[Solved] My child likes to play games between mom and dad

Hi Blake, I have the same, the missus goes to work before the kids get up, so its me that goes through the morning rush of getting them up, washing dressing feeding andd getting them to school, I work from home, so also do school pick ups, get them home, changed, homework started, a get the evening meals started, wife comes home at 6.30, plays happy mummy with them for 2 hours and then its usually me who goes through the "its bed time" arguments. we have 2 kids aged 9&11

For a while all it ever seemed was that i was arguing with the kids non stop and was the "bad" parent, and she was the good one who spent the quiet couple of hours with them in the evening when they were usually entertaining themselves anyway..

It took me awhile to find ways to remove the chasing and arguing with the kids from the daily routine, and most of it came from just sitting back and accepting how the kids are and when to push back at them and when not to. A lot has come down to showing an interest in every thing the kids need to get done. Homework is always a joint venture and i sit with them at the table and talk through the home work with them, i never do it for them, but give advice and listen, getting them up now becomes about breakfast, and the wake up is when i take their breakfast order, so i wake them up have a chat about what they want and then leave them there whilst i knock breakfast up,and a quick call to say breakfast is ready is then usually enough to get them down.

Showers/baths are still a daily debate, but i alternate the routines and usually reward with things like extra time on the xbox, or a kids movie time etc. and bed time is all about communication, i give them a bed in 1 hour alert, a 30 min alert and check what they are upto to make sure what ever it is can be completed in time, a 5 min warning which includes tidy up time, then up to bed where we usually have an end of day chat.

It took a long time to work out how to manage the things they pushed back on and remove the arguments, and its not perfect and it does eat into what used to be "my time" but this is now "us time" and things move along a lot easier for us. Defining boundaries for behaviour is still very important, but so is excepting that we are allindividuals and we all have good/bad days and accept that there will still be push back.

The missus and i are now divorcing and the "us time" i have with the kids has become very important to them...and me. With me now in the primary carer role for the kids its important to me to keep the "conflict" in the house down, and to show the kids stability.

I often here the old line of "they will remember and appreciate what you did for them when they are older", I'm not to sure about this, but working to find ways to avoid the conflict in the daily routine with them is definitely making my life easier now and yes it was hard work for me at first, but as it becomes routine to me, so i dont now notice the extra effort i had to put in at the start.

It might be worth trying a reward chart - a chart with the days of the week marked out, and each week there is a certain task that must be completed for them to get a star on that day. If they get more than, say 5 stars for the week (agreed in advance), they get a treat that has been agreed beforehand. If they misbehave in some other aspect, that doesn't matter - as long as they complete the agreed task, they get a star, and you never take a star away once it's on the chart. Once that is sorted, then move onto another aspect of behaviour and start again.

They may miss the target the first week, but if you stick to your guns (so no "well you nearly made it, you can have the treat"), it's unlikely they'll miss it the second week.