PARENTING AS A MARITAL TEAM

If you hope to survive parenthood with your marriage intact you must be in unity with your spouse in all you do.

Being 'in unity' means understanding that this is not a one-person show.

The strength of your union will show in the day-to-day application of the plan with your spouse. No matter how much the two of you agree to make your parenting and discipline decisions together, there will be times where one of you is put in a position of having to make immediate decision.

Although your basic, agreed guidelines will help in making that decision, that is no guarantee that you will end up choosing what your spouse would have chosen. Disagreements are bound to occur. How you handle these situations will show your children just how united you and your spouse really are.

Here are some suggestions to help keep up a united front -

 1.   Don’t argue in front of the children. 

This includes situations where you are both present and need to intervene with your child, as well as situations where one of you had to make a decision without the other present. If you are both present and struggling to come up with an agreeable solution, call a time-out. The two of you should retreat… and discuss this situation privately. During that private time, work on a solution you can agree on. When you return to your child, present the decision with a united front.

      2.   Support the decisions your spouse makes. 

If you were gone for the afternoon and came home to find that your spouse has forbid your son from the computer for two weeks for what seems to you like a minor offense. Don’t say, “Two weeks? You have to be kidding!” All that does is undermine your spouse’s authority and inform your son that there is a weak link in the parenting team. Even if you do not agree on how the situation was handled, show support of your spouse in front of the child. Take time later to talk about it privately and hear the whole story. You may realize that you can now better understand the outcome.If you still are not in agreement with your spouse, you have two choices.

First, you may decide within yourself whether this is really a battle worth fighting.

The second option is to discuss with your spouse the reasons for your disagreement. Once the two of you have reached a resolution, present that to your child as a team. Let your child know that the two of you have discussed this and have decided together to overturn the previous decision.

       3.Don’t allow your kids to play you against each other. 

We have all experienced the “Mom-said-Dad-said” strategy from our children (and if we’re honest, we all tried it ourselves when we were young).This is an obvious “divide and conquer” technique that can cause considerable damage to the parenting team. If you fall into the trap of simply believing that the other parent actually did say whatever your child claims, you likely will find yourself arguing with your spouse before you even check it out.

Some children will ask one parent to do something. If the child does not like the answer, it’s off to ask the other parent. Without knowing that you have already said no, your spouse may say yes. This not only shows your children that your team is not unified, it will also be the source of additional conflicts between the two of you.

Conclusion

The best defense against this strategy is a simple, “Let’s go check with your mom (or dad) about this.” Once your children know that you will be checking in with each other and making decisions together, you will have rendered this technique useless.Successful teams are the ones whose members have learned to work together to accomplish their mutual goals. 

Successful teams have learned to cooperate.It means doing things together and accepting that you are both equally responsible for raising your children. When you co-parent, you work together to set family rules and consequences, decide on family responsibilities, and manage the daily requirements of the home. Anything that involves parenting involves both parents.

Each parenting team is unique and holds within it a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. Focus on the strengths and talents God has created within your team. When you focus on being who God has asked you to be and doing that to the best of your ability, you will become the best spouse and parent you can possibly be.