Posted by:

Michael Grose

Many mums come up to me after a parenting seminar to compliment me, which is nice. Compliments are often followed up by ‘I wish my husband was here tonight. He’s the one who needs to hear your message.’

While it doesn’t necessarily  take two active parents to raise kids effectively, it’s certainly easier when there are two parents sharing the job. It’s also easier still when both parents have similar philosophies and ideas about raising kids.

In reality most parents learn on the job so parents who share the journey and the child-rearing experiences are more likely to work from the same parenting page. That doesn’t mean that both parents always see eye to eye about everything. But a willingness to accommodate each other’s ideas and thoughts helps.

It’s reassuring for kids to see their parents working together. It gives them a sense of security. It’s also terrific modelling that will, in all likelihood, be repeated in their own parenting.

Many parents play firm parent/fun parent. In some ways, it’s good for kids to experience firmness and fun at home. You can be both the firm and fun in one parent package, but that’s often difficult. It’s more common for one parent to be the firm one and the other the fun one. We often swap around for different kids. How accommodating is that!

Recent studies indicate that there is an overall increase over the last two decades in the willingness for Australian fathers to be fully involved in parenting. They want a say in how kids are raised and they want to be actively involved in the raising of their kids, perhaps not to the same extent as mothers, but they want to be hands on. That's to be applauded.

From my experience mothers have quite an impact on how much their partners join them on the parenting journey. Being willing to accommodate their parenting style; being willing to keep them in the loop about kids; as well as a willingness to stand back and allow them to have their say all impacts on fathering. 

And don't expect dads to be a mirror image of mums. I've said for a long time now that Dads do parenting differently. Accepting, accommodating, even applauding the differences is one of the most important aspects of parenting kids together.

For more ideas to help you get on the same parenting page subscribe to Happy Kids at www.parentingideas.com.au. And suggest to your partner that he does the same.


 

Tags:

fathering, fathers, journey, parenting, sharing, the, together