To feel so sad at how busy my step-daughters life is

[Justgivetea]

Hi,

Some context, my step-daughter is 10, she's in Y6. Her mum passed away when she was 6, I've been in her life for 2 years now. I have a son of my own who is 11.

My SD is a darling of a girl, she's smart and hardworking and never seems to cause an issue. Her dad (my partner) claims his parenting method is "high expectation, high reward". But honestly the poor girl never stops!!
She attends a private prep school, dropped off to breakfast club at 7.30, picked up by her grandma at 3.45. Then a club every night of the week, 2 days tennis, 2 days ballet, 1 day piano. No weekday play dates, just school, homework, dinner and clubs.
On Saturday she attends a Saturday school (her dad is French), 8.30-1. This is basically just French classes as far as I know. Then picked up packed lunch in the car, straight to tennis for 1-2 hours.
Sunday she doesn't have any official hobbies planned in but this is the only day she can do play dates/go to parties, ride her bike round the park - you know - be a child.
This summer she will finish school on Friday the 5th of July (prep schools and ridiculously early finishes). Go to Wimbledon with her dad on the Saturday (so long day). Fly to France as an unaccompanied minor with a chaperone on the Sunday morning, be picked up by some coach from a tennis school, spend two weeks there, playing tennis for several hours a day for 6 days. Then at the end will be picked up by her French grandparents, spend a week with them, go on holiday with her dad for two weeks (and my son and I this year), back to the UK to spend a week with her mums parents, then oh yes back to France for two more weeks of tennis! She will get back on the Sunday and have one day left before it's her first day at senior school!
She never grumbles about any of it and she does enjoy tennis (she did 2, 1 week camps last year) but when she got back all her dad could tell me was she seemed tired - so obviously that means the next year you book double right?!
I feel so sad for her, summer holidays should be play dates with friends, paddling pool in the garden, bike to the park etc. I feel she has no childhood and it seems exhausting.

We agreed not to comment on the others parenting but I find it so hard to seem this little girl be dragged around to all these activities all the time. I often wonder if the reason she never misbehaves is because she always too tired to! And if her room is never messy as she is never allowed to be in it!!

AIBU to think this is a really sad childhood?

YABU with the French. English is rather simple from grammar point of view, but in other languages learning continues beyond 10yo.

Otherwise I am on the edge. It looks he really doesn't spend much time with his daughter, that he is kind of mimicking a boarding school setup (for himself) with the help of family and activities.
I suppose if she has good relationship with her grandparents, it can be quite fine altogether.

Absolutely this!!!

Yeah he sounds a terrible dad alright, wanting his daughter to have the best experiences, ensuring she has time and significant relationships with her extended family, providing an education for her and holidays/camps. Terrible parenting.

As you are monolingual and have not tried to raise a bilingual child, here you do not know what you're talking about. As pp said, do English kids stop leaning English at 10yo because they can speak?
It is really great he is putting so much effort into this, being fully bilingual will be amazing for her in the future.

OP I know quite a lot of prep school DC, and this is normal for them, as other posters say. I have one DC who also likes to keep herself very busy.

I don’t think that means its always right, and I’m interested that these posters seem to feel any questioning of this as a way of life is due to ‘jealousy’. I think it’s more that this suits some children, but not all. And I do think there are some DC forced into a level of busyness that is more than they would choose, because their parents feel this is the right way to be, and in the hope that it’ll allow them to do well at the 11+ with music/sports/academic scholarships. Only you know if that’s true for your step daughter.

As I said before, to me her usual week seems OK, but the long summer without much contact with her dad would not suit most children I know. Grandparents are lovely, but (especially if she sees the French ones relatively rarely, unlike the ones in London) the emotional support she will get from them just isn’t the same as from an engaged parent. And I would not have sent a 10yo to a residential camp for a week or more, neither of mine were ready for that emotionally, however much they enjoyed the activities.

My comments wouldnt be any different whether this child went to private school or not though.

Exactly. It’s very very hard to raise bilingual kids in the UK (I am trying myself) and most of my friends kids and mine start preferring the majority language soon and will answer back in English from age 4/5. To be truly bilingual is amazing and it sounds like her dad is putting a lot of effort in. It’s not rude to speak your mother tongue in front of others!
children do not learn a language properly if the parent is not consistent (and I am not to my shame) if dad switches back to English in front of others, it’s not consistent and won’t help her learn. Read up on OPOL.

It sounds like she's overscheduled to me. I get a pp's point about screens, but at the same time I have so many fond memories of reading and listening to music and daydreaming and just having time to let the day play out without stress in weekends/holidays when I was her age (pre-screens). I had one or two extracurricular activities, they were enough for me - I get that different things are right for different kids, but if a kid is excessively tired in their downtime I'd say they're doing too much. It isn't an either/or choice between screens and filling every moment with scheduled activities.

So many posts here about overweight children glued to phones, xbox and ipads, with no hobbies and bad mental health but this dad gets criticised 🤦🏻‍♀️

WTF?

