Parenting as Partners: How to Launch Your Kids Without Ejecting Your Spouse

Before having kids, did you and your partner discuss at what age you would stop packing their lunches? Or whether you would use grounding as a punishment? Or if you’d require them to pay their own way through college? Most parents don’t, and so are taken by surprise when disagreements over decisions like these begin to erode their marriage.

Over the past decade, parent educator Vicki Hoefle has worked with countless couples who believed they had parenting problems, when the real issue was a failure to communicate clearly about expectations for how they would raise their kids. More than ever today, we see both parents actively involved and participating in the raising of children. While beneficial in many ways, this balance of roles does often lead to increased conflict caused by the differing life experiences and beliefs of each parent, which influence how they think their kids should be raised. When conflict, judgment, and stress build up between parents, the whole family suffers.

Parenting as Partners will help parents thoughtfully and intentionally merge together different life experiences and navigate the tricky terrain of parenting by exploring their own upbringings and shedding light on their beliefs, preferences, and values concerning parenthood. It will guide parents as they develop strategies that allow them to work with their spouse in creating and implementing a cohesive parenting plan to support their marriage and their children from infancy to their launch into adulthood.