How to Parent When Your Parenting Styles Differ

     I’ve always said that the culmination of the love between a husband and wife is having children… and nothing will pull your marriage apart more than a child.  We give the best years of our lives to our children. They can take our time, our energy, and drain us of the stamina for intimacy. Kim and I are so glad we had our three children – we wouldn’t take back having them.  But the fact is that we gave our best years to the kids. What is our child-raising experience? We have three grown children and three grandkids, and we were also foster parents.

     How we will parent our children isn’t usually even discussed pre-children.  We just have unspoken expectations that we assume will be met. Kim and I grew up on farms about 6 miles apart in northern Indiana and when it came to expectations of how to raise kids, you would have thought we were from different planets.  Kim is much more laid back and in my opinion, let the kids run over her a bit. I, on the other hand, was probably a bit too strict. Kim didn’t tell the kids to wait till their dad gets home, but I felt because she didn’t make them tow the mark, they wore her out unnecessarily.  Sounds like the recipe for disagreement, huh?

     Kim and I realized we needed to get on the same page.  We found that what helped us most was concentrating on the issue together.  We agreed that two of the biggest issues in child-rearing are fairness and consistency (consistency in both of us).  Fairness to Kim and I were two different things, so we had to find a happy medium. Also, it isn’t uncommon that one spouse has a higher threshold for overall noise and what is unacceptable behavior.  

     What worked for us was a system called 123 Magic.  We have written a blog post about it and I will link you to it at the bottom of this article.  Once we found what worked for us, we began to thrive with the new system. Even the kids liked it better than what we were doing before.  Our home became more fair, loving and peaceful. We all enjoyed the new version of us.

Here’s the link for the 123 Magic article.