Husband getting stricter with 9 year old daughter

[Becktoria]

Hi, this is my first ever post!

We live in Germany and my husband is German. He can be quite controlling and was brought up by a very controlling father. Our daughter is 9 and a pretty good girl. We rarely have any dramas with her, she's honest and kind.

I'll start by saying he does a lot of really great things with her: building a tree house with her, cooks with her, takes her swimming, takes her to football etc... But recently he's become more dominant and disciplinary with her. He refers to 'bloody hippy parenting' a lot and critisises how soft I am with her. She has trouble sleeping alone and has some anxieties about doors being closed and thinking there's people in her room. So I sleep with her (don't judge me!). He calls her weak and has no empathy for her fears, he thinks she needs toughening up. He's getting more strict at dinner times (pulling her elbow up every time it rests on the table for example).
Just now, he closed the bathroom door while she was in the bath because she's listening to an audio book in there (he found it too loud). He was on his way out anyway, the noise didn't bother me. She opened it again and said she didn't like the door being closed. I told him he should respect that and as he's going out anyway why should it bother him that the bathroom door is open. He went out of the flat mumbling 'it's always what she wants...'. He does this a lot. He could've asked if he could close the door because it was too loud, but no.
Am I being an unreasonably soft hippy parent? Is he being reasonable to make it clear there's a hierarchy in the family?
I worry that he's going to be like his dad was to him when he was a teenager. My husband has told me that as soon as he started having his own opinions, their relationship broke down because his dad lost his power. I feel history is starting to repeat itself and I don't think he can see it.
Thanks for listening!

It's pretty normal, if regrettable, for fathers to get strict with daughters at this age. They're not their little girl anymore and the DF can feel like they are losing control.

This does not excuse his behaviour btw.

Could you sit and talk to him without your DD?

Ask him how he feels about you sleeping with your DD. If you are going to bed at the same time as she is, could he feel like he's missing time with you?

Yes, I think there's resentment because of me not sleeping in bed with him, but I don't go to bed at the same time as her - we still spend evenings together and he's even said he sleeps better without me because I get up in the night. We're still close in other ways.

I think you've hit the nail on the head about him fearing her growing up and him losing control. I can talk to him alone and have done in the past. He's usually defensive but also sometimes admits to being too heavy handed and says he'll stop. My worry is it's learned behaviour from his dad, and I'd hate that! It's why his parents split up in the end.

I'd just keep reassuring him that although she's growing up, she still loves him and needs him and make sure you point out how you would love them to be close and how his behaviour could lead to her pushing him away.

As for sleeping with your DD. Are you working on getting her to sleep alone? If she's anxious, are you both working on her anxiety?

9 is very old to need someone to sleep with her. Are you working on this? It seems to me like you are babying her and I can see where your dh is coming from.

He sounds horrible. She's clearly going through something if she's unable to have doors open and is worried about people in her room and your DH is calling her weak. She's 9 ffs.

pulling her elbow up every time it rests on the table

At the age of 9, a girl should be having the bathroom door closed while carrying out personal care. I would be concerned over co-sleeping at the age of 9. Sorry but the picture you have painted of DD reflects a 5 year old. I don't think your husband is the issue.

Sorry but I think it's entirely likely he's reacting to your extremely opposite parenting. Like he's over correcting?

Co-sleeping at 9 is far from normal, as is not liking doors closed etc.

Is it really her anxiety? Or is it yours and she's picking up on it?

Quite frankly I think some serious family therapy is in order.

Personally I don't think he's being particularly strict per se but calling her weak is out of order.

Teaching a child good manners is not strict, encouraging resilience and growing independence is not strict that's normal parenting.

Our job as parents is to eventually create strong, independent, self sufficient adults. It's only another 9 years until she is an adult. Unless your family issues are dealt with ASAP that's going to be difficult to achieve.

And I don't see what your husband being German has to do with anything. I've lived in Germany and had several German friends they differ as much as we do wrt to parenting strategies. Although smacking is illegal there.

Generally over there, poor behaviour of children is regarded as down to poor parenting more so than here in uk.

Thanks everyone for your advice. Yes, I think I am enabling her anxiety with sleep and I understand I need to stop that. We had a junkie shooting up in our stairwell, (in Berlin, that's inside the building that is part of your home, and in our area is pretty shocking) who she met while he was clearing up his blood and other stuff off the floor and it freaked her out. She goes to school and comes home alone and a lot of her anxiety started then (she still goes to school alone, but won't come home unless one of us is already at home).

