Helping parents manage rules across two homes

A major challenge faced by parents is the task of setting basic ground rules and expectations for their children, and then enforcing these with limits, rewards, and consequences. This task is made far more difficult when parents are separated or divorced. Agreeing upon and enforcing rules in separate homes often becomes burdened by the angry baggage that led to the divorce. When a family in your practice is going through a divorce, you have an opportunity to provide the parents with valuable strategies to manage rules effectively so that conflict is minimized.

Many happily married parents who communicate very well on most matters struggle to get on the same page when negotiating rules and limits. One parent’s sense of what is an appropriate bedtime, how children should help with chores, or even how often they can have sweets can become a deeply held belief and might be very different than their spouse’s opinions. Sometimes, a parent has old anger about how they were raised and finds it hard to distinguish what might have been better for them, compared with what is best for their own child. Cultural and family differences on how much choice children should have at different ages, criteria and severity of any consequences for misbehavior, and opportunities for redemption or amnesty all add complexity to the discussion. Once they have found common ground on what makes sense for their joint rules, values, and needs of their child, they have to manage enforcing rules and limits, agreeing upon appropriate rewards and punishments, and bearing the inevitable distress of their children when facing a limit or consequence. And, of course, once parents think they have it all figured out, their children react and grow, and they must reset the rules, expectations, and consequences.

When parents get separated or divorced, this process becomes considerably more difficult. Negotiating new rules or limits is very difficult when communication is hampered by conflict. Parental guilt about the divorce itself, anger at old hurts or disputes about money and custody, missing the child between visits, and remarriages all add baggage to the discussion of a reasonable bedtime or consequences for a poor grade at school. If the divorce required aggressive negotiation between lawyers, appointment of a guardian ad Litem to manage ongoing disputes involving the children, or a court case to reach resolution, the tensions between parents can be intense, enduring, and with no issue too small to add fuel to the arguments. Enforcing limits is much harder for a single parent than when there are two parents doing the enforcement. And divorced parents, already feeling guilty and insecure, are more likely to suspend rules or limits so that they don’t have to be the “bad parent.” For the child or children, the stress and disruptions that come with divorce can cause an increase in regressed or disrespectful behavior. While it can be a time when limits are increasingly tested, being reasonable and consistent in enforcing limits becomes more important, as it provides reassuring steadiness in the midst of turbulent change.

Let’s take the example of a 12-year-old coming home from school with poor grades. One parent may see the need for a tutor, but might be using that approach as part of a financial attack if the other parent has to pay for it. The other parent may want to limit the use of computer games or access to television until the grades go up. And one may expect movement from a D to a C average while the other may expect A’s, period. Is the poor grade based on lack of ability, effort, an attempt to get attention, a reaction to the divorce, or preoccupation with ongoing parental discord? What is the impact on the child if in one home there is a tutor and a C expectation, and in the other there is no tutor, no computer use, no TV... and these change every time the child moves from one home to the other? A child striving to overcome a poor grade needs calm, consistent, patient, and optimistic support, rather than managing the increased tension across two homes or feeling like the cause of increased conflict. Virtually any reasonable approach is better for the child than each parent doing something different as a reflection of ongoing tension. Pediatricians can be extraordinarily helpful to their patient if they can get divorced parents to agree on a single approach that is based on their child’s needs rather than past and ongoing angers. The emotional damage of ongoing discord is far worse than any C average.

As the pediatrician to a family managing divorce, you may be one of the few authority figures whom both parents and the children all still respect and trust. You are in a strong position to ask a parent during an appointment how rules and limits are being managed across two homes. Find out if they have a clear plan for handling routine communication about the children, whether about summer camps or a new curfew, so that they don’t default to communicating only once there is a crisis. See if rules are a vehicle for ongoing parental fighting so that a minor difference (an 8 o’clock bedtime in one house versus 9 o’clock in the other) carries a high emotional charge. Find out if there are certain rules that have become very hard to enforce, or if their child has been testing limits more. Ask if there has been a consequence enforced in one home, but not in another. Often simply providing a calm affirmation that increased limit testing is normal in children after a divorce is very reassuring for parents. Remind them that providing reasonably consistent rules and limits will be very helpful to their children during this period, the opposite of making them a “bad parent.”

