Best Responses When You Disagree with Parenting Advice

Perhaps it’s a family member, or a close friend, or someone on social media. We can all probably remember a situation where someone has made a comment, suggested we do something differently, or recommended a resource. Yet their parenting advice goes against what you’ve found is the best way for your family. 

Thinking through the many parenting decisions I’ve encountered thus far in my journey as a mom, I can definitely recall more than one conversation where I’ve disagreed with someone. Especially when it’s someone I’m close to in real life, it can be hard to know how to integrate feedback and ideas from others into our decisions, while also maintaining our own independence as a parent. It’s definitely a common experience we all have scrolling social media: you see some content and feel strongly that their point of view is wrong. In today’s post, I’m going to share some ideas that we’ve gathered about responding when you disagree with someone. 

First Step: Regulate  

When we hear information or a decision we disagree with, it’s so easy for our first response to be emotionally charged. Unfortunately, responding in this moment usually leads to a bigger disagreement, instead of a productive conversation. Your best bet is to manage your own reactions first, before finding an appropriate way to respond.  

Pause and take a deep breath. Take a moment to regulate your own emotional reaction (read more about emotional regulation in parenting in our post here). 

• What are you feeling in response to this information or advice? 
• If you’re having a hard time hearing the information, why are you feeling so strongly about it? 
• Is it related to a topic that you prioritize highly in your parenting decisions? 
• Is the advice about a topic you’ve extensively researched and feel you have already gathered all the information you need?  

Asking yourself these kinds of questions can help not only to give you time to regulate your emotional reactions, but also set you on the right track to evaluate and respond in an appropriate way. 

Next Step: Evaluate  

Once you’ve had a chance to calm your own nervous system and remember your own parenting plan, evaluate the situation.  

• Consider where the information is coming from. What kind of relationship do you have with this person?
  • The relationship we have can make a big difference in how we choose to respond. Is taking this person’s advice into account important to us, or not?  
  • The more difficult situations may tend to arise when we choose to make different decisions than a family member or close friend, as compared to someone on social media that we don’t know.
  • Do you trust this person to advise your decision making? Is it someone whose opinion you value?  
• Consider different parenting styles and approaches.
  • Perhaps the person sharing advice is simply emphasizing what has worked for their own family. 
• Think about the topic from the sharer’s point of view.
  • What are they looking for? Are they hoping for some reassurance in their own parenting choices? Do they just want someone to share with? Do they have a personal experience that may have shaped their opinion? 
  • Sometimes simple active listening can be a great tool. 
• If it’s a real life conversation, there may be good reasons why that person brought up the conversation. Perhaps out of love they are worried about you or your child, or maybe they just want to help to support you. It’s often helped me in these situations of disagreement to remember that sometimes, the person suggesting advice loves me and my family and is trying to be supportive. There are so many different parenting styles out there that it’s normal for people to disagree on specific topics! Seeing it from this perspective can also help decrease any negative emotional reactions. 

Then Respond  

After you’ve taken all these factors into account, hopefully it’ll be easier to respond productively. Here are a few ideas for what kind of response you could consider: 

• Empathize: Sometimes a person giving out advice is simply looking for empathy or reassurance.
  • Try asking open-ended questions to understand their point of view.  
  • Simple statements like: “I’m sure that was a difficult decision,” “It sounds like you really enjoyed that resource”, or “This is definitely a tricky topic!” can provide reassurance for the person you disagree with. These kinds of empathy statements put the conversation focus on that person instead of on yourself. You could avoid sharing your opinion using this strategy if you prefer not to express that you disagree. 
• Welcoming feedback: We tend to fill our social feeds and our groups of friends with those we agree with. This makes us feel supported and like we are “doing the right thing” when it comes to our parenting choices.
  • Is it just our stubbornness or wanting to be “right” about a decision we’ve made that is preventing us from taking valuable feedback? 
  • There are times when we do need to re-evaluate a decision that we’ve made. Perhaps there is some aspect of the advice or resource that would benefit our family. Humbling ourselves to accept feedback is a useful skill to cultivate as a parent. It can be tricky to find the right balance between listening to others and trusting ourselves when making a parenting decision.  
• Looking for common ground: What do you agree on?
  • Is there some aspect of the topic, resource, or advice shared that you do agree with? Pointing out the common ground between you can be a way to maintain peace.  
• Educating or informing: Is there a way to share information from our own perspective or research as a part of the conversation?
  • Perhaps the person we disagreed with has used different resources than us. Maybe they consider different sources as their experts. 
  • Opening a conversation about the resources you’ve used or your own decision making process may lead to a productive conversation that could build you both up. 
• Respectful disagreement: In the end, there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing.
  • If you don’t have the kind of relationship or feel the most effective way is to open a conversation, simply express that you’re grateful for their suggestion and move on. 
  • Different families are naturally going to make different parenting choices! There are many different ways to take our unique child’s best interests into account. 

Follow Up 

Especially if the conversation is particularly emotional or impactful, sometimes it can be helpful to follow up later with one of these ideas. 

• Do some research of your own. If you disagreed with the advice, but don’t really know why, maybe you need to look into the topic or resource that was suggested a little more closely.
  • Even if you haven’t done any research about it, it’s also perfectly fine to trust your intuition and let it drop. Especially if it’s not high on your priority list, you don’t need to research everything!  
• If you feel you need reassurance or to build confidence around this particular topic, talk it out later with someone that holds the same viewpoint as you. Get together over a cup of coffee and debrief the conversation. Even when you don’t plan to change your mind, another pair of eyes and thoughts can also sometimes point out areas where you could learn or take something useful from the disagreement.  
• Are you and your partner a united front? When you agree on the topic, that can also help build confidence as you move forward.
  • If not, and especially if the root cause of your disagreement impacts other areas of your parenting decisions, professional help is always another good idea to help you get on the same page and work together as an effective parenting team.  
  • Effective communication about situations of agreement or disagreement is super important to streamlining your decision making process as parents. 

The bottom line is that there are many great ways to parent and many good choices you could make. While people tend to have strong opinions about their parenting decisions, resources they’ve followed, or suggestions they’re making, there is no one “right way” when it comes to the individual decisions for your family. Next time you find yourself disagreeing with someone’s parenting advice, try regulating and evaluating the situation before you choose to respond.  

Are there any strategies that you’ve found effective when you disagree? What other approaches would you suggest? Let us know in the comments! 

In these challenging moments, the most important thing is to do the best thing for your own unique family!