How can I handle my seven-year-old's controlling behaviour when I go out?

[Controlledbychild]

I need some help with how controlling my 7y/o DD is being...

We have a great relationship, always been very close and I do my absolute best to do loads of lovely things for and with her. If I'm honest, she could be described as spoiled. She doesn't have attachment issues in that she'll happily skip off to nursery/a friend's/on a trip. The controlling behaviour arises when I try to go anywhere. I have to go away for work for less than 2 nights per month and there is a huge performance each time even though this has been happening for years. She will have to call me in tears and then berate me for having a 'stupid job' when I get home. I have never been away for a single night for pleasure - only work - in the last 7 years as a result. Recently I went out for friends for dinner straight after work and had to leave the restaurant to deal with a tearful phonecall asking me to come home (I didn't).

I am both the main breadwinner and the main carer. I do every wake up and bedtime and most school drop offs when I'm not away with work. She still insists that it's not enough - almost tells me I need to be some 50s housewife who does nothing but looks after my children.

I'm starting to get really resentful of her which I know is not a good dynamic and I don't want to impose concepts - such as control - on her that's she's too immature to really understand. Her younger siblings is super easy going and has no such issues.

Any idea of how to handle and what might be the cause?

Your husband has a sweet set up. You are main parent and main earner. He doesn’t even need to criticise to bring you down a peg or two, he’s trained your DD to do it for him.

You should engineer that you are in a place with no phone coverage.
Set up a letter writting station at home for her to draw or write to you about her problems that she can show you when you arrive home.

Absolutely you should. It seems to me a no-brainer. Start sharing care with your husband on a regular basis and make it plain that is how it is going to be.

Again, I overcompensate because there are nights/mornings when he has to sort them out alone and he finds it difficult.

The more he does it, the easier this will be for your husband.

I don't think being inaccessible is the answer. It's the husband who needs to be told "do not ring me unless it's an emergency".

Op will want to be accessible in case there is an emergency.

I agree with the letter writing station though, or the dd can do selfie video messages, but only if they are nice ones not guilt trippy ones.

OP it also seems like you think you aren’t meeting the correct expectations of motherhood - is it worth exploring why you feel so much guilt and feel it’s your job to do everything? In some ways it sounds like your daughter is projecting your own thoughts back onto you.

Op's kids are too old for this maybe but what we sometimes do is talk about what the other parent is doing in an exciting way. For example, Dad is speaking at a conference this evening, can you imagine him with his mumbling voice explaining stuff to all those people? Will he be shy?! And we make up exaggerated stories about what their day might look like.

(This all started because dc2 thought that "Mummy going to work on the train" meant I work ON a train and we spun a tale about a train that just goes round and round London while I sit on my laptop)

The kids need to be excited for you op, that's how they can reframe you being away. And it teaches empathy which sounds like both your H and your DD lack (not her fault)

This is absolutely the situation, summarised perfectly.

I'm really struggling to know what steps to take to reset it. Do I go slowly and gradually or do we sit down for a big talk and a reset?!

Maybe you need to spend some time thinking why you are feeling the way you are first so you can try and deal with the guilt?

does your DH expect you to be super mum? Do your own childhoods lead you to expect a certain way of parenting? Did you both grow up with very strong mother figures?

@Kingdomofsleep what absolute crap. Of course OP is a role in this behaviour. You agree/enable your husband to interact with you how you like. So has OP. She needs to firmly set her expectations to her family. If her husband calls, sure she can answer but no, she doesn’t need to calm the child/even speak to the child. And can tell the dh to stop phoning for nonsense like that. Family dynamics are that. Family. Derived from everyone’s behaviours. The only person I wouldn’t blame here is the child who is being supported/enabled/promoted to behave like this. Adults need to sort their behaviours out and tell the child her world is safe. Poor kid.

I had a career orientated mum who would never have dreamed of thinking she needed to do the school run. I wanted to be around a bit more.

DH's mum ruled the roost, was quite unpleasant and his dad is a doormat but his dad was the main provider.

So you are trying not to make your mums mistakes and he’s reliving his dads life!!

Her world is safe and she is loved. She spends loads of time with both of us, has a lovely house and private education. I am conscious of the unhealthy dynamic, don't want it to persist and am trying to change it. I don't think she's a 'poor child'. I'm fully aware that in trying to do the best for her, I have inadvertantly made things worse. You don't need to make me feel any more guilt.

Don’t feel guilty. We all do the best we can and sometimes we mess up - I’m sure your mum was doing the best she thought.

the thing here is that you’ve recognised it and you know where it’s going wrong - you came on here because you couldn’t see the wood for the trees but deep down you know what the answer is

Ignore that pp who seems needlessly angry.

