Different parenting

[shushnow]

How do people cope when DP has different parenting style, ie disney! He does the discipline for his kids (not enough in my opinion) but I will support him and would not disagree in front of his kids (though I will say after).

Its causing issues between us as if I disagree with him he says I don't like his kids. So I now try to keep my mouth shut (difficult!) but it gets under my skin when I think things should be dealt with.

I think most stepparents go through something like this. I think after you've been together for a reasonable amount of time, and definitely if / once you've moved in together, it's really important to discuss. It can start as a conversation about your role in discipline and whether they want you to be involved (and therefore have to be able to have at least basic disciplining rights), and you can go on to lead them round to how they approach rules and stuff like that. I think a lot of disney parenting comes from not really thinking and being ruled by feelings, and so if you actually have an open conversation and ask them to explain to you why they do things in a certain way, even just to understand how things work in their family, it's a great place to start. I think a bit more input comes with time, but don't be afraid to make yourself scarce if the DSC are behaving badly and it's not being tackled. I think disappearing + frank conversation lead to their eyes being opened a bit, and if you can have a small input and it has a positive effect, you can slip it into conversation about how you thought that was really beneficial. You need to end up as a team, and working on a solution that suits everyone is a long, but necessary, process. However, if your OH completely refuses to have that conversation at all, gets really defensive, and starts accusing you of stuff, then that would be a red light for me. I'd say something like 'You want me in your life, and in order to be in your life, I need to understand how your family works. If you aren't willing to include me in this way so we can work better together and I can be more sympathetic to your way of doing things, I am being pushed out, and you are not helping me to blend into your family life.' If they can't understand that, then I'd have a real problem. Good luck, and go and have a bath when it gets too much!

I really think that when you have very different approaches to discipline, you are facing a difficult battle ahead of you. Parents have different ways of disciplining their kids and there is no right or wrong. The only way to assess whether a parent did right or wrong is looking back and even then, you can't be certain that the way your kids have turned out is all due to the way they were disciplined.

I strongly belief that it is a parents' right to discipline their kids how they feel comfortable to do so. Some will be stricter and some less. Of course discussion is important and indeed, couples should listen to each other, but discussion should be about listening and considering, not about expecting the other to go along with what the other think is right.

The question to ask yourself is would you feel if your OH said to you that you are too strict? What if for instance, you think your kids should do their homework every day, but he told you that this was unnecessary pressure and that doing it at the week-end and missing a few would be fine? Would you be prepared to go with his views even though you might strongly disagree with it?

In the end, if you can't come up with a compromise, then you'll have to accept to take a step back or accept that the relationship is not right for you.

Shush now are you me? I could have written the exact same thing

Shush now are you me? I could have written the exact same thing