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Lately there has been a change in DD's behavior, even for her defiant self, and I wonder about how far to let some of it go, knowing the kind of duress she herself is under?

It's happening on a daily basis that she is acting defiant and then when I have to correct her, she actually is shouting at me. She also did this to Nearly Exh and he didn't do anything to correct it-that would have been conflict.

While I don't like conflict, I worry about her age-puberty-and this defiant streak being in her nature already.

She is making bad choices and getting in trouble for them and then yelling at me. In a way it's effective because it gets her in trouble and me to go away, which she wants, but it's bothering me.

I have the name of a new counselor from her pediatrician and now that Nearly ExH is busy with work will start taking her to counseling again, but I wondered about any experience with this type of backlash on SI?

ETA: When I took her before, he attended and manipulated all the sessions so that it wasn't beneficial to her.

I wonder too, if she expects to get away with it with me, as she does with him? I don't have the guilt and other problems he does so to me her punishments stand as they used to, where with him, not so much.

Thank you.

[This message edited by Ashland13 at 5:43 PM, September 1st (Sunday)]

Our family counselor has really come down hard on ME because I've been too soft & easy on the children. He's warned me that my guilt over this divorce must not turn into permissiveness and allowing the children to get away with outrageous behavior.

He's totally right. I was being too soft, too tolerant, all in an attempt to make up for the fact that their father was a raging, abusive asshole. I knew that he was and still is trying to get the kids on his side, so I was falling back on old habits of trying to "nice" them to not desert me.

The kids have been at times dismayed at my renewed resolve not to put up with their defiant bullshit. Puberty has arrived. Losing rank now would be permanently disastrous.

I don't do anything different when they act out. Depending on what's going on and if it is something about the divorce determines what I say to them. When I give a punishment for bad behavior I also sit down with them and we talk. I don't just give a punishment without talking to the kids about whatever is going on.

Both my kids have gone through counseling and one of the things the IC did was to show them ways to act out their anger in a good way.

This something you could probably do for her. Tell her when she's angry and needs to let go of that anger to punch a pillow,wad up some paper and throw it, if you have a punching bag that works also. This is good for adults also.

One thing I did was break something that would break in the house. I used to buy dishes at yard sales just to have something to break when I got angry. The sound helps release some of that anger. I don't know how old your DD is. This wouldn't work for a younger kid but it might for an older child.

Thank you.

Even though the term "co parent" is tossed about like salad, Nearly Exh is clearly not on the same page as me in this regard and also judges me. So it makes me not tell him anymore when we have these problems, like I used to.

He and she both call me strict and she calls me "rules mom", but I feel strongly that what she's doing lately is taking advantage of any bit of generosity that I give. I'm feeling better after your responses because that's what my pattern is with her too, where I try to discuss with her what she did that was wrong, though often she knows it-I don't just want to dole out punishment or take away treats at random.

I remember growing up and watching my family members and mother ass we aged, my sister got more and more aggressive to my mother. Now we are grown ups and my mother treats my sister as an equal, which is hard for the people they live with.

I suspect that our daughter wishes to be treated as my equal, but I'm not ready for that. This was very hard to witness growing up and seeing my mother not stand up for herself made me very sad. When my father tried to stand up for my mother, it made more problems and my sister would often go on her way, getting what she wanted and leave a wake of fighting in the end. It was a horrible pattern to witness and to know that my sister was aware of it.

It makes me feel ill to have conflict, first with him and now with her, but sometimes those memories surface and I don't want my mother's future with our daughter thinking she can walk all over me. He tries that already.

I completely understand, Nature Girl, and have a friend who was in a similar position for a time with their children as you were doing.

I was doing my best to help the kids be happy. What I got were 4 unhappy kids and a mom who didn't feel very loved.

The turning point came about a year after he left, one of my 13 yo DDs was having an argument. with DD11. I had to pull her off DD11. DD11was turning purple from DD13s hands trying to choke her.

The week before I had turned in my homework to my therapist. The homework was ' How would I parent if he had died?' There were a lot of things I would have done differently. It had me thinking, and then the choking incident, and DD13 turning on me and fighting me, calling me all sorts of not so lovely names. I ended up slapping her across the face. Something I had never done! I needed a shock factor to break thru to her. It sucked.

End result was it got me back to being consistent with my parenting, and consequences for their actions.

They weren't happy about it, but my house became more peaceful because they knew what I would and wouldn't tolerate.

They need to understand the consequences for small things growing up so they can learn to think things thru regarding bigger consequences for their actions.

Anger ran rampant in this house for about 2years. I had a heavy bag in the garage, a clown bop thingy, nerf bats against a tree trunk worked well every so often. The girls played soccer, ran, did dance team and a few other physical outlets that helped to wear them out so they could sleep.

It was really tough, we muddled thru it. No one was killed-I guess we survived .

Hugs,

K

When my XH took me back to court to allow the OW around my kids, my attorney had sent his attorney some discovery questions. They both tried to make themselves look like the perfect parents. One of the questions was about how they discipline.

My XH said that he didn't discipline the kids. That's true, I took that away when he started getting abusive with me and the kids.

He said the OW used time out and never spanked or yelled.

During the divorce they made allegations about how I was strict, used the kids as my slaves, spanked them and yelled at them.

It really pissed me off at the time. After the OW abused my DD and the kids started telling me about the things that were going on at his house. I realized they were projecting themselves onto me. Everything they accused me of, they did to my kids.