Who do you think is handling this right - DP thinks i'm too soft, I think he's too strict

[iwouldgoouttonight]

We have DS who is 5 and DD who is 3, we both work almost full time and we're probably both a bit stressed. But I think DP is too harsh on the DCs sometimes.

For example, DD gets a sticker on her chart if she doesn't shout us to wake us up in the morning (trying to get her to wait in bed until a reasonable hour rather than waking us at 5am!). This morning she shouted me to go into her at about 6am, so she didn't get a sticker. She started to cry because she wanted a sticker so I explained that that stickers are for when she waits for me to go into her room to get her up. She cried for a bit so I ignored her for a bit, then tried to distract her for a bit, which worked, and then she came to me for a cuddle and all was fine and she said she'll try for a sticker tomorrow.

DP said I should have put her in the naughty corner as soon as she started crying at me and we shouldn't have to be with her when she's crying. He said because I spoke to her before she'd stopped crying she had got her own way. I said she's not because she wanted a sticker and she didn't get one. He said she wanted attention so she cried and me talking to her and calming her down played into her hands and now she will think if she wants attention she just needs to cry and shout.

I think he uses the naughty corner too much and leaves them in there for too long. I tend to use it if they have been deliberately naughty - eg, hitting - but otherwise I try to distract them or try other things. I find it diffuses the situation more quickly and then we can just carry on what we were doing. DP tends to use the naughty step any time they don't do what he asks them and he leaves them there until they stop crying, which can sometimes be up to 20 minutes. I think thats too long and they've probably forgotten why they're even there. He thinks if we take them out of the corner before they stop crying then they have won.

Last night, DS was messing about a bit - he was a bit overexcited and took ages getting undressed for bed, etc. DP started to take toys away every time he didn't immediately get undressed, so DS got really upset about his toys going, and went to bed in tears and it took him about an hour to calm down and get to sleep. I thought it might have been better to try to distract DS, maybe make getting undressed into a game, possibly bribery (!) e.g. if you get undressed before I count to ten you can have an extra story or something.

What do you think? Is DP being too strict or an I being too soft?

Well although after we last discussed it we didn't come to any compromises and DP was insistent his way was right, he has changed how he's coped with their behaviour a bit since we talked. So even though he didn't admit it, I think he may have taken on board some of what I suggested. He's not used the naughty step over the weekend and seems to be trying to distract them before things get out of hand. Will see how today has gone (he's been looking after DD).

Fingers crossed, OP - my DH was like this, I suggested that I take over when things got stressful and it led to him seeing that distraction works. Your DH will probably never admit that he got it wrong, but if he can see the alternative in action he will change what he does.

It really turned things around for us, and now there are times when I'm the one who is too strict/overreacts (usually when I'm having the joyful PMT/menopause symptom combo) and he calms it down.

We have a rule that each of us is allowed to tell the other (after we have presented a united front) that we think the other went too far - in the beginning this led to arguments, but we have now both got used to it. It's hard to reflect critically on your own parenting, but you come out better for it.

As much as I agree that your dh does seem harsh on the children I can sort of see where he's coming from on some things.
If they are on the naughty spot crying I can see why he would think it is counterproductive to let them off. It is easy to think that if they are naughty, then cry because they are being punished, and then you cuddle them and let them off the naughty spot, what sort of punishment is it?
I don't particularly use the naughty spot but if I ever did and they were crying on it I would tell them that when they have calmed down we could talk about why they had been sat there. Once calm we'd discuss it, say sorry and have a cuddle, siutation over (hopefully!). I wouldn't sit with them until they had stopped crying, though I would ask them regularly (like ever 45s-1min) if they wanted to calm down and talk.

Wrt dd waking early, I believe if you've got an early riser then you're stuck with it! My 2 are both early risers, no matter what time they go to bed they are always awake by 6.15 and now (6 and 4.5) they'll play together in their bedroom but when they were little it unfortunately meant one of us had to get up. There is only a certain amount of time you could expect a 3y old to stay by herself in her bedroom.

6am is pretty reasonable...a lot of young children seem to wake up naturally at that time. Why don't you just accept that she wakes up on the early side and have a cuppa and a cuddle with her? It seems to be a lot of hard work faffing around with stickers and her getting upset about it all...

I'm going to be totally honest and say that even though I think the sun shines out of my DH's butt, and he is an amazing father, he can absolutely do my head in when it comes to disciplining our 3yo daughter. We don't do the naughty step thing; our natural tendency is more to 'talk it through' (DD is very bright so this works for us using age-appropriate language and reasoning). Just sometimes though, he sharpens his voice and it sounds so harsh it makes me jump, nevermind her! Some of his actions, rather than teach her anything, just upset her (such as 'if you dont do X or Y, I'm taking this toy away). Then we have to spend longer calming her down. An like you, my DH thinks I can be too soft sometimes.

Is there just some essential difference between most men/women, fathering/mothering? Not that everythig is binary, just than men/women's parenting styles differ?

I wonder if your husband has been treated like that as a child himself? People generally tend to do their children what has been done to them (not always and sometimes the very opposite occurs, of course).
I asked my husband to read just one page off a book that in my view is the most considerate to children - he did, it did not take much tie, after all, and I think it has had an effect on him, considering he accepts what I am doing and seems to have started using some bits of the same approach. If your husband values books with evidence, this might be the one for you, too: "Tears and tantrums" by Aletha Solter. Explains why crying is necessary, why avoiding punishment in response to anything, including tantruming is not playing into "their" hands, why it is not manipulative on children's part to cry and rage, why it is essential to be with the crying or tantruming child, etc. It has helped us with both responding to crying and tantrums without getting all worked up, as well as our relationship with our children.
My husband is a very mild mannered man and never argues with anyone, so surely it is not about men/women but personalities more than anything, and probably about the way we were raised ourselves (and your DH may have well been disciplined more harshly because of the assumption that boys need more of it). But for the sake of your future relationsip, and his future relationship with them, please try to change your and his parenting style. Naughty corner might sound like not much but it does break relationships as it really affects children's self-worth.
Best of luck for the future and for relationships that it holds!
M