How Divorce Changes Discipline

In a dual-parent home, mother and father, out of their separate backgrounds and traditions, create common rules and values both agree upon and are willing to support. Part of the process that partners go through when they have a child is marrying as parents, coming to compromises over how they agree to discipline the child, and divide up parental roles.

The first responsibility of a single parent is to put up a system of discipline firmly in place into which children can safely and securely fit. Children need to know what is expected of them, confident that the resident parent has what authority it takes to be in charge.

Come divorce, the focus and administration of discipline become redefined, challenging the single parent's role in several ways.

Instead of two parents articulating and enforcing family rules and values with their authority, now there is only one. If, in the old family unit, the single parent was the secondary or backing authority to a more commanding parent, now the single parent must learn to be more assertive and influential.

The longer parents are divorced, the more their lifestyle differences create a contrast in discipline between the homes. "When we're at the other house, we don't have to do this!" The children's complaint is correct. Divorce creates two codes of family discipline for them to live by, resulting in difference that increase when parents remarry and the influence of stepparents changes discipline even more.

Inconsistency of Rules and Values
So, what is the single parent to do when rules and values in his or her home are not observed in the home of the ex-spouse?

First, understand that freedom to live apart increases diversity of family functioning between ex-partners, diversity that requires mutual tolerance if both, for the sake of the children, are going to get along. These lifestyle differences, and the differences in discipline that result, unless clearly harmful to children, need to be respected, not contested.

Where is Parental Consistency between Households helpful?
Where regular regimens or medication are required for educational growth or effective treatment, or where similar expectations are needed to encourage appropriate behaviour in both homes, consistency of discipline between households can be essential, and parents need to discuss to what degree this can be practically accomplished. 


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