If you have a French DH (or from another country with strict discipline)...

[Weta]

... how do you deal with differences in your approach to discipline?

My DH is generally a fair bit stricter than I am, and thinks shouting at the children is not only ok but actually a good thing and that I should do more of it too. I disagree, but he thinks my methods are too soft. He has agreed to respect my opposition to smacking, even though it is quite acceptable in France.

DS1 (6) has an anxious temperament and cries very easily (much like I was as a child), which my DH doesn't really relate to - I guess this is a personality difference, but it is compounded by the cultural differences in our approaches to discipline.

Apart from this area of difference DH is a fantastic father, has always spent lots of time with the kids, plays with them lots and is great at looking after their physical needs too. For the last 9 months he has been at home with them while I worked full-time after moving country, which is probably not helping matters - I can now work p-t as soon as he gets a job, so hopefully that will all change soon.

The discipline issue is probably the thing I find hardest about having a cross-cultural relationship... I'd appreciate any thoughts!!

In our experience, the methods that work best depend more on the situation and the child than where they come from.

DH is also French and had strict disciplinarian upbringing (from his ultra controlling mother) that he was anxious not to replicate, so we employed mostly my methods in the early years. But now that DD1 is hitting her teens it is his stricter methods that get better results than my softer ones, which weren't getting through.

The most important thing is to have strategies in place ahead of time, but for this you need to agree...

Hmmm... I'll watch with interest. DD is only 8 weeks old so discipline is far from being an issue right now.

I am very pro a bedtime routine though and DH is more laissez-faire on this issue, taking a let them stay up until they want to go to bed attitude. His family were all shocked that DD was in bed by 7 (the one time of day where she goes to sleep on her own, sometimes with a few cuddles needed, but generally she is great at bedtime but not so sleepy during the day-time... am aware that this could all change!) His father seemed to take it personally that I hadn't kept her up for them all to enjoy a bit more

Would be interested to know if you are continental in this way or favour a more early-bedtime but don't want to hijack the thread!

Castille - my DH is more keen to replicate his upbringing, although it wasn't ultra-disciplinarian, just a lot more so than mine. As you say, the problem really is agreeing on strategies, or perhaps at least agreeing to disagree and coming up with some kind of compromise. We're working on it, but it is causing quite a few conflicts at present!! At the moment I think he feels a bit thwarted by the things I feel strongly about, but I'm hoping we can get over it somehow and maybe once he's working more he will be less focused on the children

Flyingcloud - you're welcome to hijack the thread! DS1 was born in NZ and we moved to the south of France when he was 18 months old. He was going to bed at 6.30-7pm NZ style, but this actually proved to be a real pain in France. It was hopeless in the summer as he dropped the daytime nap at 2 and then wouldn't sleep in the afternoon heat (meaning we couldn't either) and then had to go bed around 7pm when everyone else was out doing stuff. We would often be invited to apéritifs etc at 6pm and it just wasn't feasible, and sometimes it was impossible to meet up with friends with children as their schedules were so different. We gradually moved his bedtime back to 7.30 and then 8pm. When DS2 came along we put him on a similar bedtime, and he's still going strong on the naps at 2.5. For me it's been important to have a regular bedtime and a standard routine, but I would say having it later than in the UK is a good idea if you want to fit in with the people around you and have any kind of social life As for dealing with in-laws, I'd try to make some moves towards a compromise but then laugh anything else off as 'me and my anglo-saxon habits'!

My DP is French and we have a 17mo DD.

Much like castille's DH, he had a very strict upbringing which was abusive IMO. This has left him pretty confused about discipline, as until we had her he was adamant that using cold showers as a punishment and being beaten with a belt were normal.

I just kept talking to him about my upbringing, and alternative methods of dealing with behaviour (I do this as a job, so that helped); and once she was born, I asked him if he could do to her what had been done to him ('normal' or not), and he cannot imagine hurting her in this way.

He still tries the ultra harsh approach (verbally) occasionally, but TBH he's rubbish at it because he's so fucking soft so soon adopts my way of dealing with tantrums etc.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think you are doing a great thing just by discussing it, as this way you will both be consistent, which is vital.

tethersend - your DH's experience sounds horrific, and it's great you've both managed to get beyond that.

My DH is only harsh verbally, which actually I don't really have a problem with when it comes to our more robust, happy go lucky DS2 (though he is much younger so it may be different later). But DS1 is much more emotionally fragile, and I guess I sympathise with him and feel he needs a different approach - though as my mum says, this is why it's good for children to have two parents (in our case, one who will be sympathetic and one who can teach him to deal with the harsh world out there)!!

