DDs father & step mum bullying her?

[starynight63]

Hi, I've posted this in the parenting section too but hoping to get more responses & advice hope that's ok?

DD is 12, myself and her dad have been separated for a long time but always had a good co-parenting relationship. His partner has been in DDs life for around 3 years.

My DD spends EOW with them and speaks to dad regularly during the week over text or call.
Last night before bed I checked DDs phone as I do regularly to make sure everything is safe and ok. I was completely floored when I came across messages to a friend of hers talking about how body conscious she is & feeling like she has to loose weight & has stopped eating breakfast (she does more often than not say she's not hungry in the mornings & I encourage her to have something - but I also at her age didn't have an appetite early mornings so thought this normal) she also said she's not eating all her lunch (this comes home finished so she maybe throwing things away?)
But the most shocking thing was that she said it's because of her dad & step mum. I'll copy one of the messages below

"Whenever I am hungry and ask for food they call me a fat pig and my dad would say no wonder you don't fit in your school trousers bc I'm in adult sizes not kids. I've recorded them saying stuff too it all just takes its toll.
They're always commenting on unnecessary stuff and it's all the time.
Bare in mind my step mum is 26 and she should know better she's only been in my life a few years"

There's others, but that's the main jist of it.

I was floored, hurt, upset & worried for my DD. But I really don't know the best way to move forward. I don't want to tell DD I've read these as I don't want her to delete messages in the future, and I don't want to confront her dad until I've got some info out of her and hopefully seen this recording.

My DD is very honest and grown up, no chance she's made this up.

What should I say to try and get her to open up to me, I've commented a few times recently on her not eating breakfast & seeming a bit down but she says she's just tired with starting secondary school.

Thanks for reading.

My daughters best friend had an app on her phone which counted the calories of everything she ate. Her stepmum had put it on her phone. Aged 12.
She also monitored everything she ate that came up on the lunchtime payment system at school.
She now has massively disordered eating and major issues.

Give her the tools to defend herself. Let her know it is okay to tell her idiot father and his nasty wee GF to back off.

She can tell them to stop body shaming her. She can tell them her body and eating habits are under control and she can say 'thank you for your concern, my weight is healthy but your 'jokes' and comments are not'. Tell her to use you as a block and say you are the main parent so her weight is your job not theirs.

This type of bullying can lead to serious harm. You shouldn't have promised her you would keep quiet. She doesn't have the life experience or brain development to process this.

You will end up having to tell him to stop and refusing access until he agrees to stop body shaming her. You'll be the bad guy but that is better than your poor child ending up with an eating disorder!

It does happen. I knew one woman who called her son Jabba the Hutt and fatty to his face. He was 6 at the time.
Some people are fucking morons, so some parents are fucking morons. 🤷‍♀️

How dare they call a CHILD a fat pig. This is disgusting. Poor poor girl.

@JemimaPuddledock I obviously couldn't say whether op is a troll and making this up but you're so wrong that a father wouldn't say that to his child. MOST fathers wouldn't, but some do. See my posts below.

oh yes the "it was only a joke" well if it was a joke why dont I find it funny. its bullying. as are all the other comments "you wont get a boyfriend if you carry on like that" "dont clear your plate its not polite" i could go on and on. you start off by ignoring and laughing it off but little by little it eats away at your self confidence so you often end up with a very unhealthy relationship with food that lasts a lifetime. for those saying its trolling and parents dont do this you need to wise up because yes parents do this. they do this a lot. and they dress it up as joking, pulling your leg, not being serious. OP I am so sorry this is happening and you are right to intervene firmly and put a stop to this. 12 is a very vulnerable age and your ex needs to grow up and start acting like an adult parent.

It's probably a load off her mind now she's told you about it OP. Something really needs to be said to her father though, this is the sort of thing that causes eating disorders and he needs to know that

Of course fathers do this. Mothers too. My adult SD is very low contact with her mother for exactly this reason. She restricted her food massively which caused my SD to eat in secret. When she moved in with us she ate less as she wasn't made to feel bad. Her mother still continues with it now, on the rare occasions she sees her. She can't be in mums company for more than an hour every now and then due to it.

The dd didn't tell the OP about it though @AryaStarkWolf , she read it on her dd's phone.
All I think the OP can do is model healthy eating (including treats) and keep the lines of communication between you both. Letting on that you’ve read her phone could end up in her locking things down tighter and feeling youve abused her privacy, sadly.

She did, read the OPs updates.......

I agree with fart sock. Although she is still very young you could give her some more tools to help her.

you have already said she doesn’t have to go to her dads or could curtail the visits which I think is wise. I would also give her the option that while she is at her dads, if she gets upset she has the right to ask to go home. If possible, let her know you will come and get her at a moments notice.

