five year old headed for MAJOR trouble

I have a five year old little boy, David, that stays with me on the
weekends and with his dad during the week. His father and I are very
different in our parenting skills and tactics. Example, he ask Daivd
well over 10 times very nicely (begging, pleeding) to get in to the
car, I asked nicely once, then told him nicely, then told him very
sternly, then made him. Then his father cant figure out why he is

an588...

That doesn't sound very different to me. What did he do
after asking nicely 10 times?

It is harder to get a child accustomed to following rules
if the other parent isn't doing it similarly. However, kids
are also very flexible and if you're firm and consistent, then
they tend to follow the rules when they're with you.

Maybe you could read a parenting book, find some
useful material in it yourself (we all always have
room for improvement, right?) and then offer a copy to
the dad, saying that you benefitted from it so you
thought he might like to read it too.

having problems at school and why he doesnt evey listen to him. His
father and I dont exaclty get alone, but how do I tell him that he is
the problem in a nice and effective way and that if WE both dont do
something, we will loose all control of our son for good. Please help.

shinypenny...

I suppose it depends on how open your ex is to your suggestions?

I also share custody with my ex (for going on 8 years now). Initially,
he resisted any parenting suggestions I would make, simply because they
came from me and he was angry at me for divorcing him. Three things
that worked:

1) Tactfully phrasing it this way: "When DD's act like that with me,
I've found it helpful to approach it this way.... " In other words,
don't tell him what he should do. Simply tell him what you do, and if
he wants to try it, that's his choice.

2) Enlisting a third-party authority figure. My ex really responds best
to authority figures. So I would say something like, "Well, the child
psychologist I consulted suggested that we discipline DD this way... "
or "Well, this parenting book I'm reading says X, Y, Z." As long as it
wasn't *my* idea, my ex was open to it.

3) Being patient and letting him learn through his own mistakes. In our
case, I had been the primary caregiver for years, and he simply had no
experience with the children. He made lots of mistakes initially. He
had to learn from them, same as I did when I first became a mom. And he
did, eventually.

That was a long time ago. Today, my ex will call me and ask my advice
on things. And sometimes I even call him and ask his advice on other
things. Today we're much more apt to approach it together in a
problem-solving manner. But in the beginning... no. It took us awhile
to get there.