I think I am in danger of being a toxic parent

[OrmIrian]

Not wishing to belittle the use of the word as I know many people use it here, but I can't think of any other way of putting it. I am a constant disappointment to my DD. I am so proud of her, anyone would be, she is intelligent, pretty, hard-working, popular and to everyone else she is kind and compassionate - just not to me. She is a perfectionist and I am not perfect. I am always too disorganised, I am never available for school trips or to help in class, she hates it that our lives are often a bit hectic. DH thinks I imagine it but he hasn't seen the way she looks at me sometimes. Our relationship has never been easy in the way it is with my sons.

We had an argument in the car on the way to her climbing club. She refused to talk to me when she got out and will probably still be sulking tonight. I cried on the way home I will apologise and she will grudgingly accept my apology but if I try to explain how she hurt me she will sulk some more.

I just know that in 9 years time she will out of the door so fast she'll leave scorch marks and never come home. I don't know what to do. I am like I am. I can't change to suit her. What can I do.

The roles are reversed in our household OrmI, I tend to be the authoritarian parent while my husband is (in my view) far, far too liberal which leads to tension the other way. Both of us need to come nearer to the middle. I couldn't agree more with you about listening and preparing to be flexible and it's something I'm trying to improve upon.

Also, the serjeant major school of parenting simply isn't effective without a huge foundation of love and the "connection" which FindTheRiver refers to.

I feel most stressed and as if things are out of control with my dd when resentment has built up because I've been too strict.

It's a trivial example but in potentially tricky situations, say when you want to extract them quickly from a huge soft play area and they don't want to come, it's the underlying connection that makes them come to you rather than your authority (if that makes any sense at all).

It makes perfect sense counting. Don't get me wrong, I can bark at my DCs with the best of them, but it normally tends to be at times of stress (ie when time is of the essence such as school time in the mornings), rather than at other times when it might be convenient to me for them to jump to it rather than essential iyswim.

I feel my DH is selling out. It's a big bone of contention for us.

river - that is exactly it! They are children for 18 years tops. Who the f* are we to treat them like little robots whilst they are in our care? What matters is the end result.

findtheriver, that was a truly excellent post and I agree with every word!

Sounds like we should swap dh's for a while OrmI.

Agree with both of you that it is the end result and our relationship with our child that matters most in all of this.

In the meantime then it's back to the endless negotiating (groan) and the suppression of shouty mummy moments

being nice to your kids and treating them like people all the time is great ideally.

but if your begging for her acceptance even if this is unspoken - she knows.

sometimes reinforcing that i am the parent and you are the child is a good idea. Yes god dammit - i am the boss. the reason i can't go to these things isn't becuase i dont' love you and don't want to be there - but i can't - get over it - i have commitments.

she will sense your desperation to be liked by her.

there can be a mix of both approaches mentioned - most of the time we can dance amongst daisies and listen to simon and garfunkle whilst wearing long dresses and ask each other nicely if they would be so kind as to do things for us, and have discussions about responsabilities

sometimes you have to don hard hat and body armour and say "cos i bloody well said so ok?!"

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but why are you looking to a nine year old little girl for approval?

Have only skimmed thread, so apologies if this has been raised already - but she is too young to bear the burden of your feelings. She's not responsible for you. You can't make her care by being sad, and you can't make her react like an adult by reacting like a little girl yourself. You will both get locked into sulking and crying - and she will never get told that her behavior is unacceptable, end of.

She isn't your slave, no, but you are NOT HER slave either. You are not obliged to bow and scrape because she was late for climbing club - you were actually doing her a favour by taking her at all. Clubs like that are treats, not basic human rights, she treated you very badly about it, behaved like a brat, and yet you are the one who feels bad! Why?

As you said yourself, they are children for 18 years - why do you expect her to have full empathy, compassion and understanding at nine? There are children who still believe in FAther Christmas at nine! She doesn't need to have sulky behavior and cold shoulder giving behavior indulged - she needs to be told to stop being rude to someone who is doing her a favour.

Yes. I did some of that this morning re school - 'cos I bloody well said so' I mean. It has it's place. In fact I have no problem with this with the boys, just not DD. If I am a bit irritable with them they tend to strop a bit, then get on with it and it's all over with. If I do that with DD she acts as if I've slapped her and sulks. It's horrible. Which is where the 'toxic parent' thing came from in the first place - it seems as if whatever I do I'm damned.

But this weekend was good. We got on well and it was so easy.

Ah well I suspect I overreacted a bit. And no what you describe is not what I meant by master and slave parenting either. Your original tone struck me as a bit 'get a grip woman FFS!' which it probably wasn't meant to be.