Reply to How to help spouse be less rigid/more flexible with our toddler?

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Reply to "How to help spouse be less rigid/more flexible with our toddler?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My husband struggles with change and has a habit of digging his heels in response to things that are outside his preconceived notion of the way things are going to happen.

He’s actually done a great job of recognizing this in himself and taking steps to address it. I work with him and have learned how to call him out on it so that we can still make decisions as a couple. He knows it’s a bad habit and even when his first response is to dig in during a discussion between us, he is also quick to self correct, usually circling back after an hour or a day so that we can pick it back up with a healthier attitude.

The problem is that it’s now happening with our toddler and it’s creating real challenges in their relationship (and mine). Like most toddlers, ours lacks the capacity to wait for someone to circle back an hour later to resolve something. So instead, she and my husband are constantly getting locked into arguments over nothing. Worse, our daughter will come to me to negotiate these arguments “[b]But Daddy said...” and not only does this suck when I’m just trying to get time to myself, it also puts me in a horrible position between them. My default is to tell my daughter that she and Daddy need to resolve it on their own, but she increasingly refuses to engage with him at this point. Not to mention that all this conflict (again, over nothing) is wearing on my nerves.[/b]

He knows he needs to stop doing this and learn to be more flexible when interacting with her, but it’s hard. Has anyone else learned to do this and have tips? I kind of get it because toddlers are challenging and she even tests me, and I’m a very flexible, conflict-averse person. But so often he is being rigid about just arbitrary things (like which dress she wears or whether she eats most of versus all of her dinner). Any tips?[/quote]

Why are you engaging in this? While I agree picking your battles is important, your husband isn't the only one who needs some parenting tips. You are being played.[/quote]

She literally says in the section that you bolded that she doesn't engage -- she tell DD to go back to DH to resolve. The issue is that her DH is not finding ways to resolve these things on his own, so her DD is going to the parent who has a track record of resolving issues and helping everyone move forward.

OP, that has happened to me, too and it's super frustrating. I think my DH also struggled with adapting to parenthood in this way, and I think the toddler stage was one of the hardest for him because his family had taught him all this very old-fashioned stuff about discipline and "good" kids and "bad" kids and it made it harder for him to adapt to understand that you can short circuit a lot of the battles by just letting them win on the stuff that isn't that important. Your pajama example is great, that's exactly the kind of situation to just give the kid a "win".

I don't know about you but my DH has really never been one for reading parenting books, he prefers to learn by doing. What I did is just continue to demonstrate empathetic, calm parenting techniques and he slowly came around as he saw that his approach was not working and mine was. I guess it kind of depend on how stubborn he is. I had to be careful not to lecture or tell him how to do it because that would make him defensive, but just modeling a more productive approach worked because at the end of the day, he didn't want to be constantly at odds with our DS.

If it doesn't start getting better, I might suggest some couples counseling. A PEP session as others suggest could help to, but it actually sounds like you really understand how to approach these things and it's taking your DH longer to get on board. Maybe there is something going on with your relationship that his making him more stubborn regarding parenting -- sometimes there is jealousy or other stuff happening that can create these divisions in parenting approach. Resolving that might make it easier for you guys to get on the same page. Though I do want to reiterate that it sounds like you know what you're doing and that he needs to get on board with it.[/quote]

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