When Your Husband's Parenting Style Drives You Crazy: How a Parenting Coach Can Help

 You adore your husband, but parenting with him drives you crazy. 

 I hear this a lot--or some variation of it—from all kinds of parenting partners. 

 And it is not surprising.  There is little that feels more personal than how you interact with your child.  It is hard to accept that while you have every right to parent your child the way you see fit, your parenting partner has that same right. 

 This can leave you between a rock and a hard place.   

 Parenting coaching can help you find some common ground. 

A good place to start when it comes to successful co-parenting is understanding parenting styles.  

I like to talk about parenting styles as a continuum where High-Warmth Parenting (or permissive parenting) is seen at one end and High-Expectations Parenting (or authoritarian parenting) is seen at the other end.  In the middle is Balanced Parenting which the research refers to as being authoritative.   

 Authoritative Parenting is marked by both having high expectations for your kids and interacting with lots of warm approval. 

 Authoritative parents move their children towards self-regulation, independence and achieving their best with lots of encouragement, faith in their children’s ability to learn and clear reasons for how their standards will benefit their kids in the long run.  

We know that authoritative parenting is thought to do the best job of supporting kids thriving at the highest level, but there are a lot of things to consider under the authoritative umbrella. 

 Our comfort level with warmth vs. expectations is very much going to be influenced by our own personality and needs. 

 As a parent, we are always going to do what we think is best for the child; but how we define “best” is seen through our own individual filter.  

 For example, my client Karen gets really overwhelmed by chaos and clutter.  She has a rule that the kids have to clean up one toy before they can go on to the next toy.  As you can imagine, sometimes her kids get distraught about that and have meltdowns. Her husband Gerald feels Karen is too strict and that cleaning up one toy before playing with the next toys interrupts the flow of play and probably inhibits creativity, too. He thinks Karen is creating conflict and upset, unnecessarily interrupting the peace of the household.   

 So, who’s right?  They both are!  To help keep Karen calm and feeling in control, it is reasonable to have the expectation of cleaning as you go.  To minimize conflict at home, Gerald is correct in pointing out that clean up could wait.   

 To find common ground, they have to keep talking about issues and to get creative about trying out different solutions.  As a parenting coaching I have helped many parents find compromises for issues like this one.  With a deep bag of tools and strategies, I am able to make multiple concrete suggestions that might help each parent feel more comfortable.   

Once parents have figured out what they need to thrive, the next important consideration is the child’s unique personality.   

 Some kids thrive with very little outside guidance.  For example, I’ve known children who are in touch enough with their own bodies, that even at four or five years old, they tell their parents when they are tired and want to go to bed.  Bedtime is never a source of conflict because the child is getting enough sleep naturally although that may mean going to sleep at 7:30 one night and 9pm another night. 

 Other kids need a tight schedule:  It helps them reduce their anxiety by giving them a sense of control.  My youngest child was one of these nervous kids.  He was the one who would see the clock said 8pm and announce that it was bedtime.  He would get upset with us if we asked for five minutes, say, for cleaning the kitchen.  For him, following the schedule meant that the world was in order.   

 My husband (not a schedule person) would get really frustrated by son Rick’s impatience when we didn’t stick to the schedule.   

 This is an example of where the advice from the parenting books doesn’t fully account for the needs of the individual child.   

A parenting coach educates parents on the broad concepts and then helps to strategize how to implement them ideally given the unique considerations of each family member.   

 A good coach helps parents see that parenting is less about right or wrong, good or bad.  It is more about considering the needs and preferences of the individual in the context of the needs of the whole.  Then it is about offering the skills and strategies that parents can use to create more peace and flow.  

Parents have more patience and creativity when they work with a parenting coach. 

It is very common for parents to say to me, “Even though we’ve only had one session, I feel like I am listening to my kids so much better. I am not as quick to react negatively.” 

Is it my brilliance that is bringing about this transformation?  Probably not.  Not in one session.  What is at work, however, is that in engaging a parenting coach, parents have made a clear commitment in time and money to making shifts in their families.  That commitment provides hope that parents will be able to develop a united parenting approach.   

The parent coach teaches communication techniques and provides the outside prospective that reduce conflicts between the parents, which in turn reduces the overall stress in the household.  

My clients know that they will get a chance in our time together for a virtual do-over.  We will take the time in the session to hear what the conflict with the child was—what was said, what tone, etc.  Then I start offering parenting tools:  How would it be if had done this? What if next time you try that?  Would this work better?  Here’s another idea.   

Parents do not have to agree 100% with an idea to try it out: And even the act of trying out an idea that maybe aligns more closely with the other parent is a show of good faith.  When the strategy works, the parent now has a new tool for the toolbox. That provides more hope. It also allows for more respect of the other parent’s point of view.   

When parents feel calm and confident, that has a palpably positive impact on children’s well-being and behavior.  It is the start of a positive feedback loop which results in even more harmony at home.   

If you and your parenting partner are at cross purposes.  If your partner’s parenting style is causing issues like increased arguments, confusion for the children and most detrimental of all, feelings of resentment, it is time to get some outside help. 

 I would be honored to work with you.  Sign up today for a no-obligation Getting to Know You Call to see if I am the right coach for you.