What do you do when you and your other half have opposing views?

[LuluHB]

What do you do when you disagree on an important issue (in this instance, ongoing medication for a child) that you both feel so strongly about? I doubt my DH will change his mind and agree with me, and likewise there's not a snowball's chance I will soften in my view.

I'm interested to know if there is always one of you that "wins", or if you battle out each issue as it comes along

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

DH and I have differing views on parenting often. What we do is back each other up at the time, and discuss it when Liebling is in bed. We usually have Liebling's best interests in our hearts, so we discuss how our parenting skills and views are helping Liebling, and what we could do to help him more. This can be expectations, punishments, rewards, food and eating... pretty much everything! With medication, we ask what would happen if Liebling did not have his ongoing medication. He would suffer. So we give him medication every night. And don't let him drive any heavy vehicles after that.

FWIW, I'm wrong sometimes too. We don't always compromise and that's OK, but we ask "why is this an issue for me and how can we not make it an issue for Liebling?"

[Sorka]

We have had this come up a few times. Both with starting medications and then with continuing them. Try to look at it from the child's perspective. What makes it easier for them to be happy/healthy. We actually both did a lot of research together about it too. Online, journal articles, books at the library. By finding out more information about it together we realized we were pretty close to being on the same page anyway. Just have us more knowledge to help make the decision and because we both were researching it we discussed it as we went. Good luck making the decision. Hope you reach some common ground soon.

[LuluHB]

I guess that's our issue though Sorka - we are both looking at it from the child's POV but that's where we disagree. I think she will be much better medicated and she will be significantly happier and more settled. He thinks that it is better for her both in the medium and long term to learn to deal with life without meds. We've researched the particular medication in the past and its as safe as you can get with next to no side effects.

I hope you don't let him operate chainsaws either after meds TFB ;-)

I struggle with my own concerns that my baby is medicated, especially when I am interrogated by each and every bloody pharmacist that fills a new script, so it makes it so hard when I have to battle DH's negativity too.

[LizLemon]

That is a hard one. My only suggestion would be to find a professional (be it paed or other appropriate) who you can both agree that you both trust and be guided by their opinion. It may be easier to agree on the person than the issue, if that makes sense

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Why, exactly, does your child have to live without meds? I don't understand that. I've been on long-term meds before and would still be on them if I needed them. Sometimes you medicate yourself better. Does your DH ever take medication? Wouldn't he be better off without it? Give that a try next time he picks up the self-medicating beer after a hard day.

What if it were something like diabetes? Would he be saying "nah, cut the insulin, learn to live without it" then? I don't understand not taking medication when you need it.

And yes, I hear you on being quizzed by pharmacists for buying the medication you need. I view it as they are checking I know what I am giving my child, am not over-medicating and my child will not have a reaction to it. Which is more than the prescribing doctor did (in fact, the doc prescribed twice the allowed dose and didn't mention anything about side-effects). If anything went wrong, you could blame them. Litigatous culture means we get the "bad mother" vibe when we buy medication.

[Sorka]

It's hard with little ones, but I have been told the same TFB, if it were diabetes would you medicate, etc. I understand your husband not wanting her to be on medication and learning to deal with it but perhaps she needs the medication first to be able to learn how to cope when/if she comes off it? My son has been on AD's since the age of 6 because he was simple too young to be able to learn the CBT strategies to overcome his anxieties. We hope that with increasing age will come the ability to learn new ways to deal with things. Perhaps you could offer that as a possibility. Might at least give you an opportunity to start the medication and when he sees the positives that come from it he may change his mind ?

[misty]

Hard one. I'm not sure how you would resolve it if you are 'both' extremely passionate about your beliefs. I think the idea of third party mediation is a good one.

[misty]

I will add that I don't think us adding argument or agreeing / disagreeing one way or the other would help either. Because our opinions don't matter.

In my life I an extremely avoid serious drugs for MY kids until absolutely unavoidable. I have my reasons; luckily, although my hubby doesn't feel the same, he understands and is accepting of my approach. If he were to be completely polar and adamant in his views, it would be hard. I don't think it would matter how much you 'explained' or how many 'outsiders' agree with you. I know that wouldn't change my mind. Because you need to find a compromise both of you are not totally unhappy with (even if neither are completely satisfied).

Good luck. I hope you can figure something out.

[Amity]

We have completely different parenting styles. It's just one of the many reasons why we aren't together.

Our children have significant ongoing psychological issues because of the different parenting styles. My children are both under the care of a psychologist (which I pay for, on a weekly basis) because they have issues with his behavior and parenting style.

I have repeatedly asked him to attend parenting seminars and parenting therapy to assist our children, but like marriage counselling, I ended up going on my own.

The only solution in my case (extreme, I acknowledge) is that I left him. And we parallel parent. Which is absolutely horrible for the kids but there is nothing I can do about it until the kids are old enough to make their own decisions about their life. Hopefully I only have a couple of years to go.

I know it's a parenting issue but your child is also entitled to have a say. What does she think?

[sangie]

That's a tough one but I agree with the others about getting a third person's perspective (GP or paed or whoever). I assume its for DD2? Are the effects of her coming off the meds likely to make school a lot harder for her? I think if that was the case then I'd really push to keep her on them particularly as she's adjusting to school etc. Perhaps the compromise can be that she stay on them for now but you trial taking her off them in a year, two years or whatever? Good luck x

[Cass72]

If I had a doctor who I trusted to monitor her, I would try weaning her off the medication. Weekly visits, more often as required. I would prefer that she was able to go without the medication all together but just ending it cold turkey, as it were, could have very unfortunate consequences.

[LuluHB]

Thanks for all the views everyone. Yes Sangie - its E I'm talking about. FWIW, the paed we see with her is strongly of the view that she should be back on the meds at this point in time - we've trialled her off them (weaned her off Cass - definitely didn't go cold turkey) and the results aren't so flash. His view is that she will likely be on and off meds her entire life. Not what I want to hear for my little girl, but it is what it is and to my mind, no different (and in some cases so much better) than a physical condition that is lifelong. We both agree on the choice of paed - he is known in Perth for being very anti-meds and will prescribe sunshine and exercise rather than ritulin etc, so I am very confident that if he says she needs meds, then she needs meds. That's obviously on top of my own observations

I'm not sure she's really old enough to understand the concept of meds Divvy to really get a proper opinion from her, but she does know that at the moment she gets sad, angry or frustrated but doesn't know why and doesn't like it, so I guess that's her answer right there.

I think this is a bit of a generalisation but I think my DH is taking what is a male view that if we don't have to medicate then maybe it will just magically disappear - kind of like if we don't talk about a problem its never happened sort of thing. Added to this is that he never takes medication himself, never goes to a doctor, and doesn't use things like alcohol to relieve tension/stress either. He's not a health nut or anything - just, I don't know. He's him and he's lucky that his biology is such that he's never needed any form of artificial "help". In most things we either agree, or he doesn't feel strongly enough to disagree with my position, but on this we're at a cross roads

[misty]

I really hope you can reach a resolution. If you feel he is making his decision for the 'wrong' reasons (not reasons based on judgement of a situation, but on emotion - fear denial, etc) then I think that changes he situation a bit too. I really think mediation (not someone saying what you should do, but rather someone working with you both to reach a compromise) is your best shot of a resolution. Relationships Australia do this kind of mediation.