Parenting courses for separated parents with different parenting styles

[WhatHeSaid33]

Just that really. My ex is basically parenting how he was - authoritarian and it basically equates to emotional abuse, not just in my opinion, but held to parenting standards today. I’ve always read up on the latest, I guess respectful and connected ways to parent which seems to work well with DD. But he hates it, because when he does something like calls her a baby for crying or won’t apologise for getting angry etc, she says she’ll tell mummy - because it’s so out of the realms of what I’d do I guess. She’s becoming disregulated, he sends me abusive messages blaming me for her behaviour yet won’t look at how he’s directly impacting that!

He thinks we can just each parent our own way. But that’s got to be hugely damaging to DD??

I am actually really worried about her. She’s only 5 and such a good kid… she’s sensitive and is now easy to anger, cry and go hyper. Please help!

Have a vague plan of getting him to do a parenting course, which I’ll do too - but he’s honestly too arrogant to agree I think. I’m shocked as so many people we know with teenage girls has had problems - often extreme and tragic, so surely he should be doing everything he can to prevent that?

I'm sorry I don't have any advice as I've never done a parenting course, but I do co-parent and can sympathise with your situation. FWIW the only thing that helped with these differences in parenting for us is time. My children have got used to how things are at different houses and around both parents. I hated it all at first because we are so different. I asked the health visitor for advice and she just said" you can't control what happens in someone else's house, this is going to be hard for you". I had to just accept it. I'm still not happy with some rules being different but my children don't mind. I think they speak to me more about things because my reaction is different, but there are things they don't like so much about my house such as more vegetables in meals. It's been 10 years now and they're happy and doing well. Even if they get paid to do chores at mine and at their dad's they don't, for example. They still do them there, just with less complaining at me. He never tells me not to pay them 25p for sweeping the floors and I don't tell him to pay them for jobs or do it himself. It just works somehow. I am not trying to dismiss your concerns at all... I've just had dealings with someone similar and IMO the only thing you can do is compromise. It hurts so much that I can't raise my children the way I always envisioned and dreamed but I accept it now.