My oldest, had a curious way of never alienating himself from both his father and me at the same time. As a scientist it fascinated me and as a mother it made me laugh. I used to say he always wanted to make sure someone would be there to feed him. As conflict cropped up in the family, I found this to be the same in my other children as well. Almost naturally, my husband and I would divide and conquer when it came to discipline - one of us would take the lead, and the other would follow up more gently.
Until one night this week when everything fell apart.
The details of the situation are less important than the lesson I learned. We both found ourselves frustrated with one of our children and decided that the drive home was the best-time to address the situation with the child. After carefully discussing that we wanted be careful not to "crush her spirit", yes those were my exact words, we inadvertently proceeded to do just that.
The good cop bad cop way of dealing with discipline we had carefully crafted over 19 years of parenting went out the car window. Rather than letting her hear from one parent, we took turns piling it all on. Our good cop bad cop routine fell apart.
This conversation will go down as one of our greatest parenting fails.
Good cop bad cop work because one parent is able to give the child the clear message for improvement, while the other gives the message of unconditional love. We love you irrespective of the problem, we care for you. It lets the parents be aligned with a shared goal of helping the child fix the discipline issue at hand, without teaming up on the child. As I said recently in my podcast episode on Motherhood, you and your spouse don't need to be clones of one another, you need to compliment one another.
So what do we do when we have one of these parenting fails? You apologize. Ask for forgiveness for being unkind, or impatient, or for your lack of prudence. Show humility and love. Begin to build back that relationship stronger. And next time you have to deal with discipline discuss who gets to be the good cop or bad cop before you head into the discussion.
God Bless you in your endeavors!
