I'm really struggling with daughter's behaviour after visiting her dad

[Stressymadre]

My DD is 9 and I am aware it's time of hormones starting to go a bit haywire and emotions starting to rollercoaster but I am after support as to how to best handle her behaviour when she returns from her dad's.
Ex and I have been separated 5 years and my poor DD has been through a lot during that time, especially at a young age. We had to leave our family home and exH moved in with his new GF. That same day he told the kids she was pregnant (they'd only been together 6 months at that point). When the baby first came a long she felt very pushed out (wasn't allowed to see her dad for 6 weeks) and she certainly isn't a priority (eg. dad holidays without her and her brother - has never taken them on holiday). ExH relationship with his GF is very on-off so lots of changes for my DD but she does adore her new baby sibling.

DD has always struggles when she comes back to me after visiting her dad (she sees him EOW and one night a week), often because she is very tried, other times I assume it's just transitioning. A few weeks ago, exH GF moved back in to "try again" and since then my daughter's attitude towards me for the first day she comes back is very difficult to manage. She holds me to really high standards and gets stroppy when I can't meet them. It's usually time-related but I work FT and all my spare time is spent doing things for her and her brother, so I don't have much spare time to play with her in evenings after work but I make a HUGE effort at weekends. But generally I feel punished when she comes home. She doesn't know why her dad and I split (although he told her it's because I wouldn't forgive his mistake - he of course didn't mention that "the mistake" was 3 affairs!) but she does feel sorry for her dad and puts him on a pedestal. I just feel like she is disappointed in me a lot, that I'm not good enough (she complains I am tired a lot).

Anyone else been through similar? Any words of wisdom? She gets told off for rudeness but I don't want to push her away, especially as she heads towards teenage years.

Any chance she sees him treat his gf this way so thinks its OK to treat you like this?

You need to put the foot down though op.
'Don't talk to me that way'. 'Behave yourself or there will be a time out' (or whatever you use as punishment).

You're the adult and you absolutely can't let a 9 year old boss you around. Or it'll be hell when sge is 13.

Also, never make excuses for her dad's shit behaviour. Stop making yourself the bad guy when you aren't.

Thank you for commenting @Pinkbonbon . I don't think her dad treats his GF like this (he told me she's amazing and he can't ever lose her!). As a general rule, her dad is rude though and doesn't treat people very nicely, but then my eldest goes there too and he wouldn't dare speak to me like she does it so not sure if it is coming from there. I agree on the getting sorted it before teenage years - I don't think I would cope. I had a quiet cry just last week as she was being so difficult and I'd had a very long at work, rushed round like crazy to be there for her and was exhausted. Her thanks? Saying she found me irritating!

I don't agree with the first reply regarding punishment, time out etc. Her behaviour is a way of communicating. She does not know how else express herself and she definitely does not understand her own emotions and the situation (which seems to be changing all the time and that is not easy for a child). It is not to make excuses for her but going back to her level of emotions.

Do you talk about emotions? Is she able to name them, recognise them? There are lots of books helping children to recognise them and name them. There are also emotional journals with like practices that children do together with adults to see the insight of their emotions and reactions. That could be half the battle. I do agree that when the emotions come down and there was a conversation of what is going on there is a place to say: 'I will not allow you speaking to me like that, that was disrespectful....'. However, if you focus only on controlling the result of the emotions (bad behaviour) you will never get to the root cause and you in few years time she will not talk to you as she will feel punished all the time.

I've read about this being to do with attachment. Definitely not punishable.

Definitely don't punish your struggling child!
The first reply is how you end up having a child who cuts contact with you when they are an adult.

Your daughter is struggling emotionally. She's only 9 and so she doesn't have the words or the skills to maturely talk about her emotions. Many adults don't even know how to do that, so we can hardly blame a 9-year old, can we?

I feel like your post could have been written by my mother about me 25 years ago. There are differences, but I was also sometimes very unfair to my mum, when she was in fact the only really safe and reliable person in my life. Here are some things I can recall from those days:

• My mum would always see my misbehaviour as a distress signal. I was not a bad child. I was just getting older and the range of emotions I was experiencing was getting more complicated, and I did not have the words or the capacity for self-reflection neccessary to handle them.
• Instead of anger, she showed concern when I acted out. Not by letting me walk all over her, but by saying things like: "I know that you don't intentionally want to hurt me, so I know that what you've just said is coming from your own pain. And it's okay to talk to me about your pain. I'm here, and whatever it is, I can handle it. But I'd like to hear about it in a way that also feels okay for me, so no personal attacks, no swearing, none of that."
• Sometimes her response to me acting out was just holding me tightly and not letting go until I cried and the walls I had around me came down. And then we'd talk about why I was sad.
• We talked about how sometimes it's easier to get angry with someone who you know will take the punches and still love you afterwards, than to get angry with the person who really hurt you, when you're afraid you'll get nothing but rejection in return. I was older at that point, but I remember those conversations very well.

I've since had many talks with my mum, as two adults now, about how she coped with all this. She quickly came to terms with the fact that to make up for my fathers absence, she needed to be everything. She needed to make up for all the hurt he caused me. She needed to prove even harder that she was never going to abandon me. She needed to be always calm and always forgiving and always loving. Because she had to do those things not once, not twice but three times. Once as a mum. Once as a dad. And once to make up for all the pain my dad caused me. I admire her very much, because she somehow managed to do that. And it's thanks to her that I am the person I am today. She really is my hero and still is my very best friend.

Find your outlets. Make sure you have your own support network. Surround yourself with friends and people you can lean on when things get tough.
You're all she has and she needs you three times. So love her three times harder than before and don't give up on her.

i didn't punish, i did sit down with them both and make it clear that their dads house and my house were not the same, and i wouldn't tolerate them breaking my rules just because of what they got away with at their dads house.

it soon settled down.

@Girlmom35 and @Julietta05 say exactly what is needed. Please don't see her emotions as a reflection of her attitude to you, her emotions are challenging and confusing for her. When she behaves badly stay calm and try and make time to talk about how she is feeling. Start with empathy and allow her to talk. Calmly and quietly explain you don't like her behaviour, but say that you understand why x

You need a transition activity between houses, for DD I ran her a bubble bath at whatever time she returned and got her in cosy clothes and had had a hot drink together.

However, you also need to fit in pockets of play every single day. 10 minutes uninterrupted time with each child 1:1 preferably multiple times a day. Dig out quick games like Guess Who, Battleships and Uno. Those pockets of play are incredibly important to maintain your bond you can't just leave it until the weekends you have them, they need little and often not on bulk.