Has this been done before? Children obeying one parent but not the other?

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I agreed with dh I would seek some MN wisdom on this.

Ds is 8, nearly 9. He isn't a natural approval-seeker, so he's not super-instinctively-obedient, but he is good with me - just about always - I would describe him as "compliant", with me. But he is being thoroughly unco-operative with dh (and, at the moment, with his teachers, which is a long-standing separate issue) - it's as if he's one of those dogs which recognise only one authority.

Does anyone else have this situation, and if so, what helped?

(By the way, this won't be because I am a SAHM and as a result dh doesn't "feature" in the parenting - dh and I both work full-time, so we both have the same sort of level of parenting input.)

Hmmm. Here, not completely; there was a phase when DD1 was small when she definitely favoured her father (heartbreaking incident when she was ill and shouted 'go away mummy, I want daddy') but I think dis/obedience is fairly shared out.

Are you and your hisband different personalities? e.g is one of you more patient than the other, do you have have different (even mildly different) tolerences for behavior?.

I know in theory as parents we are supposed to sing from the same hymn book so to speak (sorry reading too many religious schools threads!) but we are all different people (thank goodness) and it may be that your son just responds better to one type of 'parenting' than another.

I'm not saying this is OK as your ds obviously should be responding positively to either parent but if you can work out if there is any reason for this it may help in coming up with a solution.

Wise thoughts, lc - yes, different personalities definitely. But we have the same standards - no inconsistency there - so although I've been the one who did the work on boundary-setting (ds not being good at boundaries himself), the boundaries are the same for us both.

Which means you get the weird situation of ds doing a specific thing nicely (eg getting dressed for school) when I'm watching, but not when dh is. Simply because of who's in charge.

I wonder (nearly seriously) if pet-owners can advise too! - as to how to expand the authority pool.

My children obey both of us.

It's just that when they obey DH they like to check with me first.

Mine obey me better than dh. Not because we have different rules, but because they know I won't give up. Dh can be a bit of a wuss and can get to the "I just can't get him to do it"- stage quite quickly. Which is a thought that wouldn't really occur to me.

And he often sounds really miserable when he tells them to do things, as if he assumed that they wouldn't- whereas I'm more for the brisk approach.

Dh is aware of this, but finds it difficult to change- he thinks more about how tired he is getting than about getting the job done.

But it's not a major problem, they are good-natured kids and don't take advantage too much. Plus they know I would support Daddy's decisions, so no point in appealing to me.

My kids are more inclined to obey me than DH. I think this is because they know I will climb onto their backs and stay there until they have complied with my request. DH tells them what to do and never checks, so the kids know it's safe to ignore him.