Do you have a blended family or do you just have
a family where husband and wife like to do things different when it
comes to parenting? Well, both of those situations are very
similar believe it or not. It's hard to get on the same page with
parenting. So, how can we blend parenting styles so that there's a
unified approach for the children? That's what this video is about.
Since 1999, I've been teaching people about
self-government. About governing themselves as parents
and about teaching their children how to govern themselves as well.
And people ask me this one question more than
any other question i get asked. Well, we're getting to be a close second with
the technology question, but I think this one still tops it out.
And that is "How do I get my spouse to be on the same page
with my parenting?" It is a struggle if husband and wives have different ideas
when it comes to parenting. Because they both love the children. They
both want the best for the family. They both want the children to learn
responsibility, respect to take ownership of their behavior. To
want to create a happy family. But they go about it in different ways.
Some people are more aggressive in the way they go
about it. Some people are more passive in the way they go about it. And
if you're passive and your partner's
aggressive or vice versa, chances are you're getting
frustrated with each other. And it's creating more contention in your
marriage or in your relationship with the
children than is healthy. Even though I've been
teaching self-government principles for so many years,
that doesn't mean that me and my husband have always both been
perfect at them. In fact, we've kind of nurtured each other along.
But we probably had the hardest time having our family learn self-government
when my husband didn't actually want to learn
self-government for himself. That was difficult. He was done with
correcting children in a calm way. He just wanted stuff done
fast. He was stressed his business was changing.
Life was overwhelming for him and he felt like "Why in the world do I have to
talk so much to the children?" It kind of broke my
heart to be honest. It's really hard when you had such great
unity during these foster care years like we had.
And then all of a sudden to have somebody sort of bail on you.
That was tricky. I loved him dearly but i was having a hard time
respecting him. Because i knew he knew better even.
Now, some people don't. I know each of us come from a different family background.
We've had different parenting modeled to us. And we have different
habits and behaviors that we have to overcome.
You know what this means? We have to have a whole
bunch of patients. We can't expect each other to be perfect
right off the bat. It just doesn't happen that way.
So, I tried to have patience for my husband. I prayed for more patience for
my husband. I prayed daily that he would have a
desire to go back to the way we were doing things before.
We were having family meetings. We were discussing things in exciting and calm
ways. And he bailed on all of that stuff.
But I decided, "You know what? I still have a relationship with him and
i have a relationship with my children? What am I going to do about that? I need
healthy relationships with the children and healthy relationships with him." So,
that means i can't talk bad about him to my children.
And I need to be patient with him. But my children need to have me
as an example of what to do and how to govern themselves. Otherwise we're going
to be creating a problem, a major problem. I could be ruining their
lives just because i want to please somebody else
or make somebody else feel like they're in control or maybe make their life
quote unquote easier. Even though I know his life wasn't
easier. Finally, after a couple of years of prayer
and patience and increased love, he looked at me one day and he said, "You
know, I think I'm going to have to do this again."
Because basically he had found out that the children weren't following his
instructions. They were following me but not him.
They were disregarding him more. They were being more emotional with him.
But with me, they were fine. And he realized there was something to that
self-government stuff that I was doing. So, that's a little bit
of my story. But how can couples get on the same page
with their parenting? I don't know if the question really is
blending the parenting together. There could be good bits from each side
of the parenting equation but why worry about blending? Why say let's keep
this of you, but that part's bad. And let's keep this of you and that parts
bad. Because for most of us the way that we communicate with people
is a package deal. We've been doing it the same way for a
long time. If you're going to change one heart that includes a parent heart
or a child heart. If you've got one heart in your family
that needs help, if you're going to change that heart,
you've got to change the whole group. Which means if you want to put 2
different people together to do the parenting and have them be on the same
page. You need to just scrap what you were
doing before and reinvent it. You have to if you reinvent your
parenting together and if it's principled, it's based on
truths and not manipulations, then your hearts will change, they'll
unite, your children's hearts will change,
they'll unite with you too. Because that husband-and-wife
relationship. The unity between parents lays the
foundation for the good relationship with the children.
