Advice on daughter and situation with DH

[whattododoo]

I will start by saying DH is very hands on and we share childcare 50/50 so he is with our DD (aged 8) just as much as me perhaps slightly more if I'm with the younger child. Not sure if this is two separate problems or one has created the other.

• DD has been very challenging the past while, attitude, answering back, telling lies, attention seeking. One big area is to do with school work she hates writing and when asked to do homework it is always a major tantrum and tears. She is generally very emotional, always has been and I think very low self esteem. She will have meltdowns after school or her hobbies because someone did not want to sit beside her (she takes everything personally), if someone says something nice she says they are being sarcastic. How do I help her negative mindset?

• Next my DH seems to be triggered with DD non stop moaning and negativity. He is quick to tell her to stop or even shout at her or send her to her room for how she is behaving and then I have to intervene. No matter how many times I tell him to stop reacting to everything she does he can't help it and constantly snipes at her. Further to this he has high standards for her in terms of education but to the point where she completed work all over the summer which included many tears and tantrums, however when he does the work with her he belittles her or gets annoyed if she doesn't know something, he will act like she's dumb. This is because she is sitting at average in school and he says she is lazy.

I am worried that she will not improve if he continues to act this way towards but he will not stop. I have tried to keep them at a distance from each other but this is hard because he does so much with her on a day to day basis and although she has loads of nice qualities she is really tough work and so we both need a break at times.

I really don't know what to do anymore.

You say she thinks if someone says something nice she thinks they're being sarcastic. Is that not because of her dad responding sarcastically to her?
Have you ever stood up for her in front of him?

Poor wee mite. I do wonder how you can stop homework if he has her 50/50

Quite easily since they live under the same roof

I have just completed a safeguarding course for children and what he is doing to her regarding the. Elittleing amd making her feel stupid is emotional abuse. You need to be her safeguarder as her mother and stop this mow before it gives her lifelong problems

I stand up for her in front of her all the time and intervene and bring her to me. However I need to change the way he speaks to her and get him to actually listen to me to see sense.

I might start recording him secretly and play it back to him and say would you be happy if I let your colleagues or boss listen to this how do you feel about this, to shock him.

I would lose all respect for an adult man bullying and belittling a child. I certainly couldn't countenance having sex with him. I would be leaving to protect my daughter.

Firstly, I would stop him from having anything to do with her homework and definitely don’t give her extra work to do.

If it carries on then I would speak to school and explain and see if she can do a homework club after school.

I will do her homework with her before he comes home from work and I have already told him this prior to her starting back to school this week. He is happy for me to take this over.

Exactly this — she’s learnt that from her father.
Poor little soul, she sounds very unhappy. Hardly surprising with a tyrant for a father. Where’s the fun in her life? She’s EIGHT and her life sounds miserable.

Weird off topic tangent, but people with ADHD/ADD often need an adrenaline rush to keep them focused (hence why everything is lastminute.com). Bouldering is once sport in particular that research shows improvements in focus after partaking in this sport. Might be something to consider?

And your husband, if he doesn't stop, will be the reason in about 10 years time you are flinching because her partner has just humiliated her/put her down in front of you and she's just accepted it as normal.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing extra school work, but she needs to know she's doing it because you value her education and not because you think she's thick and needs the extra work. She needs to know you are a team and it's ok to not remember things (it would be pointless doing work she already knew inside out) and you need to read the signs of when enough is enough. Maybe put in targets to help motivate her so she knows there is an end, but avoid time targets because that gives her an element of control e.g. instead of read for 30 minutes, say: read 1 chapter of your book, or instead of, "we are doing fractions (open ended, dd doesn't know how long she'll be doing fraction for" try "I just want to go over fractions with you, as a reminder, then we'll do this worksheet together as a team (she knows it might take a while, but it's clear from the outset where the end-point is)". And most importantly, praise everything and build her confidence up. She needs to know she's not the problem.

Obviously I don't know your daughter and I can't see how she behaves on a day-to-day basis, but some of the behaviours you've outlined do sound like they could be signs of ADHD. This article goes more into depth about symptoms in girls:

www.additudemag.com/adhd-in-girls-women/

It is also entirely possible that her stronger emotional reactions, anxiety, lack of ambition and inability to focus are due to her feeling unsupported, and that she is aware she's failing to meet the expectations of the adults around her. It's very hurtful to see that your efforts to please the people you love most in the world just aren't enough.

It's a shame that your DH doesn't understand that children aren't there to follow in the footsteps of their parents, but to become own well-rounded, passionate adults who follow their own path in life. Not everybody can be exceptional, and there's nothing wrong with being average. A healthy sense of self-esteem, self-love and self-assurance can often get you further in life than perfect marks.

