When you are not consistent, you expose your weaknesses and your children learn to manipulate you and play one parent against the other. But, you are only human and it's an arduous task to achieve consistency. And what can you do single-handedly, if the other parent shows no inclination to improve his/her parenting style?

Here are some helpful tips:

First off, the key to both staying calm and maintaining consistency is to have a plan. Decide IN ADVANCE how you plan to deal with particular situations.

Having done that, when you find yourself in that situation you will be able to calmly do what you had pre-planned.

Otherwise you will act out of habit, which can be quite detrimental to the purpose and the child. For example, you will lose your temper on one occasion and react differently the next time in a similar situation. This sends confusing signals to the child who doesn't know what exactly to do.

Decide also which battles are worth fighting - and chill out about the others. The rule here is that if you have a rule you MUST enforce it - every time without fail. If you are not prepared to do that, then clearly the rule is not that important, in which case you should drop it.

If you don't want your child to put his feet on the sofa, spell it out for him, and stick with it. Don't tell him to get his feet off one day, and then allow it the next time.

If you think through all the conflicts that give you the greatest stress, you will probably find that many of them are in these grey areas. You can't keep sitting on the fence. Once you decide which way you way to jump, you will find that much of that stress goes away.

The really difficult part is when you have a plan, but your partner keeps undermining it.

Now this reveals a great deal about your relationship as a couple. This is the area where you need to work on your relationship. Make sure that you discuss the children calmly and rationally, rather than use them as pawns in some kind of power games between you.

Both parents don't have to agree on everything, but they can agree to disagree amicably and allow each other space. However, it is important to support each other in front of the children, even if you have to iron out differences later on.

If you fail to do that, the kids will simply go from one parent to the other and get what they want.

The bottom line is to be consistent yourself so that you can discuss your rules and expectations with your partner and come up with a coherent plan. Most parents find a parent book very helpful in this respect. For one, it is written by people who know and secondly, it offers an unbiased objective opinion which is easy to accept by both parents.

But if you simply cannot agree on even fundamental ways of handling situations, what then?

You can only be true to yourself. The same for your partner.

The outcome of this is that the children are quick to size up both the parents and manipulate them to their advantage. If one parent is strict and the other lenient, the children know whom to go to and get what they are looking for.

This is an unfortunate situation and the sooner the gap between you is reduced the better it would be, otherwise it will create more problems in daily life. Since you cannot change the other, it is advisable to make some changes in your attitude. At least it will be more consistent for the children.

Make amends before the situation gets out of control and the time comes when one parent completely destroys the authority or credibility of the other parent. This is a distress signal for you to take note of and do something about your relationship. If you don't, your children will learn to disrespect all types of authority, and you will gradually lose all respect for yourself too.

Remember, if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got... if you want something to change, YOU will have to do something about it. Don't keep waiting for someone else to change first.