On the Marriage Podcast for Smart People we don’t often talk about parenting. But when it’s impacting your marriage, then it’s our business!

Fighting over kids, or parenting issues is a very common source of marital conflict. It’s common, but it’s also really frustrating and it can be a tough rut to get out of.

A further negative of this fighting situation though, is that disagreements on childrearing can actually have negative effects on your children’s wellbeing. It’s not just a source of conflict between you and your spouse, but it can also put a burden on your children too.

To help you, as parents, align, and to make things easier on your kids, we have a few ideas for you to try that we know will help.

Show a United Front When Parenting

Research has shown that children react to incongruent parenting styles with various emotional and behavioural problems including anxiety, depression, aggression, and rule-breaking.[i]

Results of that study showed that when children perceive a lot of difference between maternal and paternal parenting, it has a negative effect on the child’s emotional and behavioural well-being.

These results display the importance of parents working together in the face of child-rearing disagreements to display a united and congruent front to their children. Kids are way smarter that we all think they are. They’re using their brains way sooner than we think they are, too. Developmentally, babies and toddlers are picking up on parenting differences before they can talk and possibly even before they can walk. A united front is essential with children of all ages.

You’re probably thinking, how can we show a united front when that is precisely the problem: we aren’t united!? Here are some ideas.

Flexible/Inflexible Areas Help Clarify Parenting Priorities

Caleb has used this intervention with many couples (including premarital couples only just thinking about raising kids) and it is a huge help.

It’s an exercise from Dr. Gottman, and we call it flexible/inflexible areas.

Take a blank sheet of paper, and on it draw a circle as large as you can. Inside that, you’ll draw another circle, about the size of the largest coin in your currency.

In the small circle write two words: inflexible area.

In the large circle, write two words: flexible area.

When you are disagreeing with your spouse, ultimately all of the content of your disagreement falls into one of these circles. The flexible area has all the little reasons you give but, at the end of the day, you would be willing to compromise on. The inflexible area is the core, essential thing you are trying to protect. This is something that you cannot and will not budge on.

Before we figure out how to sort things out, let’s look at why most people never get to the bottom of their parenting arguments:

They only talk about the details of the flexible area

They try to make the flexible area – things they would otherwise compromise on – as large as possible so that they can protect the inflexible area

They don’t talk about the inflexible area – the one area that they most need to discuss openly.

Or, they stuff as much of the flexible items into the inflexible area and make it seem so big that they are totally stuck, even on little things – and often come across as unreasonable during a disagreement.

If you want to start working together instead of against each other, you have to bring the absolute core of that inflexible area out into the light and share it with your spouse. That’s you saying something like, “I’m willing to be flexible on all sorts of things, but this is the one thing that I cannot see myself compromising on.” And then tell your spouse why – it’s probably something from your childhood that informs this inflexible area.

Here’s the key! You don’t have to have alignment or agreement on the inflexible areas, you both just have to agree to honour each other’s inflexible areas.

Now,