Obviously now is a time to teach her how to deal with this type of bullying whether it comes from her dad, step mum or school friends. Get her to practice in her head or with you, nice succinct phrases she could use, so they pop into her head when something happens.

You are right to take it slowly and maybe as it dawns on her how wrong it is, she may feel able to give you permission to talk to her dad. Either that, or she may feel up to writing him a letter in the future.

Its a shame that at 12 she has to learn how to deal with bullies like this. But in the long term she will have these tools for the rest of her life. She will certainly need to be very clear on her boundaries when she is older and starts dating.

Best of luck, you sound like a lovely, kind and caring mum.

My apologies, I missed the OP's second post.

I'm glad to hear they've been able to talk about it now, and can hopefully agree a plan of action going forward before any damage is done.

I think you need to have more oversight of her phone. She should know, at 12, that you will monitor it's usage.

Anyway, not hugely relevant to the issue.

This is a really tricky one. I'd be tempted to go all guns blazing. I was that 5 ft 5 developed 12 year old that was made to feel completely self-conscious about every aspect of my body. It hasn't stood me well.

Your DD was initially having a conversation with her friend when you first posted. Teenagers make shit up when they talk to their friends. They are full of attention seeking and bravado.

I had similar with my ex, but he’s single, so it was all him.

He was obese as a child/teen and as an adult his weight has swung between 9st and 20st, his food habits are fucking terrible regardless of what his weight is.

He is obsessed with what other people weigh, what they eat, how much they eat. It’s none of his business, but that doesn’t stop him.

He has no grasp of the process of female puberty and that it involves necessary weight gain. Neither of our daughters have ever been overweight.

Comments such as -

”Skipping breakfast is healthy”
”You should only eat between 12pm and 6pm”
”No snacks”

Not to mention the tiny portion sizes of whatever food kick he’s on that month.

Worse comments -

“You need to stay slim to get a husband” (utterly batshit, DDs are 16 and 12!)
”You look massive”

Policing what his sister and mother feed them when they stay there.

There’s more to it and I went fucking nuclear at him when DDs first broke down and told me, my cousin died due to anorexia when we were teens and I do not tolerate this shit for even a second.

You have to step up here and speak to your ex, regardless of what DD wants. You’re her mother, her father and his girlfriend are being cunts who have already caused serious damage to your DDs self image/worth/esteem. Do not let it get any worse than this.

Your poor DD.
I think you've done everything right so far & it's lovely that your DD opened up to you.
If she doesn't want you to intervene now, I would respect that but have a strategy going forward.
I think that the suggestion to give her permission to push back is spot on. Role play this with her so she has the words and confidence to (appropriately) challenge this.
Tell her she can come home at any time, no questions asked from her Dad's and that you support her choices.
Last resort would be - with her permission - for you to speak to her Dad directly. You could have come across messages while you checked her phone that you want to talk about. Then frame it that she's not finding funny comments about food, size, etc and it's actually really upsetting her so it needs to stop, even if it is innocently meant.

My daughter went through a weird phase at that age of making stuff up. I think it was an attention thing with her friends. She's 21 now and is the most lovely human being you could imagine. It's hard to believe she ever did that, but I honestly would ask your ex about it before wading in.

I've been in a similar position with my then 11 year old DD and my Exh. Please don't make my mistake and try and let her decide what to do. They can't as they love their dad. Treat this as if you would anyone else bullying your child, it needs to be stopped, more importantly you DD needs to see you stopping it.

Actually, sleepdeprived makes a very good point. Your DD can't judge this properly because it's her Dad..

Its great that she can open up to you, even if that required a little prompting.

Parents say this shit all the time. They're adults with their own issues around food not realising they're inflicting the same on their kids. Jokes about being a 'little piggy', comments about their 'little muffin top' saying 'God are you still eating?' With a laugh or 'Have you got hollow legs?'.

My mum is a good, kind, loving, caring mother. But her own issues with her body, the diets, the little 'innocent' comments made towards me and my sister happened because of her own body issues. And it saddled me and my sibling with decade long eating disorders because it burrows into your head.

So so many parents do this. Half of them don't even realise they're doing it.

As someone who’s had an eating disorder, I would take this very seriously and stop all contact now and refuse to let her visit her dad in his home. He can have supervised contact only. Your DD needs your protection now, this could ruin her entire teenage years and beyond. It’s abuse. She’s crying out for help, don’t ignore her.

As an outsider, and therefore impartial, this would come as a safeguarding issue for any other adult who discovered it. I don't know that I would leave it to her to discuss with her Dad, or agree not to discuss it with him myself tbh. Needs a stop put to ASAP.