Discover how to navigate different parenting styles to start parenting as a team with this excerpt from The Gottman Institute.
Certified Gottman Therapist Kimberly Panganiban, LMFT offers a two step approach to use with your partner to get on the same page. This conversation is key to presenting a united front for your children and keeping your relationship strong. If you don’t talk this through, it can easily become a perpetual or even gridlocked problem and negatively impact your relationship/marriage.
Learn to dialogue:
Take time to have a discussion with your partner where you each go through and answer this set of questions.
- What are your beliefs about the role of a parent?
- What does discipline mean to you? What does love mean to you?
- Name 3-5 values that are most important to you to instill in our children. Why are those values so important?
- What were your parents like when you were a child?
- Talk about what you liked and didn’t like.
- What are your goals and also your fears in raising our children?
- What are your beliefs about how emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, love, pride) should be expressed/managed?
Create compromises:
Once you have a deeper understanding of each other’s core beliefs, you can talk through the following.
Identify and share your core needs.
Identify and share your areas of flexibility.
What are your areas of agreement?
Create goals around the areas of agreement.
Suggest temporary compromises around core needs.
Importance of parental alignment
While it is ok to have disagreements around parenting, it is important to keep discussions respectful and not have the 4 horsemen come into play. When establishing boundaries and consequences with your children, parents need to be aligned with one another. When responding to misbehavior or situations where rules were broken, parents might need to step away from their child to have a discussion on their own before they can respond to the situation.You can say something like:
‘We are really upset about this situation. Mom and I need a few minutes to talk about it before we talk to you.’
The reality is you may need a moment to get on the same page or you may just need time to collect yourself and get to a point of self regulation. Parenting can be stressful and emotional. Remember even though kids might not ‘like’ a lot of rules, they need that structure to feel safe and secure.
Find the full article on The Gottman Institute website.
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