I wanted to understand what he’s like as a person - how’s that digging?

You sound like a complete idiot.

As a British Asian, this is all quite normal. Downtime can be seen as time wasting. Not saying this is right or wrong. Your partner may be feeling a pressure as he is is the only parent his daughter has to make her the most perfect he can. He is raising his daughter without the mother to bounce ideas off

@Justgivetea it does sound a lot but I note Dad is French. In which case, the school system
is longer hours (0830-1630) with a short day Wednesday. So to him it’s more normal, even though she is schooled here. In fact my French friend’s school hours were something like 8-6 as I recall and the kids seemed mature and self-reliant. I am not saying it’s fine because I don’t know as I’m not seeing her every day but perhaps some of your discomfort is due to how different her experience is to yours. All you can really do is keep an eye, watch her for signs of needing a break and maybe suggest she gets a week of downtime in the next longer holidays. It sounds like you are very caring and you are right to check all’s well though. She’s also at that age where they are always on the go though!

I think it can be a cultural thing with your partner being french. French parents often send their children off to their grandparents for most of the summer holiday where they attend tennis and holiday activity camps. It really is not uncommon. I can imagine that both sets of GPs plus the father are trying to do the best for this little girl. Give her time with both grandparents and keep her busy so she isn't focussing too much on losing her mum. I think it is lovely that her father is still keeping his wife's parents so involved. It must be hard for them seeing another woman in their son in law's life. With all due respect, your relationship might not last with your partner so it is probably important for all concerned to keep things stable for her.

Also @Justgivetea re the bi-lingual bit, kids don’t think of things as separate languages really (not until they are older). It’s just more words for the same thing and so much easier to learn that way. I had a young woman working for me and one parent spoke exclusively to her in English and the other in Cantonese. Her spoken and written English is better than most native speakers and was a key factor in me employing her. She is very self assured and confident, I learned as much from her as she did for me. I wish my parents had pushed me harder to be honest!

Bilingual kids are often not good at the written/grammar side of the language. If your SDD is hoping to get a 9 in GCSE or have a chance of doing uni in France, the french classes are very important. It also links her in with other people in similar situations and likely has cultural links in terms of activities etc. That her dad is unlikely to be replicating at home.

She needs to learn to keep herself busy though. Not have it all planned for her. It's a really important life skill.

It sounds like a wonderful summer and one that I would have adored at her age.

No you sound like an idiot!

What relevance has your question about the child's routine. Its OP that has the problem, the child doesnt, the dad doesnt, the child's extended family dont, OP is posting because she feels that something that makes this kid happy is 'sad', and your response is to ask about what he is like as her partner?

Is this a joke? It's not a super childhood. It's micromanaged. She needs to know how to relax, how to engage and stimulate her own brain without formal planned activity - not instead of extra curricular, but as well as it.

I think it sounds good expect the people she is friends with are playing tennis too so she is with friends at activities rather than TV.
My children have activities every day but do a wide range of things I think this idea of tennis only seems easier.
Her life is very organised would be difficult to do that with multiple children expect it pretty stress free as always knows what happening next and not having to choose between different activities clashing.

I think the guy sounds like he's doing his best.

Losing her mum is always going to shape her life. If she was around I bet things would be different. But she isn't. And so maybe the schedule helps them both cope.

I don't think she is having her emotional needs met, but perhaps he can't fill that role. What he can do is give her a variety of experiences and other adults to illustrate what her life could be like as an adult.

There’s a massive teen rebellion on the horizon OP, brace yourself!!

Her weekly schedule doesn´t seem too bad to me (as long as she´s happy with it, which seems to be the case). Saturday is essentially a mix of school work and hobbies and Sunday she is free to do whatever she likes. That seems great, tbh!

And why should she have play dates on weekdays? She presumably sees her friends during ballet, breakfast club etc

I would encourage her father to keep an eye on whether that´s sustainable with the increased work load associated with senior school.

As for the summer holidays: Was it her suggestions to do 4 weeks of tennis camp (in total)? Or was it her father´s?
She does have four weeks of fairly unstructured time / tennis free time, which seems enough IF the 4 weeks of tennis are truly what she wants.

Sounds great to me. I had clubs after school every day, and really appreciated the chance to try loads of things. A few of these hobbies lasted in to adulthood. Other than school and clubs, I had a long commute to school so only had time for homework and dinner.

I rarely had play dates - firstly, my school friends were far away, secondly I'm very introverted and mostly didn't want them. I wanted to spend my spare time reading, drawing etc.

I would have been really bored just pottering about at home with no structure for more than a few days. And being tired isn't bad if you enjoyed the activities.

If it suits your SD and her Dad I don't think it's sad at all. I'd only think it's sad if she hates it all / Dad is doing it to avoid his daughter or something!

I don't believe that my daughters (who lost their dad young) would have thrived if they'd spent so little time with me after he died. But I guess the proof will be the girl's opinion when she reaches adulthood.

She's not learning how to cope with boredom or how to entertain herself is she? And how sustainable is it to be tired all the time?