When you parent differently
Different is normal
Researchers call it coparenting: how two people raise a child together. Here is what they have found.
Two people, two places
You grew up in different families, with different worries and different weeks. Landing in different places on screens, bedtimes or how firm to be is common. There is no single right way to raise a child, and this site will never tell you which of you is closer to one.
Agreeing is only part of it
One widely used framework splits working together as parents into four parts. Agreeing about how to raise your child is one. The others are backing each other rather than undermining, sharing the work, and how you handle disagreement in front of your children. Across many studies, children did better where parents cooperated and worse where parents fought over them or pulled them into the middle.
Sources: Feinberg, 2003 · Teubert & Pinquart, 2010
Children notice how you disagree
In studies where parents kept diaries at home, children reacted to how a disagreement went more than to the fact of it. Calm talk, support and working on the problem left them more settled. Insults, threats and going silent left them upset. Children themselves sort arguments this way. And seeing a disagreement resolved upsets them less than one left hanging.
Sources: Cummings, Goeke-Morey & Papp, 2003 · Goeke-Morey et al., 2003 · Cummings et al., 1991
Where a position comes from
How you were raised carries into how you parent, though not as a copy. One long study found the link for mothers and not for fathers. And some gaps are not about beliefs at all. They are about what your week allows: who is home at six, who is running on four hours of sleep. Every topic on this site has a point about exactly that.
Sources: Belsky et al., 2005
How to talk about your comparison
A comparison shows where the two of you stand, point by point. It can surprise you. These steps are for the conversation afterwards.
Answer on your own first
Take the questions separately, without talking about your answers. The point is to see where each of you stands, not where you settle after a chat. Two people who answered together are one result.
Pick a calm time
Not at the end of a hard day, and not straight after a row about the very thing. Twenty minutes when the children are asleep or out is plenty. If it gets heated, stop and agree a time to come back to it.
Open gently
The first minute tends to set the tone. A long study of newly married couples found that how a hard conversation opened predicted how it went. Start with something you both want for your child, or with a question. "We're far apart on screens. What were you picturing?" lands differently from "You're way too strict."
Sources: Gottman et al., 1998
Start where you are close
The comparison lists where you agree as well as where you differ. Begin there. It is usually more than either of you expected, and it reminds you that you are on the same side.
Read a gap as a difference, not a score
A wide gap means you want different things there, or your days allow different things. It does not mean one of you is further from right. No point has a good end. So "the result says you're too relaxed" is not an argument. The site never says who is right, so do not let it say so for you.
Ask before you explain
For each gap, ask what the other person pictured when they answered. Get specific: what does a Tuesday evening look like? Ask where it comes from. Their own childhood, something they worry about, something they read, what they can manage. Hear the whole answer before you give yours.
One gap at a time
The comparison puts the widest gap first. You do not have to start there. Start with the one that comes up most at home. One gap you settle is worth more than five you argue about.
Decide what has to match
Not every difference needs closing. Some are rules your children run into, like when screens go off or what happens after hitting. Those usually work better with one answer from both of you. Others are style: how you play, how you do bedtime. Your children already live with two different people.
Pick a way to settle it
The comparison shows a midpoint. It is one option, not the answer. Others: one of you leads on this and the other backs them. Agree the rule and let each of you deliver it in your own way. Or try one way for two weeks, then look again together.
Back each other in front of them
If you disagree in the moment, go along with it now and talk later. Undermining each other in front of the children is one of the things the research links to trouble. If they do see you disagree, let them see you sort it out too.
Sources: Feinberg, 2003 · Cummings et al., 1991
Come back to it
Positions move as children grow and weeks change. Take the questions again in a few months. Every attempt is kept with its date, so you can both see what moved.
When to get more help
If every talk turns into the same fight, a family therapist or a course for parents can help. Working together as parents can be learned: in one trial, a short course for expecting couples improved how they backed each other up. And if a disagreement ever leaves either of you afraid of the other, that is not a difference in parenting style. Please talk to a local support service.
Sources: Feinberg & Kan, 2008
See where the two of you stand
Each of you answers on your own. A family puts your results side by side, point by point, and never says who is right. It comes with any report.
What this page draws on
Studies of how parents work together and how children react to disagreement. None of them says which parenting approach is right.
The internal structure and ecological context of coparenting: a framework for research and intervention
Mark E. Feinberg. Parenting: Science and Practice, 3(2), 95–131, 2003. Splits working together as parents into four parts, of which agreeing is only one.
The association between coparenting and child adjustment: a meta-analysis
Daniela Teubert and Martin Pinquart. Parenting: Science and Practice, 10(4), 286–307, 2010. Pools many studies of how parents cooperate, agree, clash and pull children in.
Children's responses to everyday marital conflict tactics in the home
E. Mark Cummings, Marcie C. Goeke-Morey and Lauren M. Papp. Child Development, 74(6), 1918–1929, 2003. Parents kept diaries of ordinary disagreements at home and how their children reacted.
Categories and continua of destructive and constructive marital conflict tactics from the perspective of U.S. and Welsh children
Marcie C. Goeke-Morey, E. Mark Cummings, Gordon T. Harold and Katherine H. Shelton. Journal of Family Psychology, 17(3), 327–338, 2003. Children in two countries sorted ways of disagreeing into the ones that upset them and the ones that did not.
Resolution and children's responses to interadult anger
E. Mark Cummings, Mary Ballard, Mona El-Sheikh and Margaret Lake. Developmental Psychology, 27(3), 462–470, 1991. Children were less distressed by an argument they saw resolved than by one left hanging.
Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interactions
John M. Gottman, James Coan, Sybil Carrere and Catherine Swanson. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(1), 5–22, 1998. How a disagreement opened predicted how it went, and how couples were doing years later.
Intergenerational transmission of warm-sensitive-stimulating parenting: a prospective study of mothers and fathers of 3-year-olds
Jay Belsky, Sara R. Jaffee, Judith Sligo, Lianne Woodward and Phil A. Silva. Child Development, 76(2), 384–396, 2005. Followed people from childhood to parenthood. The link between how they were raised and how they parented showed for mothers, not fathers.
Establishing Family Foundations: intervention effects on coparenting, parent/infant well-being, and parent–child relations
Mark E. Feinberg and Marni L. Kan. Journal of Family Psychology, 22(2), 253–263, 2008. A short course for couples expecting a first child, tested against a control group.