ‘feeler parent’. They are generally imaginative and use daily loving nurturance with their children. They appreciate attempts and celebrate success. They are aware of the child’s need for consistency and continually will strive to create a nurturing environment. The care and nurturing parents may have difficulty letting their child grow and go. They may be prone to worry and have difficulties setting rules and boundaries. As such, the child may find this parent easy to manipulate.
The ‘reason and expectation’ parenting style has high expectations and values reasoning, thinking and problem solving. The child’s academic success is very important to this parent.
This parent is generally confident and teaches their child how to effectively navigate the world. The reason and expectation parent can seem emotionally detached from their child. They may appear to be too lecturing and insensitive to the child’s emotional needs. The ‘practicality and results’ parenting style values an ordered and predictable environment. They thrive on goals and strategies. This solid and logical parent uses realistic views and feasible results as the core component of their parenting. This parent seeks to have their children use their abilities wisely, be a problem solver and thrives in teaching their child new things. The challenges that this parent may face are those of being too controlling, authoritative and inflexible.
The ‘personal guidance’ parenting style values independence, uniqueness, imagination and lessons learned from sharing experiences with others. This intuitor parent looks for their child to think for themselves and encourages decisions made based in one’s inner knowing.
This parent allows for acceptance of inconsistency and change. They find it easy to be spontaneous decision-makers. This parent keeps the home environment filled with creative projects and encourages dreaming, offering the child a wide range of experience. This parenting style is challenged with keeping order and consistency in place.
Just as parents are individuals, so too are their parenting styles; each offer something special to their children and neither should be considered wrong.
Is it a question of a right way and a wrong way to discipline or can you make any approach work?
Teaching children consequences to choices should be the foundation of discipline. In this a child learns that they are the driver of their own journey through life. Suffocating a child with strict rules, void of choice is detrimental to the child’s autonomy.
Paradoxically, allowing for too much freedom negates the child’s need for structure and balance. The goal of discipline should be to use it as a means to teach independence and self-directives for the benefit of a happy, healthy, well balanced life.
In the case of divorced parents, or parents who just cannot agree, can it ever work for one parent to enforce one set of rules and the other parent a different set?
Yes, children see their parents as individuals just as others do. They come to understand that Mum does things one way and Dad does things another.
It is the children that actually hold the key to peace in this situation. Their love for each parent allows for acceptance and compliance of each parental expectation.
The wise parent acknowledges and accepts what the other offers the child, even if they disagree. In this, they offer their child tolerance for differences and a healthier worldview.