Nightmare child and dh constantly undermining me.

[Justalittlelemondrizzle]

So dd2 is a nightmare! Her behaviour has become increasingly worse during the last year. Everything is a battle, getting her to school, eating her dinner, going to bed, etc.
About a month ago, after the holiday of a lifetime was marred by her behaviour I decided to be tougher.
This has been met with resistance from H who says I am now treating the dcs differently. Even saying to dd2 tonight "we all know who is mummys favourite" I mean who says that to a 9 year old. I don't have favourites!!
I'm not treating them differently dd1 can be a bit lippy and has her moments but nothing serious. "So obviously the punishments have to reflect the crime" so to speak.
I'm not being overly tough. But I am not letting her get away with treating me like shit anymore. And she is now using him against me.
I can't get him on board. I have tried. He says I'm not fit to be a mother because I wouldnt let her stay up to watch something tonight because of the way she'd just treated me (screaming at me, calling me names and spraying hairspray in mine and dd1s direction!! when I was attempting to dry her hair)

He's saying my punishments are unfair (she's grounded indefinitely until her behaviour improves) this decision wasn't taken lightly. This is after trying everything else for weeks. (Loss of screen time, grounded for an evening etc) these things wernt working. She'd just do her time and behave just as badly the next day, and the cycle would continue over and over again.

I'm trying to be consistent. Im trying to be fair. But I'm being constantly undermined by him and it's giving her more ammunition to behave badly.

Any advice re dd? And him..

OP it really sounds as though you do not like her. Just about the only positive you have said is she is smart, but then you instantly follow it up with a negative. Has she no redeeming qualities in your eyes?

And you are absolutely certain that you and DH had a great relationship with no problems prior to this thing with DD. Does he normally support you with other issues? You really do need to make him see sense as without him I don't see how you can sort this.

My DH (we are now apart) has always worked extremely long hours and weekends and I've almost been a single parent (with no family) tbh. He has been a little like your DH at times re taking sides and not supporting me with discipline. I think he did this for an easy life as he didn't get to spend much time with them and wanted it to be easy without stress. He didn't get that I needed them to behave because I had them by myself most of the time.

Awful grammar - sorry. It is late.

Every morning we agree we are going to start a fresh. I always try to have a positive attitude with her. With both if them. And then I'm not sure what happens.

She's always been very lazy and has had a few friendship problems in the past. She was violent with one of her friends in reception and again in y1. I was devastated

My god! Do you have nothing good to say about her? You seem to be massively dwelling on every minor negative even from years ago! My youngest is in Y1 and there were quite a few instances of kids pushing/shoving and even punching in Yr and Y1 (mine was actually the victim not the aggressor) of course their parents were concerned but they're just young kids and hadn't learned self control. Why on earth are you bringing this up against her years later?

I beg you to please get family counselling. I know you say you were a victim of scapegoating and you don't want to do it to your daughter but your negative attitude is going to be so obvious to you. You say she's a "nightmare", "lazy" etc. You haven't used a single positive adjective to describe her, yet her teacher says she's lovely. You say you're "the only one who can see it". There is 0% chance she doesn't know how you feel about her. The poor thing.

Please get counselling.

It's not that you don't like her though is it? Yr just fed up with her behaviour and who could blame u? It's upsetting and hurtful-if u didn't care u wouldn't be on here asking for advice after all.

hundreds I was asked how she was at school. I was trying to give a varied overview. I've listed some of her many qualities in my post at 23.31!

It sounds as though you may be unconsciously repeating a pattern from your childhood. If she is being treated badly by the wider family, while her sister is favoured, she may be playing the role of family scapegoat. If things have reached this point, the situation is already a crisis.

But I don’t believe that increasing punishments will achieve anything positive, especially if the family dynamics have got to this stage. I have recommended BCLC on MN before. It stands for Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control. It’s an approach that was originally developed for adopted children who had experienced significant trauma. But I think it’s a philosophy that can work for any child.

You mentioned that you have tried love-bombing. How did you implement that strategy?

She really is lovely to be around half of the time

That is so lovely to hear, she does sound like she has a lot of positives.

It sounds as though at the moment you are focusing on coping with the 50% of the time that is horrid and ignoring the 50% that is good. Can you reverse the balance?

How about playing some one-on-one games like draughts or chess, while DD1 occupies herself for half an hour?

I think posters on here (some) are being very unfair to OP. She isn't rubbishing DD, she is simply answering questions that have been asked in order to give us the full picture.

The teacher says she's lovely! Well of course she does because she is behaving appropriately and sweetly at school. The teacher would not think so if she had a taste of what the OP has to deal with.

OP has asked for help, not further criticism.

Well said mylittleboopeep.

Justalittlelemondrizzle I don't know you, honestly I know you're having a hard time with not nearly as much support as you deserve please don't think I'm having a go. It's just the impression I get of the way you speak about your DD is so negative, she must have picked up on it and I know it's probably hard to hear but she does sound like a scapegoat.