I don't know about consistency - I'm not going to start shouting just to keep DH happy, but I agree I could be firmer, and I do try very hard not to undermine him. The problem at the moment with him at home all the time is that he is doing a lot more of the discipline and I come across as the nice parent, whereas he wants me to be the nasty one a bit more so that he's not always the one dishing out the discipline (but then I don't think they need as much discipline as he does!).

in answer to your original question OP about how do you deal with differences in approach... well in my case it was to have a series of erm... very full and frank discussions (that most of the neighbours heard as well) about how his approach was totally wrong. My dh is italian not french but I think there's a similar venting your feelings/emotional element to bringing up kids on the continent, that is far less common in the UK.

Lead by example, show him your way works and he'll soon mellow out a bit.

Endangered species - hmmm, DS1 is already 6 and DH still isn't convinced that my way works!! though admittedly he is probably more mellow than he originally was
Glad we're not the only ones to have full and frank discussions about this though!!
I can see that he probably needs to do the emotional element as that's part of him, and it would kind of negate his personality/culture to do away with it completely... it's just finding the common ground I guess. Which is why I posted on here and not on AIBU or somewhere!

We're in the opposite situations as British parents on the whole tend to be more shouty and given to smacking than Swedish ones. Certainly more shouty.

Fortunately, dh's family is very tolerant, and dh himself is quite open to discussion. I suppose we do some kind of compromise. Since we live in England, some things clearly need to be adapted to English ways of thinking.

No DCs yet but I've given him a lot of homework and for the most part we'll do it my way, which was gained over 6 years on other people's children and he's seen get results on an extremely spoilt ex-charge. Never to early to think about discipline IMO.

Re: bedtime I plan to fix it at 8ish and we'll work from there to devise a routine. Suits me better anyway as we follow late to bed, late to rise and apparently I've done so since birth to my mother's dismay!

Best laid plans etc means that we'll be horrifically inconsistent and blesses with a little lark but the intentions are there.

He's also French and i think from what I've seen of his family it's not so much the harshness of the discipline in his case as the inconsistency. Half the time they let it slide and then when they come down they come down hard. Therefore when he was disciplined it was pretty tough. Plus fathers are a lot tougher in their expectations generally without putting in the hours of saying no firmly and consistenly without losing it or giving in. Generally.

Cory, that's interesting - lucky my DH didn't marry a Swede then!! We started in NZ, then spent 4 years in France and moved to Luxembourg last year, so I'm no longer sure where we are in terms of fitting in with local customs

Frakkinnuts, I always knew we would have slightly different views on discipline, although I would say our basic values are much the same. My DH is actually extremely consistent, which I guess is a good start. Good luck with your plans - are you expecting a DC then?

Not yet...still at the trying stage but slightly half-arsedly because although I desperately want children having them here may not be the greatest idea and we only have 18 months left on this posting anyway so if it happens, it happens but I'm not making any particular effort to fall pregnant.

We prefer to discuss absolutely everything to death before we decide to go ahead though so approaches to child-rearing were discussed before I agreed to marry him!

Fair enough... we did discuss it a bit before getting married, but I think my DH would have thought I was a nutter if I'd tried to discuss it to death!

Good luck with the trying, whenever it happens

Flyingcloud, we have mixed and match. When DCs were tiny babies they went to bed earlier. It didn't stop us visiting friends, we would just put them to bed there (in a 'nacelle') and then bring them home asleep.

Toddlers - long afternoon nap so could go to bed around 8pm.

Full day at école maternelle - back to early tea and aimed to be in bed by 7 otherwise they were miserable. But then on a 'French' style routine during holidays.

Now they are 5 and 7 they can handle a 7pm meal, 8.30pm bedtime.

Weta, I am not ignoring you but French DH and I don't really differ in our approach to discipline. His parents rarely shouted and never used physical punishments.

DP used to be a lot more shouty than me, but is actually a much softer touch. Very much the "NO NO NO NO - well yes" school of non discipline. I am a lot more consistent about standards and expectations - my no means no, but there aren't many of them, and I give a lot of explanations for my feelings and behaviour.

I think that, if you can get beyond the mere replication of your childhood experience of discipline, the broader repertoire of experiences and discipline methods that a dual-culture family affords gives a broader base for discussion. Every family needs to establish boundaries appropriate to the time and place in which they live, and the ambitions they have for their children.

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Oh Pitchounette, maybe, but there is strong French tradition of older generations laying down the law to younger generations with great personal authority but with no consideration for the needs or feelings of others (or evidence or data). Power for power's sake - I am the parent and I make the law.

I do think that that (horrific) tradition is gradually dying out - it is much more in evidence among the 60+ generation than among my generation - but it is still a huge cultural marker, very different to what happens in the UK. An equivalent UK tradition might be sending your young children to boarding prep school at 7 - that (horrific) tradition is dying out too...

