To not want to punish DD during my custody time?

[MummaDelly]

Ex and I have been separated 3 years, DD is just about to turn 7. Custody is 50:50.

DD is overall a lovely child, always great school reports, great feedback from friends families and after school clubs etc. She likes rules and routines and tends to question things and wants to learn and understand.

For me she is great, obviously has the odd issue but doesn’t really tantrum. Can usually talk it through and she listens to reason. I have a chore chart and behaviour chart for her which she loves.

Recently my ex has reported DD has been naughty for him, will talk back or completley
ignore him sometimes. I spoke to her about this and she didn’t really have an answer for why she behaved like that and denied some of his claims. I know how he parents and it is different to me, he changes his mind a lot and on one day a certain behaviour will be funny to him but the next he gets frustrated by it. He will have loads of patience and ask multiple times for her to tidy her room but get annoyed if she leaves her shoes beside the shoe rack.

I offered to chat over the phone about how we can handle this together which he didn’t really seem keen on, I sent him photos of our chore charts etc and offered to print the same for him. I also said we could chat to DD together but again he didn’t really jump at this idea. I think he is a bit defensive of his parenting.

This weekend he had her the whole time and called my on Sunday to say that he had missed his mums birthday thing because DD had refused to get dressed out of her PJs, so they had to stay at home because “I’m not going to wrestle her into clothes, she’s not a baby”…

Next weekend I have plans with my friends, their children and my DD and exH said he had told DD she wasn’t going to go. I said to him that it’s not reasonable to punish her a week later and that I’ve already bought tickets etc and that I hadn’t experienced any of this bad behaviour. He also said that he is not going to renew her gymnastics club for after Easter if she doesn’t start behaving better but that seems really severe to me.

I don’t know how to help or advise him. Maybe I do need to be stricter…? It’s hard because I don’t see this bad behaviour

I agree with you OP.
I find it really strange that adults with a fully formed brain expect young children (nit fully formed) to behave in the manner the adukt would with their understanding of situations and reasoning.
I taught infants /early years for 15 yrs. Children were iften upset, distressed by things that, as adults, we know are really non issues.
Ie forgotten packed lunch, forgotten fancy dress, non uniform £1 donations, returning signature slips, pe kit etc. Children can be very upset by it even though we know its easily sorted, that doesn't matter to them.

I would have accepted the responsibility, recognised that DD was very upset and before going in I would have reassured her that we would speak yo the party girls parent to explain, apologise and make promise to send it to school next week.

Exactly, to think that through the whole party she didn’t cheer up, screams more of attention seeking than of feeling sad for someone else.

Good point about sport. I would say this to him op. Girls especially drop out of sport when they get to secondary. He really should be encouraging a lifelong love of sport. It is so important for mental and physical health. You aren’t bringing up a child, you’re bringing up a future adult.

He had said they’d give the present at school. He needs to chill out abit but I’ve also worked with kids this age and they aren’t upset for an hour over such things and isn’t 6 the perfect age to teach them that their behaviour needs to be controlled

I agree with those who say you are pandering to her super sensitive feelings too much. What about her Grandma’s feelings when her son and granddaughter didn’t show up cos she was having a tantrum? What about the birthday girl’s feeling while your daughter spent the party crying and moping?

I think you’re giving her too much power tbh.

You need to stop stepping in. Use a parenting app for essential communication and don't give him advice.

I think he sounds too demanding with no ideas and you sound too wishy washy.

Party, if she had of been sulking in the car, I would have given dd the option cheer up or go home. If it was go home I’d have text the parent and apologised for us being absent with the present being at school Monday.

Clothes again. It would have been fine go in your pjs and loaded her into the car. When she then sulked the other end I would have offered her the bag of clothes to get dressed or she could just sit there. Her problem, her choice.

She seems to rules the roost but in different ways in both houses. In yours she gets her own way after lots of compromise and chatting and in his she just ruins the event be that her own friends or her grannies, because dad just gives up.

I don’t understand some of the harsh comments about a 7yo and how she should always behave perfectly and control her emotions at this age — she’s still very young and her feelings are volatile. OP, you’re a great mother

No ridiculous at all. The OP said he told her she was 'silly' and dragged her into the party crying. That tells me a lot about his parenting. He clearly didn't say 'I'm sorry for forgetting the present' and instead tried to deal with it by blustering and scolding. He'd also told her he'd give her the present to take to school but that doesn't deal with the present situation - it's in the future, which isn't a concept small children always understand terribly well. The idea of her 'sulking' after all that doesn't really make sense. It's far more likely she was just upset. Of course, everyone parents differently, but this looks like quite a cut-and-dried case of poor parenting to me.

I think 50:50 is really hard for small children, especially when parenting styles are so different. It must be very confusing and unsettling. Add to that the time she spends in the care of grandparents (which is fine), it must be difficult.

Classic Mumsnet. People on here can't wait to call young kids 'spoiled brats'. There's quite a few on here who seem to yearn for those good old Victorian times where kids had to be 'seen and not heard' and were regularly beaten.

You daughter sounds very much like my son. And you do seem like you give her a lot of power.
in the situation with the clothes I would have with can wear this outfit or this outfit. No other options, no options of travelling in pj’s. Their brains get too over whelmed when presented with too many choices:

indont agree that you ex should ban her from activities you have planned but if she plays up for him like this all the time then yes I would agree he shouldn’t do gymnastics for her. She knows how to behave she does at yours so she is being purposefully naughty for him

Yep, I agree. I think the mom is confusing being sensitive to being empathetic. She’s 6 she’s not capable of being completely sensitive to others. She’s only sensitive to herself. She may know that compromise in games is good & gets a positive reaction from her peers (very astute for her age) she may know asking if someone’s ok when they’re not is the done thing but the likelihood she could properly empathise is unlikely, she sounds like a clever girl that has her mom down to a T, her dad isn’t as easily manipulated. They’re both guilty of over estimating a 6 yo intentions.

