DH and I have agreed we want to go to parenting classes. I think he overreacts when DCs play up and that he has expectations of them that are not age appropriate. He thinks I explain everything too much and that sometimes they should just do what we say - that we have no authority over them. I think we do, but there are hot spots, like bedtime, that remain troublesome from time to time and that it would be amazing to get some help with.
He needs help to find strategies to be "authorative" without being snappy and wound up so easily (I think when he reacts like this he gives the DCs a sense of power that is not helpful.)
In short, we had a good talk last night and have decided we need to get a bit of help to make our parenting consistent.
To sum up, our kids are great, doing well at school, no real behaviour problems, in my view the "trouble spots" are age appropriate and normal. But we just some unhelpful tensions in how we deal with the day to day stuff of parenting and we need to sort them out.
Can anyone recommend anything in London that might fit the bill?