How estranged parents can work together across different parenting styles


  • Family
  • Monday, 30 Jun 2025

Parents can incorporate a game or a challenge with rewards that offer incentives for children to be consistent in completing homework or chores. — Onyxprj/Dreamstime/TNS

MY children’s father and I parent differently. He’s laid back, I like a schedule. He likes to eat in front of the TV, I make the kids eat at the table. He hired a helper to clean the house, I am trying to teach the kids responsibility, so they have age-appropriate chores. Our children are 11, nine, and six. They are gravitating to dad’s house and I’m desperate to know what to do. I don’t know how to impress upon their father that he’s not helping them by not teaching them responsibility, but he just laughs and says they’re kids. What’s good ex-etiquette?

Unfortunately, you may have had this sort of disagreement even if you still lived with their dad. Parents often disagree, or they agree in theory, but one may be more consistent than the other.

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