Some divorced parents will become more rigid about rules, managing any infraction or extenuating circumstance more like a contract negotiation. These parents might benefit from a suggestion that consistency and simplicity are the keys to effective rules across two households. Rules also provide an opportunity to listen to their children’s thoughts and feelings and share the family’s values that are the basis for the rules. Parents should be curious about their children’s opinions and be ready to show thoughtful flexibility when rules become outdated or special circumstances exist.

You can suggest a rule the parents should follow. While they can talk honestly about what each parent may struggle with or acknowledge clear differences in style or personality, they should strive to never vilify the other parent. Even in circumstances in which it is very difficult for two parents to collaborate, sharing grievances with the children will only be painful and confusing for them.

Lastly, pediatricians can discuss the long-term goals that all parents, even those alienated from each other, share. Children will do best when they have a positive, honest, warm relationship with each parent, and do not carry responsibility for negotiating conflict between their parents. Ultimately, more autonomy and fewer rules will be an important part of the child’s adolescence. Discord between parents, sabotaging of rules and consequences, and explicit contempt for their children’s other parent all will lead to children feeling burdened, having lower self-esteem, and being at greater risk for serious problems in school, emotionally or with substances as they grow into adolescents and young adults. If you are frustrated in your effort to protect children from ongoing discord, suggest a referral to a mental health clinician with expertise helping parents after a divorce.

Dr. Swick is an attending psychiatrist in the division of child psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and director of the Parenting at a Challenging Time (PACT) Program at the Vernon Cancer Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital, also in Boston. Dr. Jellinek is professor of psychiatry and of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Boston. E-mail them at [email protected].

A major challenge faced by parents is the task of setting basic ground rules and expectations for their children, and then enforcing these with limits, rewards, and consequences. This task is made far more difficult when parents are separated or divorced. Agreeing upon and enforcing rules in separate homes often becomes burdened by the angry baggage that led to the divorce. When a family in your practice is going through a divorce, you have an opportunity to provide the parents with valuable strategies to manage rules effectively so that conflict is minimized.

Many happily married parents who communicate very well on most matters struggle to get on the same page when negotiating rules and limits. One parent’s sense of what is an appropriate bedtime, how children should help with chores, or even how often they can have sweets can become a deeply held belief and might be very different than their spouse’s opinions. Sometimes, a parent has old anger about how they were raised and finds it hard to distinguish what might have been better for them, compared with what is best for their own child. Cultural and family differences on how much choice children should have at different ages, criteria and severity of any consequences for misbehavior, and opportunities for redemption or amnesty all add complexity to the discussion. Once they have found common ground on what makes sense for their joint rules, values, and needs of their child, they have to manage enforcing rules and limits, agreeing upon appropriate rewards and punishments, and bearing the inevitable distress of their children when facing a limit or consequence. And, of course, once parents think they have it all figured out, their children react and grow, and they must reset the rules, expectations, and consequences.

When parents get separated or divorced, this process becomes considerably more difficult. Negotiating new rules or limits is very difficult when communication is hampered by conflict. Parental guilt about the divorce itself, anger at old hurts or disputes about money and custody, missing the child between visits, and remarriages all add baggage to the discussion of a reasonable bedtime or consequences for a poor grade at school. If the divorce required aggressive negotiation between lawyers, appointment of a guardian ad Litem to manage ongoing disputes involving the children, or a court case to reach resolution, the tensions between parents can be intense, enduring, and with no issue too small to add fuel to the arguments. Enforcing limits is much harder for a single parent than when there are two parents doing the enforcement. And divorced parents, already feeling guilty and insecure, are more likely to suspend rules or limits so that they don’t have to be the “bad parent.” For the child or children, the stress and disruptions that come with divorce can cause an increase in regressed or disrespectful behavior. While it can be a time when limits are increasingly tested, being reasonable and consistent in enforcing limits becomes more important, as it provides reassuring steadiness in the midst of turbulent change.

Let’s take the example of a 12-year-old coming home from school with poor grades. One parent may see the need for a tutor, but might be using that approach as part of a financial attack if the other parent has to pay for it. The other parent may want to limit the use of computer games or access to television until the grades go up. And one may expect movement from a D to a C average while the other may expect A’s, period. Is the poor grade based on lack of ability, effort, an attempt to get attention, a reaction to the divorce, or preoccupation with ongoing parental discord? What is the impact on the child if in one home there is a tutor and a C expectation, and in the other there is no tutor, no computer use, no TV... and these change every time the child moves from one home to the other? A child striving to overcome a poor grade needs calm, consistent, patient, and optimistic support, rather than managing the increased tension across two homes or feeling like the cause of increased conflict. Virtually any reasonable approach is better for the child than each parent doing something different as a reflection of ongoing tension. Pediatricians can be extraordinarily helpful to their patient if they can get divorced parents to agree on a single approach that is based on their child’s needs rather than past and ongoing angers. The emotional damage of ongoing discord is far worse than any C average.

