Strict vs. affectionate parenting

My husband is a pretty strict, no-nonsense parent who isn’t particularly affectionate with the children. I tend to be the nurturer in the family, and my husband says I’m too easy on the kids. Is it unhealthy for parents to differ in this regard?

Not necessarily. In fact, when you think about it, it is probably very difficult to find two parents who fall exactly at the same place on the permissive versus strict continuum. I like to think of these differences as a kind of checks-and-balances system. When Mrs. Wisely and I were raising our daughters, we differed sometimes on how easy versus how tough to be with them.  I think it worked out well. When one of us was being too “loosey-goosey” (to use a precise clinical term) or when one of us was ready to ground a daughter until she was 36 years old, I think we helped each other pull back from the extremes. So, as a general rule, this is not even about whether differences between parents are healthy or unhealthy. It’s just the way things are.

That said, I have seen differences between parents about childrearing become a problem in a couple of different ways. The first has to do with how parents express and then attempt to resolve those differences. When young people see their parents fight about parenting, it can cause trouble for the family. Some children start to blame themselves for their parents’ arguments. Other children will exploit their parents’ differences and try to drive a wider wedge between the parents in hopes of ultimately getting what they want. Ideally, parents ought to confer privately—away from the kids—to hash out a position and then present a united front to the children.   

A second way I’ve seen differences in parenting styles create problems is when the gap between parenting styles is excessively wide. Ironically, when parents are too far away from each other on the permissive-strict continuum, I think that often forces each parent even further out on the continuum and therefore further apart. It is as if the strict parent thinks, “My spouse is too easy on these kids, and I have to be tougher to make up for it.”  The more lenient parent then thinks, “My spouse is too hard on these kids, and I have to be easier on them to make up for it.”  The result is ever-widening differences, instead of the checks-and-balances system I described earlier.

I don’t mean to oversell professional help, and, in fact, I think parents are typically able to work out the usual differences that couples have on their own. But when these differences are causing significant tension in the marriage and in the family, it might be worthwhile to seek professional guidance.

Dale Wisely, Ph.D. is Director of Student Services at Mountain Brook Schools and has been a child and adolescent psychologist for nearly 30 years. Dr. Wisely welcomes your questions for future columns; email jennifer@villagelivingonline.com to submit yours.