change in behaviour after daddy's house!

[noosmummy12]

Hi all, im new to mn (well I follow on fb...), but I had a question for you all. Its a long one.......

Basically me and my daughter (3 in jan)'s father are not together and he has her every other wkend. Whenever she comes home she's awful! She hits and shouts and screams. I have had a new partner since she was 6 months old and so has never known any different. They are best friends but recently dd has been awful, especially towards him.

**She has always called him daddy followed by a name and her biological dad has always been known as daddy followed by a name, but now won't entertain calling him anything other than just his proper name.

Me and her dad are currently going through court (he wants full custody despite living 30 miles away n cant drive her to nursery) and has always been bitter towards me since being with someone else, even though he hardly saw dd when she was little. My dp has raised her since she was 6 months old n is heartbroken she wont call him daddy anymore....

Sooooooo... any suggestions? Thanks if you got this far!! !

** MNHQ has edited real names out.

[g3orgia]

Hello! I am also new to Mumsnet (Just joined this minute) I also have this problem. Me and my little girls dad have been broken up for 2 and a half years now, shes 3, 4 in feb. I found I had the problem with her being taught differently at his while potty training when Ellie turned 2. He would put her in nappies and not try teaching her so when she came back home, she would have forgotten all I had taught her. I had to stop her going to his for 3 weeks until she was fully potty trained.

Iv been with my new partner for nearly a year and we have just moved in together, quite far away from where we used to live. She now sees her Dad every other weekend, neither of us drive so I take her 4 hours on the train on a Fri and back on a Sun. He makes no effort to come here to see her so I do all the travelling. But when she comes back she is nasty, says horrible things to myself and my partner. She seems to have forgotten all good behaviour and is just being bad and answering back constantly. I have no idea what to do anymore. I have tried a sticker chart and still put her in the corner when necessary.

Help would be very much appreciated. Thanks :)

[noosmummy12]

What are we going to do! I also moved away from dds father, but I have told him if he wants to see her he would need to make the effort. His dad picks dd up from my mums n drops her back as we don't have contact with each other (I tried to be amicable but hes not interested). I have a feeling hes telling her things (he has actually told me dd is not to call sdd her sister... even though she lives with us 50% of the time) urghhh!!

[g3orgia]

I feel like saying that to her dad too. Thing is I said I would make the effort at first as I felt I was the one moving so should do, but now hes not even grateful for it. And I feel like saying he can bloody do it then haha! Yeah I think hes telling my one stuff too, Ellie came home one day and sat at the table having dinner, she came out with a lot of things he had told her. Like that my partner was nothing to do with her and his family werent either. Its only messing around with her head so I really dont see the point. Team Mum! Hahaha!

[olivesnutsandcheese]

You might be better off getting this moved to step-parenting (I guess on your DP's behalf) as they are a pretty knowledgeable bunch when it comes down to these issues.

From my experience although DSS was a little older when his mum left - weekends spent with her always resulted in fairly awful behaviour from him for the next 2-3 days.
Three main causes were staying up way too late, bad-mouthing from the mum about his DF and generally a child trying to process what is happening to them.

DH and I had a policy of absolutely zero bad mouthing of his mother, as much consistancy as possible regarding rules etc and also at times needing to explain that what mummy said isn't true/she's got a bit muddled etc. Typically if a parent bad mouths the other parent or step parent the child finds it very difficult & very confusing - hence the poor behaviour

[morethanpotatoprints]

If these are your children's real names I suggest you have this thread removed and start again.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Oh sorry, you are new.
To do this just click on report and tell them you want to remove and why.

[YetAnotherHelenMumsnet]

Hi noosmummy12, sorry just to bust in and shimmy your thread about there, but you had inadvertently provided a lot of identifying info and we thought it might be safer for you to continue this conversation with our lovely wise MNers without worrying that everyone would recognise you.
Hope that's okay, and welcome to MN!