ExH undermining me with Brownies and theres nothing I can do

[TheBrowniesFundraiserforHoliday]

DD is 9 and a Brownie.

Going on pack holiday at October Half Term for 5 nights (Friday to Thursday).

She was supposed to fundraise for it over the summer holidays, they literally needed to raise £20 each, the rest was being topped up by parents (and there are funds for those who may not be able to find the extra £30 to go)

She has refused to fundraise. A friend of mine asked her (with my supervision) to feed her cats twice a day and would pay her £5 she didn’t do it, so I did it. My parents offered for her to walk their dog while they were working and they’d give her £10. That’s £15 before she’s tried to do anything else.

DDs Sixer suggested their six get together in the summer and run a book stall at the local supermarket to raise funds, they had 140 books, they could have sold them for £1 each and raised the money easily. Her friends took part but she wouldn’t, I offered to stay and supervise and Brown Owl also did an hour with them and DD refused. They sold all 140 books and made £100, which is nearly all the money for all of the places in the 6.

Any suggestion to do it is met with “Well I want to go but won’t be making the money myself for it”. She’s been rude to me telling me I will give her the money and she will be going.

I said no, you won’t be going as you’ve not worked for it. There’s still time between now and the deadline to make the money though.

DD has spent the week at ExHs and come home today.

She’s just told me that not only is she going on pack holiday but dad is going to say she helped to weed the garden for it. She didn’t she’s boasted about not doing it.

The Friday they go falls on his weekend so I can’t even stop her, and because of the way holiday contact falls he’d have had her until the Wednesday anyway, so I’d be pulling her out for effectively 15 hours (handover is 6pm on the Wednesday and they get picked up by us 10am Thursday).

I don’t know how to go forward with this. Do I talk to Brown Owl? Or just leave it?

For context; if she’d raised say £10 or £15 and was very close I’d of course have given her the extra money, it’s the fact she’s done nothing and will still get to go.

I pay for Brownies, and its in the week which during Term Time ExH doesn’t see her in the week. He has her 1 night a month in Term Time and 50% in the school holidays.

I can't remember what on earth we raised money for when I was a Brownie but I do remember going to the neighbours homes and polishing and dusting, washing up and reading stories to various young children! It happened every year, so asking Brownies to fundraise isn't new.
Anyhoo! The real problem here is the lack of respect to an adult, and that needs sorted and quickly, as others have said. She's an irritant now but could well become a monster and out of control once she hits teenage years. Is she copying her father's attitude towards you?
I used to be a guide leader and I'd have been happy to do some subtle stuff through the programme to support Mum here. She needs as much positive, good citizen and values education as possible, so I would be keeping her going to Brownies.

We've done fundraising towards bigger trips to make it easier for as many girls as possible to come and not miss out for financial reasons.
We've done it as an optional unit activity such as the local fete or bag packing. They're harder to organise since 2020 though.

She will learn more by having to pull her weight on the pack holiday than by being withdrawn.

Your poor dd is not going to know where she stands with two parents who are modelling such different values. No wonder he is an ex!

I am so tempted to say what others have said and tell her to tell her dad to organise it, but that is just setting her up for confusion between what each of her parents are saying to her and overly cruel disappointment when it goes wrong.

She is going to be screwed up teenager if this is how she will be co-parented (not your fault).

Having read this advice, I change my mind. This is what I would do.

stop doing this for a start.
he needs a taste of his own medicine - your fighting a lost battle here

i would not let her go the first one of the new term, tell her she needs to up her game and earn it back

If your Ex is not the paying “customer “ with whom your unit has a contract to provide guiding activities, if he is not the usual consenting parent, or the parent on the Go Girlguiding record for doing drop offs and pick ups, then I would query whether he can just turn up with her on the day and sign a consent form, especially if you contact the leader and say you specifically do not give consent and withdraw any consent already given.

I’d take a long view here.

She’s a 9 year old kid navigating two homes, testing boundaries. But it’s not helpful to project into the future - she’s not going to be unemployable or a hardened criminal. You’re a good and thoughtful mum OP; have faith that she’s going to be fine.

What I would do is bring up her comment that you would end up paying and calmly point out that she was wrong and that you did not. That you’re disappointed that her dad did and you’re disappointed in her, because she’s better than that.

You’re calling out her behaviour, and you’re pointing out the difference between her dad and you. But you’re also letting her know that you believe in her.

Every child needs an adult in their life who believes in them. It’s that reflected vision of themselves that lights the path.

Don’t lose this opportunity by getting distracted with consequences and punishments or trying to inconvenience your ex. Less is more here. There’s a really important lesson here and it’s not even about Brownies or lies or laziness. She needs to feel the dissonance of winning and getting her way but realising that she’s won a worthless prize.

And she isn’t going to get it straight away. More than likely she’ll be stroppy and mouthy. Don’t rise to the bait. You’ve said your piece and leave it at that. The less you say after, the more concentrated the impact of your words.

This is a lesson that will take time to percolate. You’re her steadfast parent - the one who loves her enough to do the right thing regardless. Her df is making her life harder, and it’s a tough thing to navigate as a child. And 9 is a boundary pushing stage. Don’t dance to her tune - she’s mentally preparing for a big response. A calm, mild on-point response will be far more effective.

And have faith in yourself- you’re a great mum.

Tell them she's lying and when she comes back she has to weed your garden and write an apology letter.

