Use a Parenting Coach to Help You and Your Parenting Partner Get on the Same Page
It is generally agreed that it is better for parents to be a united team, yet disagreeing with your parenting partner comes up with my clients often: Parenting is so weighted. Our kids are so precious to us. We desperately want to get things right.
Worrying that the parenting decision you make today is going to make or break your kid, makes it hard for parents to listen and to compromise.
One of the questions I ask my clients is “On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is never and 10 is always, how often do you feel the need to micromanage your partner’s parenting of your kids.” I also ask it as “On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is never and 10 is always, how often does your partner micromanage your parenting.”
When parents either feel the need to manage their spouse’s parenting or that they are being micromanaged as parents, that creates a lot of tension in the household—tension that makes kids feels insecure and dysregulated.
That’s why getting on the same page as parents is so important.
As a parent coach, I focus on some key areas to help parents become a united team.
Recognize that there is a wide range of parenting decisions that still fall under the category of Authoritative Parenting (known to be most effective for supporting kids in thriving)
As a teacher of over 3000 students, I have seen lots of different parenting choices that have been effective with kids.
Parenting is not black and white.
Some kids need you to show up with empathetic listening; just offloading their stress and being truly heard is enough to have them apologizing for their behavior and promising to do better next time.
Other kids need to experience a clear consequence (administered kindly and firmly) to shift their behavior.
Given that that is true, with a sensitive child it could be the less wise choice to follow through on a consequence. On the other hand, when consequences have been announced, it is generally best to follow through on them.
No wonder parents find it so hard to agree!
In situations like this, both parents can be right.
If you can trust your partner in these moments—trust that they are doing what they think is right and acknowledge that there is much right about what they are doing--that is one way to present a united parenting team.
You will have a better chance of influencing your spouse in the future if you back them up in the moment.
One thing every couple (married or not, cohabiting or not) can learn is how to relate to each other more effectively.
When faced with conflicting views about how to parent your kids, it helps so much to be able to communicate your perceptions of the situation in a non-inflammatory way.
Active Listening can be a key skill for gaining a deeper understanding of why your partner is doing what they are doing.
Over and over, I have seen that when parents truly listen to each other, it brings down the levels of fear and desperation.
The purpose of active listening is to gather data—not to be able to launch an attack—but to be able to stand in the other person’s shoes for a while.
I had a client, Jake, who didn’t feel that his dad ever listened to him or tried to see things from his point of view. He felt like his father was always pushing him to meet some unattainable standard that kept a barrier between father and son.
Jake was determined to always put his relationship with his son first—even if that meant letting some discipline issues go--so his son would know that he was loved and honored for the individual he was.
Jake’s not following through with discipline, however, left his wife Becky feeling like she always had to be the bad cop. And that made her feel both resentful and isolated.
When Becky really slowed down and listened fully to Jake’s perspective, she felt empathy for the pain Jake had experienced as a child. She realized that it wasn’t that he was just being lazy or conflict-avoidant; she recognized that he was looking at the long-term consequences of putting a set of rules above each individual situation. That allowed her to be more comfortable with making exceptions to the rule.
Becky’s understanding—and this point is really key—made Jake less defensive and more open to acknowledging when their son needed a little tough love.
Active listening brought each parent closer to each other, enabling them to be more accepting of the other parent’s decisions.
The more you work out in advance, the more flow in your household you will experience.
Parenting coaches place a strong emphasis on structure and routine, and there is an important reason for that.
What structure and routines really mean is that you have worked things out in advance. In turn, that means there is less moment-to-moment conflict.
We make our worst parenting missteps in the heat of the moment.
The more of the day you have a plan for, the less likely you are to be in disagreement in front of your kids; and while it is okay to disagree in front of your children some of the time, on the whole, children feel more secure when their parents have a shared vision for how things are going to go.
The good news is that you can come to an agreement in the short term without having to solve a problem in the long term.
Avery and Trina were struggling with getting their four-year-old daughter to stay in bed. They would put her down and almost instantly, Molly would pop up out of bed and follow them out into the living room. Tired and desperate for some peace at the end of the day, Avery and Trina would argue first about whose job it was to put Molly back down and second about the wisdom of staying with Molly until she fell asleep (something they had not had to do before).
I suggested that they make a plan for a week and stick to it; the next week they could reevaluate the plan.
One part of the plan was that while they would still do the first part of bedtime together like they always had, they would have assigned nights for who was going to deal with Molly if she came asking for one more cup of water or one more book or to be held.
Whosever night it was would get to decide what approach to take; the other parent agreed to get out of the way (wash the dishes, do the laundry or even just scroll on their phone in the other room).
What Avery and Trina found was that they already felt better by being clear about who was “it.” The person who was not it was able to “take the night off” guilt-free, and the person who was on duty could make a calm, clear choice.
No matter what they chose, it seemed to go better than it had been going before.
I explained that I had seen in my practice many times that how confident a parent was in their approach could make the difference between success and failure.
While Avery and Trina weren’t 100% sure about what step to take, even knowing who was responsible on a given night shifted their energy and gave Molly less leverage between her parents.
Being a United Parenting Team is one of the most critical goals for creating more harmony at home.
So much of your children’s security comes from the strength of their parents’ marriage. Children are excellent energy readers but very poor energy interpreters. When they feel tension between you and your partner, even very young children can worry there is something wrong or flawed about themselves
If you are experiencing tension with your partner related to the stress and strains of raising children, a good parenting coach will systematically help you smooth out the parts of the day that are the stickiest.
It is 100% possible to find common ground as parents, and I would love to help you do that.
Our first step would be a complimentary Getting to Know You call, so I can hear about how your family is doing currently and where you would like to be in the future.