The fault with this lies squarely with your H, as most comments on here agree. If I were you I'd sit him down and tell him, very strongly, about the psychological damage he is doing to your dd by making her so dependent on you, and by encouraging her to see it as some kind of punishment every time you go away.

They both need to practise empathy for you. What do you think Mummy is doing today? I wonder how she feels about that speech she's giving? Do you think that she'll get to have lunch with her nice colleague? Let's text her a selfie to brighten her day etc

If her husband calls, sure she can answer but no, she doesn’t need to calm the child/even speak to the child.

I just can't understand how this has been written by a mother. I need to stop getting drawn in by this commenter but this is nuts.

Your dh phones you and says "it's Sally here, she's so upset from missing you" and immediately hands over the phone. Can anyone really seriously say they'd dismiss their crying child then and there?! Just go "oh is that all, it's just Sally in hysterics, no I'm too busy to talk to you [even though I was able to pick up the phone]" That'd make it worse!

Anyway op didn't say she rushed straight home, she just spoke to the child and briefly calmed her down and then went back to dinner. It's what every decent parent would do if they'd been put in that situation.

The time to deal with it is afterwards, giving dh a strongly worded piece of your mind.

She’s a kid, she’s seven, she just misses her mum, controlling honestly isn’t a suitable word here, all kids try to be controlling as we all do, we all like things to go our way!!!

tell your dh not to ring you and talk to her about how you’re not available. Also talk to her about how without your and her daddy’s jobs (I am a lower earner and I want to kill dh when he says ‘but if I didn’t work’) you couldn’t do nice things, have nice things etc. it’s do hard op

Apologies OP. I’m not trying to guilt you. But maybe you need to have enough insight to understand that your collective inability to allow you time away from the home without distress is not emotional safety for your child. I’m not talking about physical safety. It’s developmental with children and attachment but as adults we support them to feel safe with or without us in appropriate situations as they age. Getting hurt about that won’t help anyone. Just acknowledge how you want to improve your things for her moving forward. And honestly. Private school doesnt make you safe. Where did that come into it?

Private school as removed her from a school she was hating and into this one where she is much happier.

This is exactly what he does. He is using your daughter a tool to try to control you.

I'm somewhat in your position OP but not quite as extreme. We have one 5 year old DD, if she needs anything she will come to me, if she wants anything she will come to me, we are both on the same wavelength completely.

Her dad will make sure she is fed, wash her clothes, absolutely anything of a practical nature, he loves her, will take her places and make sure she is safe, but that's pretty much where it ends, he doesn't seem to be able to relate to her, or even hold a conversation with her at times, it's just "hmmm" or "yes" answers to things she tells him.. he seems to do it for a quiet life IMO, it's easier to hardly engage at all, knowing she will then seek me out instead. It's infuriating and I often intervene to force him to step up and remind him it is not solely my job to see to her needs, we've discussed it enough that a prompt or a look is now all it takes to get him off his arse.

The weird thing is, he took the parental leave for a year when I went back to work, and we work opposite shifts so she had plenty of alone time with both of us, it's only as she is getting older and needs emotional connection and she has to rely on me entirely for that, and I am now default parent for pretty much everything through no choice/fault of my own, I'm secretly awash with mum guilt when I have to leave, or do anything that doesn't involve her.. but I do it anyway and don't let on to her, I just act breezy about it all like it's no big deal and she accepts it for what it is.

I think you probably need to make gradual changes with her, but have a massive talk/reset with him, he sees you as the default parent too, which is a huge part of the problem/dynamic.. that has got to change before you can expect to see any changes in your DD, he needs to do more, you need to do less.

You should find out what your husband is saying to her when you are away.

Some version of mummy prefers going away for her job than looking after you, would be my guess.

This.
Get over the mummy guilt and guilt about out-earning DH. You are being a doormat, running yourself ragged and letting your pathetic DH be a dead weight.

This is not about your relationship with your DD, it is about your DH and you, with DD being used as a tool by DH to get back at you for having a career (unlike his mum).
How dare he hand DD the phone to have a cry and tantrum at you just because you are out for the evening. Appalling behaviour from him.

Exactly my first thought! It’s not the 7 year old being controlling, it’s the adult who is handing her the phone to make those calls.

The thing is that the dd is doing more than just the phone calls - she’s attacking the OP for spending time with her other child and for not being a sahm

thats obviously coming from somewhere but OPs default response of ‘I wish I could be with you but I have to..’ is supporting the DDs view that the OP should be doing as she asks

About needs a bit more work around OP being a fully rounded human who works and has more than one child etc etc

just viewing it from the younger siblings perspective - I bet the dd gets a lot more attention and the younger one left to because they come across as so chilled. I think maybe OP needs to do more activities as a family of 4 and encourage not only the DH to step up but the sibling relationship to form