Child wants to go to dad's when she's not happy with me

[purpleme12]

Occasionally she'll say she wants to go her dad's when she's not scheduled to go. If we're not doing anything I'll let her text him. Invariably he can't have her for whatever reason.

HOWEVER the reason for this post is whenever she's not happy with something I've said or done or not allowed her to do etc etc (you get the idea) and she's unhappy with me and in a state the outcome is always 'i want to go to daddy's' (meaning today)
Or 'i want to go to daddy's this weekend'

But it's because she's not happy with me doing normal parenty stuff so off to daddy's she goes (or that's what she thinks in her head)
I haven't actually said yes to these times.
But do other people's children do this? What do you say?

She is 10

She is 10

Imo don't give her the go ahead to play you off against each other... Your relationship won't grow if you don't find ways to get along!! She's 10. She doesn't call the shots.

I was thinking it was a way of playing us off against each other and I have said no in these situations. Sometimes you doubt yourself and wonder if that's right but perhaps I am doing the right thing

I'd definitely nip this in the bud now, otherwise there's a risk that it'll get worse as she gets older and has access to a phone.

My 3DCs never asked to go their dad's when I did normal parenting stuff when they were younger as he lived so far away. But as soon as they had phones, they'd text their dad every time they disagreed with one of my parenting decisions and then I'd get crappy texts/calls from the ExH which totally undermined my parenting.

"Yes darling you going to daddy on Saturday. Now stack the dishwasher " no fuss no drama

Thanks

Needed to hear i was doing the right thing

Unfortunately I doubt it will stop though even if I do keep saying no

Thanks, will carry on doing this

I think you can empathize with her, name the emotion and desire, but still hold firm.

”It must seem hard to have chore/experience/strong feeling today but these things don’t go away just because you go away. No matter what we do our homework/chore/see friends/have arguments. We solve problems together in this house. “

Not quite the same as we're still together but when the girls were little if one if us said no they'd go to the other. We knew what was going in and usually when they asked first question would be have you already asked mum/dad? We backed each other up even if we disagreed, we'd discuss it later ourselves.

It's really hard to remember to say things like this in the moment!

Yeah! I hear you. When I was on training working with young kids in a school one of them really upset me by (absurdly) accusing me of cheating in some game we were playing. I was, oddly, really hurt snd enraged by this. I mean the kid was probably 7 years old. How big a deal was this insult? But I was really (quietly) upset. My preceptor worked with me to drill down and realize that his words had hurt me right down where I live. Precisely because I am a good person in a helping profession my ego was involved and I felt misunderstood and even betrayed/shamed by his accusation.

Its terribly hurtful to feel like all the love and care you give your daughter every day, and with every breath, is somehow unseen znd unvalued by her. But her words are just words. She doesn’t really mean them. She can’t even imagine a world without you and your befrock love for her. She’s just flailing around.

Take a deep breath and practice letting go of the hurt her words are causing you. You are the one constant, bright, star in her life. She loves and needs you even if she pretends she doesn’t.

Ah I think she means she wants to go see her dad 😂

I'm not so much hurt by this. But she's not an easy child to deal with sometimes and needed to check I was doing the right thing and/or if other children do this