Bonsoir - thanks, your comments sound very sensible and reassuring

Pitchounette - apologies for generalising! It's usually something I try to avoid, and perhaps 'strict' wasn't quite the right word, but after 10 years in France and having experienced both ends of the education system and observed many French people (friends or otherwise) with their children, I do think there is a genuine cultural difference in terms of how people interact with their children and the kind of interaction that tends to be considered desirable and/or acceptable. Of course you will get people on both sides who don't fit those norms, but I do think the norms are different.
My DH and I have never had any trouble agreeing on practical stuff like bedtimes and feeding, but there are differences in our expectations of children's behaviour (eg degree of mess, amount of noise, how long they should stay at the dinner table etc - most of which comes down to politeness I guess, and I think in France children are expected to be much more polite) and the amount of telling off and how it is done. Yes, some of this is down to personalities and values, but in France I found that my approach was very much in the minority whereas my DH's approach seemed very mainstream, and in fact more towards the 'soft' end of the spectrum.

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Then I think you have forgotten what it is like to live in France, Pitchounette! You've been away too long - come back and you will experience it at first hand!

Ah, but I don't think I ever said I was judging the French approach, just that it was different to my own and that I was interested in working out how to find common ground with my DH who comes from a different cultural background. I have absolutely no problem with the way my French friends choose to parent, but it is slightly different to what I do, and that is something I have to work out within my own family.

I agree with you about accepting an entire country and its system, and that is definitely something I had to come to terms with in France. In my first five-year stint I was always comparing it with New Zealand (where I'm from), but the second time round I just went with the flow.

However, we moved to Luxembourg last year and are now able to have our children educated according to the English approach rather than the French one. But if we had stayed in France I was fully prepared to accept the French education system despite what I regard as some major flaws - though I utterly agree with you about the reading, and was extremely impressed with the 3 years my son spent at maternelle.

I think when you are an expat and your children are growing up in a foreign system (to you), it is really important not to be criticising that system all the time, but to find ways to work within it and, as you say, compensate for the bits you find lacking. Otherwise your children have a real identity problem as they are growing up in a country but know that one of their parents is constantly undermining it.

FWIW, I have a great love for France and felt very at home there - and am now regarded as a total francophile by my primarily English colleagues

It's also important to remember that, just as one finds ones own parents' or grandparents' approach to child rearing culturally different from the approach of one's own generation, so the approach of one's in-laws and partner's family often culturally quite different from that of the current generation in their country. Which is why it is a good idea (if you can find the time and energy...) to read several tomes on child rearing from each of your cultures and to try to gain perspective on past and present trends. De-personalising one's own practises (and those inherited from one's family) by understanding which cultural currents they have developed from, and doing the same for the practises of one's partner, goes a long, long way to helping you find new, common ground that is equally "impersonal".

DH and I have 4 cultures between us. Both of his are quite 'strict' cultures in terms of discipline. My background is British / Scandinavian and I was brought up more the Scandinavian way I think.

I have very strong feelings about the way I wish to be a parent and have made a nice comfortable spot on my soapbox over the years, explaining this to DH He generally supports my decisions. I think it helps though that his parents live pretty far away.

The IL's are another story though. They don't understand my lack of 'discipline' (for them discipline = punishment). I've tried explaining that discipline is important to me, but that we have different approaches to discipline. It also helped that until we moved last Sep, we were living in a country where smacking is illegal, so I also had the law on my side as it were (not that I should have the law on my side to justify how I want to be a parent, but hey ho). But unless they can argue a case for their form of discipline that makes sense to me, I will carry on with my way. I don't leave the dc's alone with them partly for this reason (twice I have caught MIL smacking my dd) partly for other reasons too such as refusing to change nappies etc.

Sorry, not much help. But if you feel very strongly about something, I do think it's important to keep reiterating to your partner (with reasons why etc). But then I am also lucky that I feel stronger about this than DH and he is starting to take on more of my ways more naturally.

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This top down reward chart taking stuff away is relatively recent in the UK - maybe the last 10 years?

Sure I had toys taken away if I couldn't play nicely with that toy but not as an unrelated punishment. We didn't have reward charts for eating dinner, potty training, tidying up - we were expected to do it. And before anyone says that's just my family/ my group of friends very few people from my generation (including anyone I talked to at uni about it while watching supernanny, nannies I trained with/worked near and school contemporaries) remember this reward/sanction approach being used at all.

In many ways the time difference is more important than the cultural one, which is why research on current approaches (and a critical evaluation of said approaches) is a good idea, but cultural generalisations, as long as they're informed generalisations and not unfounded rigid stereotypes, can be useful. It helps to say that, in general, French children are expected to behave at mealtimes in a cross cultural family where the other parent comes from a culture where this isn't valued but it would be important for extended family reasons / if that family moved to France. Or to understand that your 'methods' are going to be met with scepticism / derision by your ILs because 'everyone in our culture does it this way'.

All that having been said the parents and their experiences are most important factors and sometimes they won't have been brought up in the way 'everyone' was.