[blparent] Tips on Integrating Different Parenting Styles

[Peggy]

    I'm not sure you can change him, maybe a bit, my husband and I too have 
different parenting styles, he too is the more um for lack of a better word 
aggressive parent, lol.  We have talked about how he needs to lighten up and 
I need to hald my groound better, but I'm not sure that either one of us 
have changed.  When I think he's being too harsh on the kids I step in and 
say ... don't you think you're being a little harsh??  Or when he thinks I'm 
a push over he'll say I'm a push over ... is this the best style, probably 
not, does it work, not all the time.



-----Original Message----- 
From: Jo Elizabeth Pinto
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 1:06 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: [blparent] Tips on Integrating Different Parenting Styles

Hi.  I feel the need to preface my question with the disclaimer that Sarah's 
daddy is a good father.  He isn't abusive or mean, and Sarah has a good 
relationship with him.  I also know that all of you here aren't supposed to 
figure out my relationship for me.  I'm just in a bit of a quandary.

The thing is, Gerald and I tend to have very different parenting styles. 
I'm much more willing to talk things out with my four-year-old, answer her 
questions, and do things like sing songs or play silly games to get her to 
eat the dinner she doesn't want to touch or whisk her out of the bathtub 
when bath time is over.  Gerald says I'm a pushover, and I may be once in a 
while, but I pick my battles and stick to them, without sweating the little 
skirmishes.  He's way more likely to raise his voice than I am, and he goes 
straight to, "I said do it, now do it."  I know there has to be some of that 
reaction, and I've gotten that way myself sometimes, but I don't think it's 
the tool of first resort.  Like tonight we were eating fish sticks and 
French fries--I know, the dinner of champions--and she was dawdling and not 
wanting to eat.  So I started playing a silly game with her, singing about 
how she had stinky feet because she was bound for the tub when she got done, 
and getting her to eat the fish in between the singing.  Gerald, however, 
went straight to, "Pick up that fish and put it in your mouth, right now." 
He raised his voice, and both kids, Sarah and my stepson, sort of tensed up 
like, oh no, when is he going to yell.  I grew up with parents that yelled 
too much.  It's no fun.  I think it scares kids, and that a softer touch 
usually gets better results.

So my question is, any tips on getting Daddy to ease up a little?  Or should 
I accept it as it is with him?

Jo Elizabeth

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, 
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of 
the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of 
these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist
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