It sounds like you're at crisis point and should seek family counselling for all of your sakes.

Thank you boopeep I've come to expect and accept people jumping down your throat on here. It's not how it used to be.
Some people clearly haven't read the thread if they didn't know I was replying to a question with a perfectly reasonable answer xx

I was always the 'scapegoat' in my family. And my dm definately had her favourite. She still does. It's obvious to everyone but her and db. Please don't say I'm scapegoating my dd. I would be the last person to ever do that!

I don’t think being aware of it and saying you would never do it means you’re not. People who are doing this are rarely aware they are doing it and wouldn’t admit it anyway. They rationalise it to themselves ‘I am not scapegoating, she is bad, she makes me do this’.

I agree with people who are suggesting family therapy.

I also think any advice you’re going to get on here is going to be next to useless.

The problem with MN is that posters come on and present themselves in a favourable light and encourage other posters to view the others involved as the villains (DH is a selfish knob, DD2 is awful).

The thing is, whatever is going wrong in your family dynamic, you are going to have a role in it. I don’t know what that is. If you asked DDs and DH I could guarantee there would be something (maybe you’re short tempered, maybe you are overly rigid or have very high expectations - I don’t know).

But the nature of any advice on here is that it’s not going to have a neutral perspective on what your input to the dynamic is because we’re only hearing from you.

Definitely family therapy.

Thank you Verbena.

Sometimes MN staggers me. Mums at the end of their tether come on here asking for help and get slated by half the posters. Women united and all that. Offer the OP some sound advice or say nothing.

OP you describe her as street smart, seemingly grown up etc, but she is only 9. I've made this mistake expecting some of mine to be more sensible than they're capable of.
What is clear through the thread is your disappointment with her, I think she's just thought 'what's the point of being good'
What does she say when you talk about incidents after the fact? Does she recognise a point where she's about to kick off? Is she regretful?

I differed in my parenting from my ex. He was very strict and seemed to just make every situation worse. He felt my parenting was weak and he got annoyed I didn't back him up.

We needed to discuss how we would deal with her together and make a compromise that we could both agree to. My ex would not back down on what I thought were too harsh reactions to bad behaviour.

He was too angry to handle her and just upset her more. I always tried to understand why she was misbehaving and explain why we weren't happy with it.

Mylittleboopeep, what you seem to be forgetting is that there is a CHILD involved in what sounds like an incredibly toxic situation.

‘Women united’ is a shitty excuse for ignoring the welfare of a child in this case. I think people answering ‘Oh poor you, she sounds like a horror and you sound like such a lovely Mum’ to someone who sounds like she has a toxic mindset towards one of her children would be at all helpful - not to the mother and especially not to her child.

Beryl no, there's no regret. Unless there's a consequence.
We've spoken about it afterwards and she always says she doesn't know why she did it? When I ask her what made her angry, sometimes what she says happened didn't happen, other times she comes out with a completely trivial thing.

What are your thoughts on family therapy OP? It's been suggested a few times.

Behaviour is communication. She is expressing something that she can’t put into words. The fact that her behaviour is escalating indicates that she is in turmoil for some reason (though she probably couldn’t explain why in words). I agree with PPs that family counselling would be worth exploring.

I think you need to take a step back and work out why her behaviour has worsened in the last year. Her behaviour has become very extreme - and its not improving but getting worse. My concern is that she is acting this way due to stress - she's trying to give you a signal that something is not right in her life. You need to explore this - but she is not going to share it with you if you and her are both at loggerheads all the time. It could be something happening at school etc and she doesn't have the language to explain how she feels so she is acting out. From your perspective she is acting badly and you are rightly punishing her...but if punishing her is not deterring her from her behaviour than sometime must be going on.

I'm going to suggest it to dh. He won't go for it though. I think if being uber strict doesn't work for much longer I may have to look into a parenting course that I can go to on my own. Atleast that way I'll hopefully learn some new strategies I haven't tried before.

Mightymucks

"Welfare of a child, mother with a toxic mindset" that is totally OTT!!!

How do you expect OP to feel when she is dealing with this. I am certainly not saying "oh poor you, what a lovely mummy you are" Yes DD is a child and yes the blame lies at the door of OP and her DH for previously being too soft. The OP has said as much herself. However this behaviour cannot be condoned. Perhaps you feel that all bad behaviour needs rewarding, that is your choice. I have not parented either of my DC's this way and it has worked for me,

I would honestly explore the possibility that something is going on in her life that you aren't aware of.
Please don't be offended by that - lots of children dealing with some kind of internal trauma suddenly begin a spiral of 'acting out'
How old is your younger child? Did she feel pushed out by them maybe?
The fact that she's managing to hold it together at school would indicate that it's her home that she's struggling with.
If you discussed speaking to her school - what would her reaction be?

The other blinder from that age is obviously hormones. Is she showing any physical signs of change?