You probably need to ask her very specifically what she wore for bed & what she got dressed into. The difference between PJs that are essentially a t-shirt & legging and ‘day clothes’ can be very subtle. Especially if, like my DD, she sometimes wears ordinary t-shirts to bed.

Either way, ex can’t decide that you waste tickets you’ve bought & let down another family. If he agrees to sit down & discuss parenting strategies then you might in future decide that a ‘no screen time’ punishment is appropriate to carry over from one house to the other.

It may also be worth considering whether 50:50 is the best option for DD as she gets older.

People in their majority haven’t called her any names. They’ve pointed out mom is soft dad is strict.

This is the problem with seeing things very black and white. You dont know and neither does OP if he did apologise or explain, just that she was upset and he said she was silly. Well at points perhaps she was silly, children do benefit from being told that sometimes they overract, thats ok

He isnt perfect I'll bet, neither is OP and these polarised positions and advice wont help either. I said upthread they need to do parenting programmes together and then review each session to say 'how do we apply this to x' and have consistent ground rules and expectations for her.

I don't think she's a spoiled brat but it does sound like Mum is from the school of thought where every emotion must be prioritised and validated and Dad is from the school of thought where emotions are to be squashed immediately and obedience is key.

There's a middle ground, where children have space to express their emotions but those emotions are not allowed to hold everyone else hostage, and it certainly doesn't require beating them.

Inconsistent parenting is a prime cause of difficult behaviour ... I worked for CAMHS and this was the thing that shone out.
If there is any chance you can get your ex to sit down privately with you and come to some sort of consensus about discipline and sanctions? ... it will benefit everyone in the long term.

He missed his mother's birthday because he couldn't get his child out of the house in appropriate clothing???

😆

You mention a few things @MummaDelly that indicate your child may not be as easy going and as well behaved as you like to think?

Chore chart / behaviour chart indicate (to me at least) that there is some level of conflict on a regular basis for these to be required? I've luckily I guess never needed them with any of mine. They feel to me like a tool used to manage more tricky situations around behaviour?

As others have pointed out you seem to be on the softer side and whilst that works in your household, when she is in another household 50% of the time she needs to understand that there are different rules (or ideally the rules in both households need to align more)

I have 3 DC, all different personalities and aged almost 7 all of them would have understood needing to dress to go to granny's house or giving the forgotten present at a later date - even my youngest who had SEN would be okay in these situations.

I don't think it's fair to sanction your DD on your time but I think looking at the subtext your parenting isn't aligning with the way your Ex parents. Yes you'd prefer him to parent more like you but I don't think there is much wrong with expecting a nearly 7yo to get dressed when asked (or to understand the party / forgotten gift incident) so maybe you need to consider aligning a tiny bit more to your Ex's way?

There are conversations to be had here for sure but I don't think it's just for your Ex to acquiesce.

Sorry but I would never embarrass myself enough to take my child out to a meal in PJs because they are being stroppy and didn't want to get dressed. You sound way to soft and indulgent.
She's being naughty, he doesn't need to compromise on this, she was asked to get dressed and she refused. He missed an important event as he didn't want to take his child out looking a state in her PJS.

She's naughty and it sounds like you give in a lot.

Consequences need to be there in the moment and directly related to the incident not a week later, whether it’s on your time or his

an appropriate response would have been to take a toy or something off her that day, not stopping her going to something next week and a sports class next term

bonkers

like a 7 year old will remember she can’t go gymnastics because she wasn’t well behaved 7 weeks ago

I can totally relate.
My dp's parenting style couldn't be any further apart from mine. My DD is a very strong willed, fantastic little girl with many great qualities but she is also emotionally immature, and very much a perfectionist and people pleaser.
My dp is harsh, very shouty and basically thinks she should have no opinion and do what he says when he says it. I am too soft because for years i try to make up for his harshness by being too kind and i know neither of our parenting styles are what is best but i do know that his parenting is not the right way.
Dd is an absolute angel in school (teachers words not mine) and i don't struggle with her day to day, but i do think she holds alot of emotion in at school as she doesn't like to be told off or get things wrong and she often comes home and is very cheeky, forgets manners and is rude or appears to be very moody and i think this is because when she gets home she can let these emotions out. I don't allow her to be rude etc so she will be called out on this but i do it sensitively and we talk about it and she will apologise whereas my dp would just shout, tell her to not be rude, cheeky etc, she would cry and then be told to stop crying etc and it will escalate.
My dp also will not be consistent, if she does something she perhaps shouldn't but he finds funny he might laugh and not tell her off but then when she does it again he will go nuts and shout.

There's plenty more examples but i wont go on.

With your situation with your ex, i absolutely wouldn't go along with his punishment when she is on your time, i understand the need to not confuse her with different parenting styles but especially when you are not together he can't dictate plans you have made when as you say you haven't even seen the behaviours that he thinks are deserving of this punishment. He has to find ways to give out consequences that don't impact your plans.

I'm guessing as a male he didn't want to physically take her pjs off her or be embarrassed enough to take her out in her PJS!

In what insane universe should a biological father feel physically unable to change the PJs of his own daughter?!! (And she's 7, not 16)

Unless you're insinuating something far more disturbing.