If you're going to scrap everything and reinvent together,
I can offer you some things that can be really helpful. Number one,
decide what you will say when problems come.
That's where parents run into the biggest problem. Have a plan,
have a script, have it written out if you need to.
In our family, I literally wrote out every word
to the correction that i was going to use all the time.
And I shared that with my husband and coached him through it.
Which brings me to number 2, allow yourselves to coach each other.
If you make a deliberate plan heading in a certain direction toward
purpose of who you're becoming, you might need mentoring because you're
going to fall back into old habits that fast. How many years have you been
doing it that other way? So, you've got to plan as a couple how
you're going to correct each other, how you're going to cue
each other to solve these problems. Number 3,
praise each other. That's important. You're not going to be perfect all the
way along. But give each other praise anyway. Point
out the things that are good. You know what, it's sexy to get praised, okay?
It is. Everybody likes hearing how they did things well.
So, just tell them and that will perpetuate more good behavior from each
other also. There are some troubles that can come
into play if you really do have a blended family.
And I need to be open about that. Not only are you blending 2 different
histories and past together. But there are oftentimes these
other parents that live in other houses. And you're blending somehow what they're
doing and the effects that it has on your
children in with the dynamic as well. That's hard. There are so many parents
that I've had mentor sessions with over the years where I've tried to coach
them through this process. We've seen some great success. But
usually, what has to happen at one point or another
is you have to decide to be okay with the fact
that that other person is going to make your life harder. You can't worry
about controlling what the parents are doing outside the home. Which means when
your children go to visit those other parents
and they come back, you might have to detox for half the week.
And then you've only got half the week to do some teaching
before they might go back another time. I know that's a reality.
It's hard. There are many people that are facing that. The best thing you can do is
say, "I can't control that." But my children can
see something different. They can see this
self-government teaching that has skills, that's predictable,
this calm that feels safe and loving. They can see that in my home.
They can also see that I love them enough to correct the problems
instead of just spoil them and cater to their every whim.
That's probably some of the hardest things that people face is when one
parent spoils the child to try to gain favor, then it looks like that child is
turning against you for a while. Try to have a long view. This child
is going to turn into an adult. They are going to be a parent.
They are going to find someone to marry. They have a long life ahead.
When it comes right down to it, it's more important they see the proper example
from you now even if you're not the favorite one than
it is for them to think that you're the best friend.
At the end of the day, when they have their own children, they'll be you.
And hopefully you've set the right example. I know blending parenting styles
is so difficult. But you know what? Almost everybody has
to do it. Because every one of us were raised by
different parents who did different things.
So, we just have to accept it reinvent our parenting style
and move on from there. There are a lot of different ways that I
teach parents how to learn the teaching self-government parenting system
so that they can get that restart, reboot that they can rescript what
they're doing. But by far the most effective for
couples is coming to our 3-day trainings. We
call them parenting mastery trainings. 3 days intensive
the couple together working on the skills that they need to learn
to become united. Lots of times what happens
is at the very beginning about half the people in the room at the training
are kind of wondering why they're there. Because their spouse
drug them there saying, "This will be great. I want it for my birthday.
Please come." And then after about the first half of a day, the
one who is drug there turns to the other one and says thank
you. "Thank you for taking me here. We needed
this. We are doing this." Because finally they see things clearly.
Finally they're on the same page. I love hearing
the success stories that come from those families. They're not perfect
immediately. But they know where they're going, they
know the skills they need and they're mentoring each other along
the way. Which is what parents are supposed to do for each other.
And when they do that, their children are more secure because of that love and
mentoring that's happening between the parents.
So, what do we talk about during that first half day
at the parenting mastery training? We talk about parenting styles.
I think you'll enjoy my video How Parenting Styles Affect
Child Development? Go watch that one now.