Sooner or later, most children with two homes try it: "but Dad lets me" or "Mum said I could". Sometimes it is true, sometimes hopeful, and sometimes a small experiment to see whether the seam between the homes will give. None of it makes your child sneaky or spoilt. It makes them a child, doing what children have always done with any two adults who care for them.
Why children test the seam
Children were testing gaps between grown-ups long before anyone lived at two addresses. Ask any grandparent. After a separation, though, the gap is simply easier to find. The two adults talk less often, see each other mostly at handover, and each home runs on its own routines. A child works out quickly where the information runs thin, and a claim made in one home is hard to check from the other.
It helps to see this for what it usually is. Not manipulation in the adult sense, but a child pressing on the walls to see if they hold. Part of what they are testing is whether their parents still work together at all. When the same answer comes back from both homes, your child is not losing anything. They are being reassured.
True, hopeful, or strategic
"Dad lets me" can be three different things. Sometimes it is simply accurate. Homes run differently, and that is allowed. Bedtimes, snacks and screen rules will never match perfectly across two homes, and they do not need to. Sometimes it is hopeful, a wish said out loud in case it works. And sometimes it is strategic, a deliberate try at the gap.
You usually cannot tell which one it is from your side of the sofa. So the claim tells you almost nothing about your co-parent, and guessing, especially guessing the worst, is the one move that never helps.
The quick check that closes the gap
The habit that settles most of this takes thirty seconds. Send a short, curious message: "Quick one, she says bedtime at yours is nine now. True? Fine either way, I just want to know what to say here." Then wait for the answer before you decide anything.
What makes the check work:
- Ask it as a genuine question, never as an accusation.
- Make clear that a different rule in the other home is fine.
- Share your own rules back, so checks flow in both directions.
- Keep your child out of the messenger role while you sort it.
If messages between you tend to heat up, run yours through the tone check first. You are aiming for a question your co-parent can answer in ten seconds, not one that lands like a complaint.
Once you both treat "the other one lets me" as something to check rather than something final, most of the payoff disappears. Children are practical. They stop pressing on a seam that never opens.
Responding without shame
When the check comes back and the claim was stretched, keep your response light. There is no need for a dramatic reveal. Something like: "I checked with your dad. It is a bit different from that, nice try, love. Bedtime here is still half eight." Warm, brief, finished. Your child learns the seam is closed without learning that they are bad.
Shame teaches children to hide, not to stop. A child who is caught kindly tests less over time. A child who gets a long lecture mostly learns to be more careful next time.
If the check reveals that your co-parent genuinely does allow something you would not, that is a conversation between adults, held away from little ears. Our post on when you disagree on parenting walks through how to have it calmly. And if something your child tells you worries you about their safety rather than about house rules, treat that as a different matter entirely. Speak to a professional you trust, and contact your local emergency services if anyone is in immediate danger.
The united boring front
From a child's point of view, two homes that check with each other are slightly boring. Boring is wonderful. It means there is no gap to work, no story to keep straight, no small job of carrying messages between grown-ups. A child who knows the adults compare notes can stop managing them and get on with being eight.
So the next time "Dad lets me" floats across the kitchen, take a breath and smile a little. Your child is doing something completely normal, and you have a calm way to answer it. Check, respond kindly, move on. The walls hold, the adults still talk, and that, quietly, is exactly what your child was hoping to find out.