Father/Daughter relationship breakdown

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My husband has struggled with our DD 13 for a while now. Over the last year she gradually became more cold and distant towards him, there were frequent arguments and she said some hurtful things e.g. I don’t like you as a person, everything you say is annoying. It got to the point that she would barely speak to him and acknowledge him.

After trying to reach out and make an effort with her over months he has become so upset by the situation that he has withdrawn to protect his mental health. At this point they are barely speaking to each other and although he is obviously providing for her in material ways I am basically parenting her on my own.

They had a really good relationship when she was younger and were close. For background he does have high expectations for her (as well as our other child) and has always pushed her quite hard in term of academics and activities. She is a clever and ambitious girls so used to respond well to this.

I guess I’m looking for advice on how to improve things? It makes me really sad that they don’t have a relationship and I’m concerned that things will be like this forever. Have suggested family therapy (DD not keen!) Any other suggestions??

Go on holiday for a week with your other child and leave them to work it out together.

Individual therapy for your H. It’s his responsibility to look after himself so that he can handle criticism a build relationships. It’s not very fair to your daughter that he can dish it out but not take it, and not very fair to suggest she goes to therapy when it’s her dad’s issues driving a wedge. No wonder she’s not keen.

After trying to reach out and make an effort with her over months he has become so upset by the situation that he has withdrawn to protect his mental health

Cone on OP you don’t give up on your children just because they aren’t nice to you or don't engage regularly.

The relationship continues to breakdown as he can’t handle it. He needs to not give up.

I think maybe he should back on the high expectations for his daughter thing. You kids, maybe up to the end of primar, often respond well to this kind of focus. They are big fish in a small pond, maybe see themselves as'special' and respond well to all the praise this gets them. Then they get to Secondary School..Bigger pond, more of the able fish just like them. Although doing well, they can't always be top ant more. She could be feeling the pressure, feeling she's letting him down if she isn't top dog. Stops enjoying the extra effort it takes and starts resenting him. ...it's suddenly Dad's fault ...he's pushing too hard ...it's not what I want. I need him to back off so I can just enjoy the early teen years.it was all ok before so he can't see what's going wrong. I would be telling dad how much he values her, not for being clever ext but for all of her amazing qualities ...kindness to others ...empathy .. ext ext. Let her feel free to develop her other qualities . .not feeling she has to please dad ...see how it goes. 💐

Ahh!! Sentence structure correction ...l would be telling her how much dad values her for all her other qualities (and getting him to tell her as well)

So….he is constantly on at her about achieving more, she has reacted, he has withdrawn. It’s him that needs therapy. Teenagers are hard, he needs to be the adult. He is currently modelling sulking when you don’t get uour own way.

Thanks for the replies. For reference I don’t think he or I have ever pushed her too hard. We expect her to get good grades at school which she nearly always has and have
offered support and extra help on occasions she has struggled. My husband in particular has always praised and rewarded her achievements.

Personally I think she is reacting
to the fact that he wanted to spend time as a family and was quite rigid about
this whereas at her age she has little interest in this.

I grew up with my Dad having unrealistic expectations for me academically, it caused me to feel hurt, upset & embarrassed ergo I would actively try not to spend one on one time with him & close up if he started anything other than superficial conversations, I would always tell my mum it was “because no one wants to hang out with their parents” or “it’s not cool to have your Dad drop you off” etc when she asked what was wrong, on reflection at 12/13/14/15 years old I didn’t have the emotional intelligence to convey how those expectations made me feel about myself, I could be angry and annoyed but anything more complex I struggled to articulate.

To you and your husband it might seem like the typical parental expectations, it might not feel like that to her.

Both give her some space around academics, definitely tell your husband to get grip of himself, whilst he is “…withdrawing to protect his mental health” how about he does some self reflection on what led to this detachment.

She is being a typical teenager, she is 13, he is also being a teenager 🙄

Without the maturity to fully understand what's going on, she has tested how unconditional his love us, and whether she can count on his support. He has failed the test.

He has possibly done permanent damage to her self esteem, as well as their relationship.

Just my take.

As someone whose parents had high expectations.

Nothing is permanent, that’s a bit of an overreaction. Relationships need the ability to repair from ruptures though and it sounds like your H had turned in on himself and ‘collapsed’ internally rather than being strong enough to reflect, change and rebuild.

I think this approach can be so damaging. I have seen it with my adult children’s friends who have parents that put them under pressure to achieve, achieve, achieve. None of them have close relationships with their parents because all their parents cared about was how well they performed in various areas of life, it became their worth and there was no room for vulnerability, failure, changing of minds, very little fun and warmth etc. These are typically the children who grow up to have eating disorders, anxiety, OCD etc. Be careful with how you handle this as your children are maturing.

Why if he has high expectations for his daughter does he not also have high expectations for himself? Is he doing all he can to understand teenagers - reading etc, and is he taking himself off to therapy to work out why he is behaving like a teenager himself. I'd have very little patience for a husband behaving like this and would expect him to do the work to repair the relationship with his teenage daughter.

Thanks - I do agree that my husband starting therapy is a good idea. He has tried this for unrelated mental health issues in the past and this really helped. He has spent the last few month researching and reading how to manage the situation and improve the relationship but unfortunately this hasn’t helped.

I think I’ve given the wrong impression of our expectations for our kids. Yes we expect them to perform to their abilities but we have always prioritised relaxation and fun as well. Our daughter has friends over most days of the week, sleepovers, holidays with family and friends.

Apologies for not expressing myself really clearly. Am so tired and just want things to get better

My DD also 13 has a strained relationship with her dad. It’s been like this for years! It usually gets better when they can find common ground to connect them, for them it’s doing something specific that they both like or watching movies that only they want to watch etc. do they have anything small that can nudge them together. I truely believe it’s all about maintaining that connection with kids and it gets a lot harder to do this with teens so it’s up to us adults to try and steer it in that direction.

I think he needs to be the grownup here. It all sounds very dramatic He needs to learn to manage himself and be solid and consistent for her. Withdrawing as a parent for what sounds like fairly minor and typical teen ‘separation’ type behaviour will end up causing permanent damage to their relationship, and possibly have long term consequences for your daughter’s sense of safety in relationships.

He needs to be the rock that’s always there. “I don’t like you as a person” can be answered with “well I love you as a person, that’s not a kind thing to say”, without taking it so seriously. The same with being annoying- he probably is, we all are sometimes. Don’t take it so personally,

13 is still a child. Yr8/9 is a stressful time for girls with friendships and starting GCSE options. He needs to stop making it all about him and be a consistent presence for her when she does need him.

He needs his own therapy on this- she really does not sound that bad.