Health, Fashion, Parenting and Women Related Issues

It’s totally normal for you and your partner to have different ways of eating, dressing or watching TV. But one thing you need to do the same way is parent. Here are a few tips to help you co-parent successfully.

Accept the inevitability of parenting disagreements. You and your partner are unlikely to see eye-to-eye on every conceivable parenting issue. After all, you’re two entirely different people. Although you’ll probably find that most of your parenting conflicts are relatively easy to resolve—for example, for the sheer sake of marital harmony, you may be able to live with the fact that your partner lets the kids eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast occasionally—other conflicts may be a bit trickier to resolve, particularly if those differences come down to a fundamental difference in parenting styles. In this case, some heavy-duty backroom negotiations may be in order so that you can present a united front to the kids.

Keep it private. If you and your partner have some fundamental differences of opinion on how certain types of parenting situations should be handled, try to work out those differences in private. If you find that you disagree more than you agree, you may want to consider taking a parenting course together or working with a marriage and family counselor to try to identify some parenting common ground and to find out if some unrelated issues may be causing problems in your marital relationship. Remember to treat your partner with respect as you attempt to work through these difficulties. It’s important not to allow any marital problems the two of you may be experiencing to affect the quality of your parenting decisions.

Don’t let your kids get away with playing one parent against the other. If your 6-year-old daughter tries to tell you that her father told her she could have ice cream for breakfast, attempt to verify that claim. If your partner is unavailable, you get to make the call on this particular nutrition issue. If she happens to do such a great acting job that you buy her story, hook, line and sinker, then you’ll definitely want to call her on her deception and ensure that there’s some sort of consequence for her actions (for example, you may decide to implement a rule that says that if you can’t check out any future stories with her father, she will have to wait until he gets home so that her claims can be verified).

Identify your areas of strength, and divvy up the parenting duties accordingly. If your partner has a real knack for getting the kids to settle down at bedtime, you may want to put him on permanent pajama duty. Likewise, if your partner is totally hopeless at getting the kids to clean their rooms, you may want to assume responsibility for conducting room inspection. Just make sure that you balance out the fun jobs and not-so-fun jobs. This is one situation where the “good cop, bad cop” routine doesn’t play out well at all.

Know when it is—and isn’t—OK to encroach on the other parent’s turf. It’s not fair for one parent to barge into a parent-child conflict and side with the child, nor is it acceptable for a parent to override the other parent’s rules just because that parent happens to be out of earshot. Both of these maneuvers can seriously undercut the authority of the other parent. If you totally disagree with the way your partner is handling a particular parenting issue, call a parenting time-out and discuss the issue out of earshot of the kids. Or better yet, wait until cooler heads prevail and discuss the issue calmly over a cup of coffee. The only time you should intervene immediately is if your partner is being abusive to your child. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to let that kind of behavior go unchecked.

Give ‘em a break. Wherever possible, give your partner the benefit of the doubt if he seems to be having a bad day on the parenting front. We all have days when we are less patient, less creative and less forgiving than we would like to be with our kids. Before you start getting on your partner’s case in a major way, cut him a bit of slack. Assuming this is just a temporary misstep, chances are he’ll find his parenting groove again before you know it.

A compliment can be a parent’s best friend. Be generous with the praise when your partner handles an especially challenging parenting situation with particular finesse. Parents don’t get enough accolades from society in general, so make sure you hand out plenty at home.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Bear in mind that, day-to-day differences aside, you both have the same long-term goal in mind: raising a happy, healthy child.