As the pediatrician to a family managing divorce, you may be one of the few authority figures whom both parents and the children all still respect and trust. You are in a strong position to ask a parent during an appointment how rules and limits are being managed across two homes. Find out if they have a clear plan for handling routine communication about the children, whether about summer camps or a new curfew, so that they don’t default to communicating only once there is a crisis. See if rules are a vehicle for ongoing parental fighting so that a minor difference (an 8 o’clock bedtime in one house versus 9 o’clock in the other) carries a high emotional charge. Find out if there are certain rules that have become very hard to enforce, or if their child has been testing limits more. Ask if there has been a consequence enforced in one home, but not in another. Often simply providing a calm affirmation that increased limit testing is normal in children after a divorce is very reassuring for parents. Remind them that providing reasonably consistent rules and limits will be very helpful to their children during this period, the opposite of making them a “bad parent.”

Some divorced parents will become more rigid about rules, managing any infraction or extenuating circumstance more like a contract negotiation. These parents might benefit from a suggestion that consistency and simplicity are the keys to effective rules across two households. Rules also provide an opportunity to listen to their children’s thoughts and feelings and share the family’s values that are the basis for the rules. Parents should be curious about their children’s opinions and be ready to show thoughtful flexibility when rules become outdated or special circumstances exist.

You can suggest a rule the parents should follow. While they can talk honestly about what each parent may struggle with or acknowledge clear differences in style or personality, they should strive to never vilify the other parent. Even in circumstances in which it is very difficult for two parents to collaborate, sharing grievances with the children will only be painful and confusing for them.

Lastly, pediatricians can discuss the long-term goals that all parents, even those alienated from each other, share. Children will do best when they have a positive, honest, warm relationship with each parent, and do not carry responsibility for negotiating conflict between their parents. Ultimately, more autonomy and fewer rules will be an important part of the child’s adolescence. Discord between parents, sabotaging of rules and consequences, and explicit contempt for their children’s other parent all will lead to children feeling burdened, having lower self-esteem, and being at greater risk for serious problems in school, emotionally or with substances as they grow into adolescents and young adults. If you are frustrated in your effort to protect children from ongoing discord, suggest a referral to a mental health clinician with expertise helping parents after a divorce.

Dr. Swick is an attending psychiatrist in the division of child psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and director of the Parenting at a Challenging Time (PACT) Program at the Vernon Cancer Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital, also in Boston. Dr. Jellinek is professor of psychiatry and of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Boston. E-mail them at [email protected].

A major challenge faced by parents is the task of setting basic ground rules and expectations for their children, and then enforcing these with limits, rewards, and consequences. This task is made far more difficult when parents are separated or divorced. Agreeing upon and enforcing rules in separate homes often becomes burdened by the angry baggage that led to the divorce. When a family in your practice is going through a divorce, you have an opportunity to provide the parents with valuable strategies to manage rules effectively so that conflict is minimized.

Many happily married parents who communicate very well on most matters struggle to get on the same page when negotiating rules and limits. One parent’s sense of what is an appropriate bedtime, how children should help with chores, or even how often they can have sweets can become a deeply held belief and might be very different than their spouse’s opinions. Sometimes, a parent has old anger about how they were raised and finds it hard to distinguish what might have been better for them, compared with what is best for their own child. Cultural and family differences on how much choice children should have at different ages, criteria and severity of any consequences for misbehavior, and opportunities for redemption or amnesty all add complexity to the discussion. Once they have found common ground on what makes sense for their joint rules, values, and needs of their child, they have to manage enforcing rules and limits, agreeing upon appropriate rewards and punishments, and bearing the inevitable distress of their children when facing a limit or consequence. And, of course, once parents think they have it all figured out, their children react and grow, and they must reset the rules, expectations, and consequences.