DH makes fun of her for being a 'baby', imitates her and makes sarcastic comments about her weaknesses.

I hear you, that he is over-compensating/reacting to my over parenting, but his style is damaging her self esteem. It's a chicken and egg situation that we need to talk about. Name calling and sarcasm isn't a way to address a kid's fears. He refers to her as a psycho when we talk about her on our own, and that breaks my heart. It's sounds so hateful. I wouldn't call my best friend a psycho, let alone my child!

So, thanks for calling me the issue, that's very helpful ;).

I take full responsibility for the co-sleeping thing, I'm working on that, but if she really doesn't want the bathroom door closed while she's in the bath (we don't go in, and we always tell her it's her body, her choice - she's reassured by the noises of us in the kitchen) then I respect that.

I appreciate the balanced responses and I do realise that we as a couple have to work on her anxieties in a unified way and meet each other in the middle somehow.

I am not sure he has done much wrong tbh. If she is struggling with anxiety enabling it doesn’t help. You need to work with her on strategies to help.

But she needs to sleep alone. If she can fall asleep alone then why are you going straight in to sleep with her?

No elbows on the table is basic table manners.

If she is listening to music loud she needs to respect others in the house and shut doors. Not everyone will want to listen to her music and basic respect for others in the house is important

Just to add. She's happily walked to school alone and to friends' flats since she was seven, which shows independence. Her and her friends set up their own flea markets in the park nearby, alone without parents and have done for the last couple of years. She is also class representative for her school council, so I don't want to paint a picture of a scared little mouse :) There's a lot of things she's very confident about.

After talking to a lot of other parents, it seems in our circle of friends the majority of kids sleep either in their parents beds (at least, coming in halfway through the night) or with their siblings, so up until now I hadn't really seen it as too much of an issue.

Sirzy, she wasn't listening to music loudly. It was an audio book and it wasn't loud at all. My point was, he was going out anyway and he just slammed the door shut without saying anything. You don't think imitating and making fun a child is wrong? Remember how Donald Trump made fun of the disable guy? It's like that.

I don’t think he’s doing anything wrong. Sleeping with a nine year old isn’t normal and needs to be discouraged. Similarly closing the bathroom door when she’s in there should be the norm and I think he was right to close it. What if a male friend or relative had called round while she was in the bath? Who would be at fault then if he’d seen her naked? And presumably if she’s even too scared to sleep alone then being naked would be an issue for her as well yet it isn’t?

You are enabling this behaviour with your pandering approach, and elbows on the table at mealtimes is simple table manners which she needs to have been taught from the earliest age.

I’d expect this kind of behaviour from a three year old not a nine year old, and if you don’t do something about it then she’s going to really struggle as she gets older, and you’re setting her up for potential bullying by her peers

FWIW I didn’t like sleeping alone as a child and had an over-active imagination. And part of the not being able to sleep alone IMO had to do with the fact I went to boarding school and always slept in with others in shared rooms, so when I had to sleep alone I hated it so I put the radio on. By continually sleeping with her you are encouraging the notion that it’s ok to not want to sleep alone.

Also, I used to be afraid of films and scary programmes etc. Entirely irrationally. Then one day my dad told me that if I was going to let my imagination run riot over this stuff he would simply prevent me from watching it. He never did and I grew out of it, but pandering would have simply made it worse.

I do believe that in this country we give in far too readily to this kind of thing, and a lot of what is a normal fear growing up we escalate into anxiety through our own approach towards it.

Your DD needs to be sleeping in her own room, alone, at nine. And she needs to have the bathroom door closed and the audio on at a decent volume which doesn’t disrupt the entire household. And bathing with the door shut needs to be non negotiable. It has nothing to do with her body her choice.

"but his style is damaging her self esteem" so is yours!

Neither extreme is healthy.

His style is damaging by mocking and deriding her

Your style is damaging by pandering and not helping her build resilience.

"the majority of kids sleep either in their parents beds (at least, coming in halfway through the night) or with their siblings," every night? In the same bed as siblings? I find that very hard to believe.

And actually your comments about her independence outside the home strongly suggests to me that it's your anxieties she's picking up on or playing on at home.

Stop putting all the blame on your dh you are half responsible here. I genuinely don't believe you will be able to deal with this without professional input.

