You tell your son, “No more cookies,” and find him in the kitchen ten minutes later polishing a sleeve of Oreos. You’re mocking. And through a chocolate smile, he spits out, “What? Daddy told me he was fine.”
You’ve fallen into one of the classic parenting traps. The children have learned: when one parent says something she doesn’t like, ask the other parent.
This is a great source of conflict for the parents, but the problem is that while the parents are fighting, the child knows that they have divided and won.
Parents often fight over cookies and parenting styles rather than the actual issue. The real problem is that they are not communicating very well and if they want to fight about something, that would be a better choice. Another thing they aren’t talking about that they might want is that the child playing the “parent trap” wants more control over her own life.
This type of parental cheating can occur in the best families, but it occurs less often in families where parents communicate regularly. When you have developed a standard, you already know the answer before they ask.
Take curfew. If you and your spouse have decided that the curfew is 11 o’clock, Junior will get the same answer from both of you. He can try to play divide and conquer, but he won’t get it very far.
In our home, we have the standard that if one parent tells you something, that’s the response from both parents. If you ask the other parent in an effort to get a different answer, there will be penalties. Usually when our kids do this to us, we don’t feel like taking them to the movies, and to regain our confidence, they need to help clean the house.
Also, if this happens, instead of getting into the same tired discussion with your spouse (you know the subject, about how he’s so permissive and you’re too hard on the kids), reassure each other that you’re both doing a great job of parenting, but that you need to talk more often. After a kid has set you up, he might be able to use her allowance to hire a babysitter so you can go out to dinner and have time to set some standards.
From the children’s perspective, they may be doing this because they want more control over their lives, and the solution to this is to offer them more choice. While you may not be able to do this for every issue, both parent and child can sit down together to set bigger standards, like curfew or driving for older kids and how many cookies are allowed and how long naps will be for younger kids. Give younger children two options: would you rather have two cookies or three cookies (you already know the answer to that one). With older children have a conversation and come to a compromise.
Even something as frustrating as parent cheating can become a great communication lesson that will help you get along much better in your adult relationships later on.