Parenting Tips To Help You Have A Healthy Couple-Center Family
Parenting Tips From Your Child’s Birth
Nothing in our life quite compares to the surreal feelings of amazement, overwhelming love, and responsibility that enter our lives the moment we become a parent for the first time. From the moment those tiny infants enter our world, we know life will never be the same. And it isn’t. For the first several months, they demand and consume our time and attention. This is as it should be.
But as they grow and move through the various stages of life, we must realize that parenting cannot demand and consume our time and attention the same as when they were infants. Our children need us to have healthy, thriving, growing, and transforming marriages with our husbands.
However, it is not uncommon for our children to impose their desires in between their parents. If we don’t intentionally manage this, we will create an unhealthy child-centered family rather than a healthy couple centered family. And as far as I can see, families focused on the child’s desires, never turns out best for the children or their parents.
Our Husbands
Loving and respecting our husbands teaches our children healthy love and how to show honor. However, one of the hardest things to do as a mom is to remain on the same page with our husband in normal parenting situations. In case you haven’t noticed, men and women see things differently. God wired us, as women and moms to be different from men and dads. But both bring balance into the relationships in our families.
Being the mom of three daughters, I assure you they wanted life to revolve around them and each did their best to position themselves at the helm of our family. Had my husband and I not decided early on to keep our marriage at the center of our family, our precious daughters would have ruled and possibly divided our home.
This makes me think of the biblical story of Rebekah and Isaac with their two sons, Esau and Jacob in Genesis 27.
Rebekah elevated and sided with their son, Jacob. And Isaac showed partiality to Esau. A love at first sight romance story became a very unhealthy marriage and produced a family situation fraught with division. Since this blog post is specifically written for women, let’s look at how Rebekah elevated her relationship with her son, Jacob over her relationship with her husband, Isaac.
Painful Secret Deception
Rebekah secretly went against her husband’s desires. She listened to Isaac instruct Esau in preparation for the firstborn blessing. Then she instructed Jacob to follow Isaac’s instructions so that he might intercept the blessing. (Genesis 27:10) In doing this, she deceived her husband and took the curse of Jacob’s deception upon herself.
Rebekah instructed Jacob to obey her words in her plan to deceive her husband. (Genesis 27:13) She prepared the food Isaac asked Esau to bring him. Then she disguised Jacob to trick her nearly blind husband. (Genesis 27:17) In doing this, two very damaging things happened in her family. A mother taught her son to be a deceiver. And a wife and mom elevated her relationship with her son over her relationship with her husband.
A wife’s secret deception of her husband is never healthy for the marriage, the family, or her children.
While the ruse worked, each person in that family were hurt. Jacob took the firstborn’s blessing from Esau. Isaac was greatly distressed and obviously this stressed and strained their marriage. Esau hated his brother Jacob so much he wanted to kill him and later rebelled against the desires of his parents marrying wives against their will. (Genesis 27:41; 28:8) Rebekah had to send Jacob away for fear of his life. (Genesis 27:42-45)
Had Rebekah and Isaac had a couple centered family rather than a child centered family, they may have avoided a lot of pain and heartache. If we could talk to Rebekah, I bet her best parenting tips would include, “Don’t deceive your husband.”
A couple-center family is a healthy family and develops healthy children. Desiring the best for our children is normal, but letting them consume our family is not. They need their moms to love and respect their husbands and to work to strengthen that marriage relationship. Why? Because a stable secure marriage creates stable secure children.
Children are a great blessing but so is the gift of marriage. One day our children will grow up and leave home to establish their own life. We need to consider how our actions as a mom and wife affect both their future and our future.
Will we have a strong relationship with our husband left for our future when they leave? If we work today on creating a couple-centered family, our marriage will grow richer and our children will thank us.
A Word From My Daughter, Taylor Draughn, LPC, LMFT:
A researcher named Shirley Glass maintains, if you love your children then the best thing you can do for them is give them a happy marriage for them to be raised in. She identified children’s awareness of divorce especially because of their peers’ parents getting divorced. Glass stated that children seeing their parents “sharing affection and a private life” is very comforting because it reassures them their parents will not get a divorce.
Parenting Tips From Taylor To Help You Create A Couple Centered Family
1) Spend time together without your children. This time can occur at home, but it is also necessary to have time outside of the house with one another. Plan a date night. Schedule it on your calendar and schedule a babysitter for that time.
2) Build boundaries in your home. Show your children how you value “mommy and daddy time”. I encourage you to close your door. If your children aren’t accustomed to this, sit down and tell them mom and dad need time alone, and they have to respect that when the door is closed.
3) Teach your children if they do need you, to knock before entering your room. This further clarifies your room as a sanctuary for you and your husband.
4) Show affection to your husband in front of your children. I used to absolutely hate when my parents would kiss in front of me, but what I realized is that I never had to wonder if my parents were going to get a divorce because I saw them show one another how much they loved one another. Your children might say that it is gross now, but they do and will appreciate it.
Pat’s Encouragement to Mom’s and Wives
Do the best you can to have a progressively healthy relationship with your husband. Your kids heavily influence you and if you allow it, they will rule your home, marriage, and person. Always strive to work through parenting issues between you and your husband behind closed doors. Letting our children see us disagree in how to parent gives them an open door to position us against one another. And as sweet as our kiddos can be, they can also be quite manipulative if given the chance.
All that I am speaking of is related to normal parenting situations. We can’t allow any place for abuse, and if we were to ever face that, we must reach out for help.
Appreciate Your Husband’s Attributes
Responsibilities of life can get in our way of always seeing the good aspects of our husband’s character. Usually it takes intentionality to remember to honor him. I recommend keeping a husband gratitude list where you write down all the reasons you value your husband. Tuck that list in your Bible. And every morning when you spend time with Jesus, thank God for one of those attributes, ask God to bless your husband and help you to honor him as well. Make sure you tell your husband how much you appreciate him. He needs to hear that!