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My husband never says no to my daughter, and at least in his eyes, it seems that I hardly ever say yes. How can we address this? Parents often develop a reputation for be-
ing the “yes” or “no” responder at home. Kids recognize the pattern and gravitate toward this manipulative tactic for dodging unwanted answers. Act as a parent team, and identify which questions and requests are trivial and don’t require a “check-in.” Agree that for the rest, the response is “Let me check with your mom (or dad).” Parents should act together, despite opinion differences, and alternate verbal delivery of the “yes” and “no” answers.
Whenever one of us criticizes our daughter, she runs to the other parent and complains. We’ve told her to stop, but she continues. Good luck telling your daughter to stop her bad behavior while your divisive interactions as parents reinforce her ability to divide and conquer. A few tips: 1. Gain the emotional intelligence to avoid annoying each other because your child is upset about what the other parent said. 2. Examine and consider together whether there’s an overabundance of parental feedback (praise or criticism) that needs to be curtailed. 3. Improve your skills at providing useful, gentle criticism. 4. Teach your child to evaluate critical feedback.
When our child finds that we’ve locked our bedroom door, she panics. How can we make alone time possible? Few goals are as difficult to achieve for parents as alone time—especially intimate time, which is critically important. A young child who exhibits panicked behavior is struggling emotionally to have a need resolved. Talk her through managing her feelings, and don’t give in to or ignore her emotional meltdown. Then take turns strategically planning alone time. Some ideas: 1. Arrange an overnight visit for your kids. 2. Reserve a hotel room and cozy up there during your next regular date night. 3. Schedule an extended lunch hour for an intimate liaison at home. 4. Take off work early and meet up before picking up the kids, or arrange extended care. If you persist and plan, alone time will happen.
My husband is far too strict. He yells at the children and threatens them. I have tried to get him to stop. He thinks I’m too soft. Resist viewing your co-parent as the enemy of your children. Parenting delivered with stern leniency and/or soft strictness benefits children. There is a healthy place for both parenting styles, but for neither escalated to the extreme. Serious conversations between parents about values and goals, with compromise as needed, provide children with optimum and active parenting from both Mom and Dad. Marriages thrive through this process of forging collaborative parenting.
My husband and I were athletes in school. None of our kids play sports—and all four have natural abilities. This frustrates us. Your children may dislike the nature of sports participation and culture: the rigors of practice, discipline, dedication of time, performance anxiety or pressure, or particular social interactions. Have a gentle conversation to understand their personal obstacles and clarify your hopes for what they could gain from participation. Relieve them of any belief that you are living through them or require them to be as successful as you were. Other ways to get them moving: 1. parental example; 2. enforced time limits on technology use; 3. noncompetitive family activities such as biking, hiking, tag, hide-and-seek, gardening, shooting hoops, playing catch, swimming, skating, and a recreation-complex membership.
About the Counselor: Patt Hollinger Pickett (themarriagewhisperer.net) is a licensed marriage and family therapist who has been in practice for more than 20 years. She’s the author of the award-winning book The Marriage Whisperer: Tips to Improve Your Relationship Overnight. As a quick resource and relationship conversation starter, she also designed a deck of playing cards, each card presenting a unique tip from her book.