@Charrington wisdom!

^ this

I too would remove her from Brownies because she hasn't understood the point of Brownies.
Or make ex do absolutely everything towards the trip and pay for Brownies.
Why do you back him up when she's rude to him, why not find it hilarious? Yes, it's petty but he sounds like a twat.

If she has made the Brownie Promise she's broken all of it and especially the "be true to myself" by lying. Brownies is obviously not for her.

Don't be so ridiculous.

She’s not learning them because of her father. By stopping her going, you’re punishing her for her father’s crap parenting.
An alternative is to tell her that as you don’t want to encourage her to lie to others, you will be telling Brown Owl how she got her extra money and that what she is doing is not on. Then leave it at that.

Hahaha!
Also, what’s a ‘racialised’ girl?

I would be really unhappy about her going.

It sounds like she’s had multiple opportunities to make the money and you’ve offered to support her, so it’s not a shyness thing.

I do think this sort of behaviour should be nipped in the bud BUT if it falls on her dads weekend and he has said it’s ok then you can’t do anything about it.

Its understandable why her behaviour is like it is if her dad lets her get away with it.

I would tell her how fortunate she is that she’s still allowed to go, even though she didn’t work for it.

I would let this one go but I would absolutely not tolerate this behaviour in the future.
It would be a shame to miss out on a once in a lifetime experience like this.

I would ask Brown Owl to make a point about talking about how some of the other Brownies raised their funds, particularly the ones who worked together selling the books. Obviously she won’t mention your DD , but maybe it will reinforce the values of working together. I think it would be a shame to give up Brownies all together, she needs to have as many positive role models as possible to compensate for the negative influences of her fathers attitude.

Stop fighting your Ex. You can't control him and you can't control his parenting. The more you fight with him the more he will think he is controlling you.
Stop virtue signalling your good parenting. Just quietly get on with it.
Tell your daughter you don't like lies and the next time she says something is true just say you don't know if you can believe her as she lied about weeding her Dad's garden. The penny will drop with her eventually.

I've come back to this thread as I've been thinking about it a lot.

I'm quite surprised how strongly people feel about this and am really taken aback by the amount of posters saying to pull your dd out of Brownies over it.

The thing is - What is it that people object to?

If the money is there, and it's within the family budget why can't she just have it?

I 100% agree that she shouldn't be being rude to you. She shouldn't be treating you badly for any reason, and I 100% wouldn't be accepting rudeness

Would you be against her not fundraising if she was paying for it another way? What about if she was paying for it out of birthday money, for instance?

With regard to the fundraising though, the fundraising is all a bit of an illusion, being facilitated by the grown ups. The adults would be supervising any dog walking / cat feeding / book sales. The books would be provided by an adult. The adults don't really need her to feed their cat or walk their dog.

Is it just that you want her to have to work to achieve something? (which is fair enough). In which case does she work for her pocket money? If so, surely she already has that feeling of having to work for something anyway? Does she get pocket money? If so, would you feel happier if she put some towards it?

The thing is adults have freedom to pay to get out of things they don't want to do. They cut corners - buy a takeaway instead of cooking, buy a costume for World Book Day instead of making one, hire a cleaner to do the housework etc. KIds don't really have that option. I did a book sale to raise money when I was about 10. I loved it. It made me feel grown up. Your dd didn't want to though.
Plenty of adults can't be bothered to sell stuff on, otherwise charity shops wouldn't be so full!

Everyone lies sometimes in life. No one is being hurt by the gardening lie. It's not like she's rubbing it in other children's faces that her dad just gave it to her.

I don't believe that people genuinely would pull their kids out of a club for this. I think if you did it would be a bit of a dramatic response. You could just talk to your daughter.

Also, don't leave it up to her dad to sort the holiday out. If he's likely to let her down it's just sitting back and waiting for your daughter to be hurt.

If I was Brown Owl I wouldn't want to be dragged into all this. I bet she just wanted to provide a nice trip without all this negativity attached to it.

The thing is - What is it that people object to?

Her absolutely appalling attitude. I would consider her quickly learning not to be that way far more important than her getting to go to this club.

Is tell her that she was asked to raise the money and hadn't done so. So therefore she can't go!

@IJemimaDigging An adult can cut corners by getting a takeaway, but if they said to someone "I will not be making my dinner tonight, you will be making it and I will eat it", they would be an absolute twat. That's the difference. She needs to learn that attitude is not on before it's too late.

This. I'd also be having words with her Dad about encouraging her to lie and cheat.

Also, don't leave it up to her dad to sort the holiday out. If he's likely to let her down it's just sitting back and waiting for your daughter to be hurt.
I think that there shouldn't be a dramatic "you're not going". There should be a Golden Bridge, a way for the DD to re-think and rescue the situation (there's a period of several weeks over which this can happen).
DD should be given two options. Do it mum's / the Brownie's way where we follow rules / instructions, where effort and teamwork is rewarded. Or do it dad's way, which probably won't happen so the DD learns that her dad is not reliable (she'll be hurt short-term but it will be good for her long-term).

@TheBrowniesFundraiserforHoliday her behaviour is only going to get worse. The smug gloating as though she got one over on you probably learned from her DD.

I'd contact the leader and tell them she isn't going on this trip and why. Ask them to back you up.

The trip falls on her DD's parental time so he can have her and plan activities for her since he thinks she is so funny.

Don't let her win this one.