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Replies to '11/22 "Yours, Mine & Ours"'

lh2000

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November 22, 2005, 11:31 am PST

You need to change your approach

Quote From: aprilrw28

We have a his, mine & ours household. My problem is not really with his daughter, she's very polite and does what i ask. My problem is with him! He thinks that she is this perfect angel that she does no wrong and that she doesn't do things to provoke my 5yr old. He has told me several times that she would NEVER provoke a situation and i keep telling him that she is a kid. Kids do things behind your back and they are normal (which includes picking fights). We have been into HUGE fights over this because he thinks that she is so perfect that she does no wrong. All i ask of him is that he treats her the same way he treats my 5yr old. He is very strict on my daughter and says that my daughter has turned his daughter into a kid that provokes. I am constantly throwing out the age difference mine is 5 and yours is 11, that is such a big difference in maturity level. Recently he got proved wrong because his daughter tripped mine and when he asked her why she did it, she said she didn't know. I told him my point had been proved and he tried to turn it onto my daughter saying she must have done something first. He fails to see that his kid is just a kid and that she will fall short of perfection, several times through out life. I dont know that we will ever get these parenting differences solved!

Pointing out his daughter’s faults will do nothing but make him defensive as you probably already know.

Kids are apprentice human beings and deserve a clean slate and not to have things that have happened in the past haunt them. You need to model this for your husband and not allow him to bring up the past when dealing with a current situation. If he cannot adhere to this then he should not be disciplining your daughter. He should discretely let you know then there is a problem and let you handle it. You should do the same for his daughter. You two (and it takes two) have turned this into a competition. It takes two to tango and both your daughters deserves better.

Rules to keep the peace

When he takes jabs at your daughter instead of buying into the fight step back and respond without getting defensive. Prepare yourself with some appropriate responses like: “I’m sorry you feel that way. It must be hard for her to live with a parent who feels that way”
When you’re discussing your daughter by all means don’t bring up his and if you’re discussing his daughter leave yours out of it. If your husband does this just respond with “I thought we were talking about ----- please don’t change the subject we can talk about --- later”.
If this is ever done in the presents of your kids stop immediately. This is a sign you two don’t have enough adult time to discuss important issues. Make sure you plan this time so that no one is tempted to violate the, not in front of the kids rule.
Let your girls work out there own problems. My girls are your girls ages and believe me my 5 year old is very capable of making the older one miserable if she is unkind to her. Don’t referee. In private it is fair game to give tips on how to work around issues. Reminding the older one that she is the role model and rewarding her for being a good one. Don’t let your husband step in the middle either.

If you do these 4 things you will turn this around today. It is not your husband’s fault it is both your faults but if you change how you behave he will too.

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