What advice can you give for co-parenting when the two of you are complete oppos

1. 78

   FreezeFrame34posted 13 years ago

   What advice can you give for co-parenting when the two of you are complete opposites?
   
   You both say you want what is best for the child, but can't agree on anything. What advice can you give?

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2. 75

   roxanne459posted 13 years ago

   Compromise and communication are the two most important things. Sometimes it's really hard to remember that what's best for the child is what your striving for. The desire to 'Get your way' when you and the other parent disagree is natural and will be the initial driving force in a parenting stand-off. If you can repeat those words in your head, it will help. Compromise and communication

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3. 81

   J.S.Matthewposted 13 years ago

   Are you and your Significant Other Completely Opposite when it comes to Raising Children? Here are some Tips to help Parents Compromise on Child Rearing Decisions. read more

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4. 60

   Malkie Wersbaposted 12 years ago

   Do the different things!!!  I hate that my husband does things that I consider 'dangerous' (sliding down the stairs on cardboard) or 'unhealthy' (junk food!) and he hates when I do the things that he considers 'messy' (glue, glitter, clay, beads all over our kitchen table) and 'money-wasters' (taking them to the comfortable warm little gym instead of freezing my butt off at the park).  One day, I read an article on the benefits of these 'dangerous' dads (throwing their kids up in the air on concrete with the risk of the poor babies breaking their heads in articles I have ACTUALLY read happening in real life) -- it turns out that those dads are GOOD for kids (shock galore considering some kids -- a really, really, really, small number do die).  Note: I would NEVER let my husband do *that* (article or no article, benefit or no benefit), but I realized that the article made some really good points.
   
   So now we kind-of allow the other person to do whatever they want and bite our tongues.  We figure we'd have to do the same thing anyway if we were to get a divorce (and unfortunately, this includes the more extreme situations of not liking each other's friends and family members!!!).
   
   I hope that helps.  It definitely SUCKS for you but it's definitely BETTER for the kid.  That's the same with the different political seasons.  It makes voting time EXTREMELY stressful in the house (at least for me and my hubby, at opposite poles on EVERY issue) but it's better for the kids to hear all these different ideas (instead of most households where they'd hear the same idea again and again for 18 years.  Think of it that way -- you are exposing your children to TWICE as much of the world and all the things, beautiful and ugly, that it contains, preparing them TWICE as well for adulthood and being TWICE as good of a parent!!!

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