You seem to basically have her ruling the roost. He wants her to learn that isn’t the case. The ideal is somewhere between the two probably.

Music or audio book she needs to learn if she wants to listen to them she needs to respect others in the house!

It sounds as if you and your DH have cultural differences in your parenting styles and that these are polarising as your DD gets older. The two of you need to sit down and work out a compromise in your parenting standards.

FWIW, you really should be sleeping with your DH and not with your DD. And your DH is quite right to insist on table manners with a 9 year old.

It sounds as if they have unintentionally been set up to compete against each other for your attention. It all sounds a bit intense with just the 3 of you in the home.

I think you could do with some family therapy to unpick it all. Otherwise you run the risk of having history repeat itself with your DH and your child - but also of you going to the other extreme and exacerbating any anxieties your DD may have. Of course you don’t intend this, but it seems an unhealthy dynamic has built up.

You have clearly not babied her or held her back if she has been more independent in the past. You're supporting her in response to her anxiety issues.

You don't manage children's anxiety and build their resilience by forcing them into situations that they are frightened of. That just causes and compounds trauma.

You need to support her, while also possibly accessing therapeutic interventions, so that her anxiety reduces and she feels able to drive her own return to independence. Encouraging that is fine. Forcing it is not.

All the things your DH is doing will increase her anxiety and her dependence on you. If he carries on, she may start being unable to go to sleep at bedtime or go to school. Of course, he will then blame you for enabling her anxiety, not himself for exacerbating it.

It is perfectly fine for a nine year old to bathe with the door open. If he didn't like the sound of the audiobook, he should have spoken to her calmly and agreed with her how that could be managed. It sounds more like he just wanted an excuse to shut the door and took it. That will possibly make her more anxious about the door being shut next time she bathes so he's made the situation worse, not better.

She will be painfully aware of his passive aggressive muttering and that will increase her anxiety too.

If he can't see why his behaviour is likely to make her anxiety worse, maybe now is the time to get some professional input. No idea what the system is in Germany but I assume children can access CBT or similar.

I think parenting in Germany is very different (in general) to the uk and I've only been a parent in Germany (with a small break in England when she was 2) so my influences come from here.

I can honestly tell you that all of the parents I've spoken to, all of them bar 2 said their children don't sleep the whole night alone. Every night.

Also, in Germany it's quite normal for children to be naked in situations where they might not be in England. They have a very open attitude to nakedness here - so no, being naked and scared of junkies breaking into the flat are not interlinked!! I don't understand your point there.
Of course, I would've shut the door if we'd had a visitor! jeez.

For the umpteenth time - I take responsibility for my part in this!!
thanks for the balanced answers. :)

I'm not disagreeing with any of that. My point is how he deals with it. It's the way he conveys it to her that I don't like. with name calling, sarcasm and passive aggressive remarks under his breath.
I understand and agree with all of your points, and we're big on table manners. She doesn't talk with her mouth open, she makes no lip smacking noises, she even uses a knife and fork ;) she waits til we've all finished before she asks to get down...! It's not actually her elbow that's on the table, it's her wrist resting against the table.
Also, she was in the bath, not having a crap!!! She shuts the door then. And once again the audio book was quieter than a spoken voice, with no music.
Anyway, I get what I need to do now. cheers.

*eat with her mouth full I meant - obvs.

I don't agree with the way he's going about it but I do agree with some of his concerns. She is ruling the roost and you are enabling that.

You need to work together on your DD's anxiety and realise that you are a team with differing approaches but that you should find a way to compliment one another.

I think he sounds like a prick - taking the piss out of his daughter and wife. Dickhead. I wouldn't want to share a bed with him either 🤷‍♀️

She, however, sounds like a normal 9 year old girl. I'd be freaked out finding someone shooting up in my home area, and would need some support from my family. It's a shame she's not getting any from her Dad, but it's good that she's got you Becktoria to help her feel secure.

Inthink there are two issues here. One is the things your DD is doing and the other is how he is dealing with it. I agree that her sleeping with you, the bathroom stuff at needs to be addressed but he needs to do it in a civilised way without the sarcasm and mutterings.

And actually bathing with the floor open is not at all sensible as the steam will be damaging the decor in other areas of the flat.

I am also in Germany with a German dp. we have a 5 year old. he is the stricter parent, I often tell her "do you want me to get daddy to tell you" as a threat but he has the happy medium, yours does sound OTT. your area sounds abit grim but there's nothing you can do about that.