When parents get separated or divorced, this process becomes considerably more difficult. Negotiating new rules or limits is very difficult when communication is hampered by conflict. Parental guilt about the divorce itself, anger at old hurts or disputes about money and custody, missing the child between visits, and remarriages all add baggage to the discussion of a reasonable bedtime or consequences for a poor grade at school. If the divorce required aggressive negotiation between lawyers, appointment of a guardian ad Litem to manage ongoing disputes involving the children, or a court case to reach resolution, the tensions between parents can be intense, enduring, and with no issue too small to add fuel to the arguments. Enforcing limits is much harder for a single parent than when there are two parents doing the enforcement. And divorced parents, already feeling guilty and insecure, are more likely to suspend rules or limits so that they don’t have to be the “bad parent.” For the child or children, the stress and disruptions that come with divorce can cause an increase in regressed or disrespectful behavior. While it can be a time when limits are increasingly tested, being reasonable and consistent in enforcing limits becomes more important, as it provides reassuring steadiness in the midst of turbulent change.

Let’s take the example of a 12-year-old coming home from school with poor grades. One parent may see the need for a tutor, but might be using that approach as part of a financial attack if the other parent has to pay for it. The other parent may want to limit the use of computer games or access to television until the grades go up. And one may expect movement from a D to a C average while the other may expect A’s, period. Is the poor grade based on lack of ability, effort, an attempt to get attention, a reaction to the divorce, or preoccupation with ongoing parental discord? What is the impact on the child if in one home there is a tutor and a C expectation, and in the other there is no tutor, no computer use, no TV... and these change every time the child moves from one home to the other? A child striving to overcome a poor grade needs calm, consistent, patient, and optimistic support, rather than managing the increased tension across two homes or feeling like the cause of increased conflict. Virtually any reasonable approach is better for the child than each parent doing something different as a reflection of ongoing tension. Pediatricians can be extraordinarily helpful to their patient if they can get divorced parents to agree on a single approach that is based on their child’s needs rather than past and ongoing angers. The emotional damage of ongoing discord is far worse than any C average.

As the pediatrician to a family managing divorce, you may be one of the few authority figures whom both parents and the children all still respect and trust. You are in a strong position to ask a parent during an appointment how rules and limits are being managed across two homes. Find out if they have a clear plan for handling routine communication about the children, whether about summer camps or a new curfew, so that they don’t default to communicating only once there is a crisis. See if rules are a vehicle for ongoing parental fighting so that a minor difference (an 8 o’clock bedtime in one house versus 9 o’clock in the other) carries a high emotional charge. Find out if there are certain rules that have become very hard to enforce, or if their child has been testing limits more. Ask if there has been a consequence enforced in one home, but not in another. Often simply providing a calm affirmation that increased limit testing is normal in children after a divorce is very reassuring for parents. Remind them that providing reasonably consistent rules and limits will be very helpful to their children during this period, the opposite of making them a “bad parent.”

Some divorced parents will become more rigid about rules, managing any infraction or extenuating circumstance more like a contract negotiation. These parents might benefit from a suggestion that consistency and simplicity are the keys to effective rules across two households. Rules also provide an opportunity to listen to their children’s thoughts and feelings and share the family’s values that are the basis for the rules. Parents should be curious about their children’s opinions and be ready to show thoughtful flexibility when rules become outdated or special circumstances exist.

You can suggest a rule the parents should follow. While they can talk honestly about what each parent may struggle with or acknowledge clear differences in style or personality, they should strive to never vilify the other parent. Even in circumstances in which it is very difficult for two parents to collaborate, sharing grievances with the children will only be painful and confusing for them.

Lastly, pediatricians can discuss the long-term goals that all parents, even those alienated from each other, share. Children will do best when they have a positive, honest, warm relationship with each parent, and do not carry responsibility for negotiating conflict between their parents. Ultimately, more autonomy and fewer rules will be an important part of the child’s adolescence. Discord between parents, sabotaging of rules and consequences, and explicit contempt for their children’s other parent all will lead to children feeling burdened, having lower self-esteem, and being at greater risk for serious problems in school, emotionally or with substances as they grow into adolescents and young adults. If you are frustrated in your effort to protect children from ongoing discord, suggest a referral to a mental health clinician with expertise helping parents after a divorce.

Dr. Swick is an attending psychiatrist in the division of child psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and director of the Parenting at a Challenging Time (PACT) Program at the Vernon Cancer Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital, also in Boston. Dr. Jellinek is professor of psychiatry and of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Boston. E-mail them at [email protected].