“My spouse and I get along very well but often disagree on how to raise our child, discipline techniques and overall family routines. Is this a problem? Can you recommend a tool that can help us out?”
This is probably one of the biggest topics that my clients and many families I know struggle with in parenting. Alignment-or often lack of alignment, between a child’s two parents. In the case of blended families I am sure it is a whole other situation entirely with a more complex set of circumstances...and I am not an expert at all in this area, so I speak below for the families with two parents living together.
One of my favorite techniques for alignment comes from a book called "The Explosive Child" by Ross. W Greene.
In his book, Ross discusses the concept of "Baskets" I love it. I use it all the time, I coach on it regularly and I believe into it wholeheartedly.
I use this concept and encourage parents to sit down and make a laundry list of issues, behaviors and situations that they have to nag their kids on in their homes on a regular basis (cleaning up after dinner, brushing teeth, doing homework, talking back, going to sleep, waking up, going to church, swearing, being disrespectful etc..)
Once these issues are on a list, I ask them to sort them out into three Baskets which each parent completes first individually.
(In my own words!!)
Basket A- the "No!-You must!-You Can't ! basket. Important basket.
Basket B- contains behaviors that you have decided are important but over which you will not lose sleep. Somewhat important basket.
Basket C-holds behaviors that may have once seemed high priority but have since been downgraded considerably. Irrelevent basket
How do you think most people’s baskets look like initially? Guess?
Most of the parent’s pages are filled with basket A’s. A few basket B’s. No basket C’s . Usually the two parent’s baskets are also very different in terms of what even makes it on the list at all.
The goal? To reverse this. A few basket A’s; plenty of basket B’s and many basket C’s. Second goal-to agree on this shared list as parents.
You have to choose your battles in life when it comes to kids and life in general. Before you do this-you have to know what your battles even are or what you want them to be. Most importantly you have to agree and align on this with your partner-or your household can become a place of insecurity, instability and chaos for your child.
I think some of the happiest kids I have seen come from families where both parents are aligned and consistent in their discipline. In one family you might observe that those kids are always super polite at the table (table manners basket A) but when it comes to doing homework they sit and do it in front of the TV (basket B) Both parents agree to this and execute these expectations in their home.
Another family could be that teenagers are at home at a strict curfew (basket A) but does not matter how often they do or do not take out the garbage (basket c). Parents are aligned on what they are willing to make a fuss over.
On a personal note my own house looks something like this: Kids all quiet and doing lots of homework everyday, kids in bed and calm at same time every night without a fuss, kids all present at all family events and socialize often with other adults & friends in an engaging, social and respectful way (basket A).
Kids do their chores well sometimes and sometimes our house looks like a warzone, they smell good on special occasions and smell like sweat on some days of the week, their teeth are brushed but not flossed most days, and they are often found in the house being loud and running around with each other while other times cooperatively hanging out together outside (basket B).
They eat like birds off of baby sized plates (still), they don’t make their beds ever, they wrestle and scream a lot while simultaneously acting annoying and obnoxious and practically every show or movie they watch is rated above PG 13 (basket C).
Oh ya… and they spill syrup on the floor without cleaning it up (should be a basket F for this one).
So first step is to know what is important to you and second step is to align. Is it easy to do this? No of course not! Who ever said parenting was easy and simple?? If they did they lied to you. This is actually a lethal activity to do! Time-consuming, bureaucratic, hard to find time for and often not a pleasant and enjoyable task.
That’s ok. It’s worth it for the peace it will bring to your home down the road. It’s part of parenting in a deliberate way. I recommend it should make it onto your “to do list” in the same way that laundry miraculously does.
