On this week's 'Parenting' segment on the Moncrieff show, one listener sought advice about how to stop her husband keeps sneaking her kids sweets behind her back: 

Joanna Fortune, psychotherapist specialising in Child & Adult Psychotherapy, joined Moncrieff to answer this and other listeners' questions.

The question:

"My husband would regularly give treats to our kids, 10 and 12. But I have been trying to encourage them to stick with healthy foods and minimise sweets, particularly in the last year or two, as they can really overdo it with sugar.

"My husband, however, continues to bring home packets of sweets and chocolate bars for them and makes them promise not to tell me. It’s now become like he is sneaking them treats behind my back, which they love and he delights in.

"I feel I’m on my own in trying to keep us all on a healthy lifestyle and I’m sick of being the bad cop but my husband just seems to find it hilarious."

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Joanna’s reply

“I just think listening to you… you just need to say, ‘Dad, stop this’, because the Good Cop Bad Cop split doesn’t serve anyone well. And it might be amusing now but it just can spiral. 

“Children do need boundaries and limits because it really creates that inner state [where] they feel emotionally stable and safe within relationships where there are clear boundaries and limits. They’re not going to thank you for it but it does have that prosocial effect. It strengthens emotional security.”

She continued: 

“But more than any of that, they need to know that their parents are in it together - even if you’re parenting apart by the way. 

“Because otherwise they learn that they can split between you and this will always and repeatedly create tension and power struggles where they just don’t need to be and where they shouldn’t be. 

“It also creates a confusion and uncertainty for children, it can bubble into things like anxiety and stress related stuff. But it will certainly create resentment and tension between parents - like we’re seeing here. 

“Children will always work out which parent to go to on different issues when they’re growing up. That’s quite normal. They might know their mother’s more relaxed about the outfit they’re wearing or their Dad is going to give them a lift somewhere they want to go or one of you is going to write a note quicker to get them out of PE or whatever it might be. They work that stuff out. 

“That’s fine across the board because it’s really the extremes, the polarisation and if one parent is feeling, ‘I’m being made into a bad copy and healthy eating is a red line issue for me’... then it’s not one of those softer things because when we have trigger issues… whatever it might be, you have to find  key points that you can agree on because that really helps you to work out your shared message for the children. 

“So I think it can be useful to agree that when one of you does or says something that goes against the parenting structure you’ve pre-agreed, you’ll have a non-verbal signal that means you’re going to set aside time later to talk about it. Basically you’re agreeing to have those disagreements in private and not in front of the children. 

“But always find areas that you are strongly aligned on. 

“Maybe both of you agree that play is really important or children should engage in hobbies that they enjoy or children need to take their prescribed medication at the prescribed time - things that you are both strongly on the same page and then work at finding one key point in every area that you’re not quite in agreement on that you can say, ‘I don’t fully agree with this but on this point yes.’ 

“So for example on this one they might say, ‘Look, I don’t want them eating so much sweet treats during the week but you like to bring them home a treat that comes from you and you like the kickback you get from that. So let’s agree that on a Friday or a Wednesday [we give them a treat].’ Pick one day a week that you are comfortable with that and you agree to do it that way… I think it has to be about compromise but if you give kids the idea, ‘Don’t tell your Mum’ or ‘Don’t tell your Dad’, that can spiral into uncomfortable places. 

“These kids are 10 and 12, they’re about to hit adolescence and they’re going to do their own version of splitting without your help in adolescence. So I think I’d try and rein this one in for your own sake.”

Main image: A child about to eat some sweets.