Her life is not miserable, She has plenty of things she engages with that she loves. She does not do extra work on top of homework. Yes she done work in the summer but this was half hour long on 3 days of the week, after doing this work we would have went out and done fun things like day trips, cinema, icecream etc to keep her motivated. I have only explained a small part of my life. My daughter has everything she needs and we pay a lot of money for the hobbies that she has. She gets everything she wants.

Teacher here. I’d back right off the school work - particularly in the holidays. She needs to have fun and relax - a lot of holiday homework/worksheet stuff is educationally worthless and stressful. Far better to enjoy the world around her.

Hi OP. I am currently doing dyslexia training for my work. Reading your opening post got my senses jingling! She hates writing and homework is a major trigger. Could she have dyslexia/literacy difficulties? This could also explain, in part, her low self-esteem (which needs building up).

You need to change the way he speaks to her? No. He needs to change that. And being as it’s been 8 years and he seems happy to reduce his child to tears on a regular basis, I seriously doubt he will change.

He’s happy for you to take over? Why were you even asking him permission? Do you have to do that a lot? What if he said no?

Considering the behaviour you describe in your opening post I don't think you can sit there and say with any certainty that she isn't miserable

Want to add that my more accusatory statements aren't directed at you, OP, and that I'm glad to see you're trying to step in and mediate the situation, as well as speaking to your DH about his behaviour. It does look like you'll have to take more extreme steps to support her if he doesn't rectify how he's treating her, though...

Also there are plenty of ways to expand a child’s education at home without making them sit down and write…

Fuck me, I work in STEM, have an UG and Masters and will be starting a PhD next year, I don’t hot house my DDs with STEM, but then again I know that they aren’t an extension of me, are their own people, with their own favourite subjects and interests.

She gets everything she wants

Except support from her father.

I didn't ask him I told him. He would rather not have to do it which is why he pays for her tutor. The meltdown from my daughter when she has to do writing can last for 30 minutes of crying and screaming and stomping around, It's tough and he gets easily frustrated with this.

She has always been very emotional, overly dramatic (if someone tickled her she will say they nipped her for example). DH has only been like this the past year and since younger sibling came along as I say he has a shorter fuse because he does not want youngest dc to be exposed to the 30 minute long tantrums. DD will roll her eyes a lot and answer back every single time.

I’d intervene quite honestly and take over the parenting. Nothing is more important than security and wellbeing whilst growing up. You’ve tried talking, suggesting, it hasn’t worked. You need to up the ante and intervene. There is emotional damage here, it’s not just in the zone of ‘good enough parenting’.

Your DD getting this upset every day is not on and it HAS to stop.

I have a child with disabilities and my Ex was trying, in his way, but our child was getting really angry every day, and upset. Ex was only doing bedtime, and wasn’t getting angry or anything but still, our child needed a certain way and he just wasn’t getting it. Ex was quite hostile to any suggestion, no matter how respectful and diplomatic I was.

I had to say to myself, is my child being distraught every single bedtime OK? And no, it wasn’t. So I intervened, I finally said look this has to stop, our child cannot be this distraught every single day. We can get a professional to advise, he can pass it over to me, we can try my suggestions. I didn’t care how, but it HAD to stop. I got called all sorts of names by Ex, got told I was controlling, that I wanted to do everything. (Believe me, I was utterly exhausted and desperate for time off). Ex was awful to me for weeks and I was ready to leave the marriage. Awful. But Ex, although we did break up eventually, did learn how to parent our child in a way that frankly didn’t leave him with lasting damage. So now I also trust him a lot more, and he did, eventually, realise that our child did not have to be so upset, and that it was us as adults that were the cause, not the child. Hard lesson, but needed to be learnt before real behavioural and psychological harm set in.

And crucially our child now does not get distraught every single day and we both parent feeling much happier ourselves.

Why does your 8 year old have a tutor? I’m baffled.

My DM behaved to me in a way that sounds like your husband’s behaviour. I am spending thousands on therapy and have always underperformed through lack of confidence. I also believed the narrative about being lazy when actually there were some things I just couldn’t do. There were some things I could do. I was a grade 8 with distinction musician and haven’t played an instrument since I left home, because of the misery of her shouting at me. Your daughter will absolutely remember this and it is already shaping her. I’d have given anything for a parent who would have protected me, or for something like family therapy, so good for you for looking out for her. Your DH might do well to read this thread. He may have no idea of the impact.

But she doesnt OP she doesnt have a father who accepts and understands hers
Thing is with parenting is you can only parent the child you have you cant parent the child you wished you had.

Your DH is trying to parent the daughter he wishes he had - not the one he has. And in doing so he is likely to lose the lovely DD that he has.

THere is nothing wrong with being academic average - that is after all what most are. And she clearly has other strengths he needs to focus on

Because her teacher highlighted that she was struggling with literacy mainly and need to boost her confidence. So we got the tutor to have that one on one time with her to help her. She loves going to her tutor. She's not the only one in her class to have a tutor so maybe it's more normal here since Covid.