Parents getting in sync about children will be a win for all

Dear Carolyn: My husband and I don’t see eye to eye on discipline. Our children are good kids, but they don’t treat us with the respect I think we ought to have.

When I announce that dinner is ready — the kids do not help at all — my husband is not bothered that our daughter does not come to the table until after we are finished eating.

When I want to access the parent/student portal to find out our daughter’s grades, my husband defends the daughter’s right to not tell me.

In my view, our daughter spends too much time volunteering — and earning leadership positions — while neglecting her homework, and she got lower grades than she should have.

My husband always seems to take my daughter’s side — even though she has almost failed some classes. She actually did well on tests, but didn’t do the required homework. That’s the only reason she has low grades.

I don’t know how to motivate her, but I feel my husband just wants to thwart me.

You open with respect, so I’ll start there.

On the surface, your kids’ blowing off dinner or chores appears to be disrespectful, yes — but if your husband has different rules for them than you do, and if his rules say dinner and chores are optional, then technically your kids are respecting the rules. Just his, not yours.

So that’s a marital issue more than a discipline one.

Your daughter’s grades might seem like a motivation issue, given her indifference to homework, but the child you describe is highly motivated — to help and to lead. Useful, no? You just think grades come first.

Problem is, you and your husband seem to be on different sides. So, again, a marital issue.

The grade-portal issue could be its own column on the line between supervision and hovering. But dwarfing the particulars of that debate is the fact that you and your husband are apparently on different sides of it, too.

You will not get in sync, though, by treating all of your “ought-tos” as the high road they’ve all forced you to travel alone. Your kids are only doing what you and your husband trained them to do, which is to navigate two sets of rules. They’re doing so to their advantage because that’s just how humans roll.

The high road in a two-parent home is a consistent and cooperative effort to raise functional kids, reflecting a balance of their parents’ priorities — and, therefore, probably not exactly reflecting what either one of the parents might prefer in its purest state.

To get more in sync with your family, start with you: Figure out your own priorities. You may know this by its street name, “picking your battles.”