Angry 3 Year Old Prefers Dad
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Hello
Dr Laura...like many a parent that contact you, I am feeling
desperate. It is very hard for me to ask for help as I am a social
worker and therapist myself and have worked in the child welfare field
for many yrs, and I am very ashamed to be even
having any issues :'(
I have a beautiful 3-year-old daughter
that I have joint custody with my ex-husband. We separated when she
was about a year old and now we are divorced.
I know that she is an assertive, passionate, independent, intelligent, precocious and most of all special child and she will grow more into these traits and do very special things in her life, I am sure. I also do my absolute best to do all of the gentle parenting stuff, to be attuned to her, to figure out unmet needs and/or prevent things, to see things from her perspective, to “love her through” things, to just sit with her and acknowledge that we are both having a rough day, whatever it takes…
Yet I am struggling more and more because she is apparently so angry at
me because she would rather be with her Daddy :'( I am someone who did not
have the best upbringing and have always struggled
with anger when I am triggered, and boy this child of course has figured
out how to trigger me.
I worked with foster kids and families for years and
it was very common as I'm sure you may know for the foster moms to just
fall apart and say “I am turning into someone
I do not recognize. I never reacted to my own kids this way. I feel
like a monster”…and that is exactly what I feel like :'(
I guess my
question is 2-fold, the 1st part is that I struggle with feeling like I am
doing her more harm than good with the joint custody,
if this is the reactive cycle that it is creating.
The 2nd part being
is there anything else I can do to help her with this anger at me
depriving her of being with her Dad, as I believe she sees it.
There is no
doubt that I am starting to act in more and more reactive
ways that are further sabotaging our relationship and giving her even more
stores of anger on top of what she already had.
It was only relatively
recently that she started putting words to why she was melting
down/acting out “Because I want to stay with Daddy!”…
I immediately
scoop her up and hold her and rock her and tell her that it is OK to
feel that way and how hard I know it is to be away from someone you love
so much especially when you are so little and how hard it is to be 3 in
this world isn't it. I have even told her
that I felt the same way when I was little (true…and I know my family
of origin stuff must come into play here, very similar situation, except
WAY more dysfunctional…I have prided myself on how relatively
functional her Dad and I have dealt with this situation,
but alas, not so much perhaps :'(
I also do my best to re-connect
during and after any episodes where we both lose our tempers…I don't
know what else to do except acknowledge that we are having a very hard
time today aren't we and that we both get grumpy very
easily…and I apologize if I need to…but some days are just a constant
cycle of reactivity ;'( I yell and at times have been a lot rougher with her than I ever should be, and this breaks my heart because I'm sure it is
undoing every bit of connection I try and do.
I'm sure I should be in therapy although I do not have benefits right
now and am not even working full-time. I have tried to work out my anger
issues proactively before I even had her but just seemed to get stuck.
I know intellectually that she
is not out to get me, that her hurt is greater than my hurt and her
coping skills are far less than mine, and that her actions are saying
she desperately needs me, and this helps me when
I have the energy stores needed or whatever it is…but when I am
stressed, overtired, hormonal, whatever, like everyone else, my coping
skills dwindle, especially with her relentless nature!
I do have outside
stresses, of course, and maybe more than a lot of
people, but I've noticed that even when I take steps to minimize the
effect of these on her, the bottom line is that that anger is still
there. And sometimes I just feel like, I might as well just be a crappy
Mom, because trying NOT to be a crappy Mom is not helping,
either…
You are probably wondering what it is she is doing to trigger
me, and it is really not anything monstrous, but more like a subtle
accumulation of stresses that are like a small sharp pebble in my shoe,
but worse. During a bad day it's usually her creating
some sort of a mess over and over and over, like yesterday she poured
juice and chocolate milk all over the kitchen and peed 3 times on the
floor and once on the couch…
On top of the constant whining and melting
down, nonsense questions (Mommy what are you
doing? Mommy is it raining?), asking me for something and just
repeating and repeating even when I say OK honey I'm getting that for
you…the worst thing she prob has done was throw water on my laptop…I
don't think she meant to throw it on the laptop, but it
was a pretty rough night I will tell you that.
I try my hardest to
really figure out where all this stuff is coming from and I realize that
it doesn't sound like anything that should be triggering me, but it
does when my coping skills are compromised for whatever
reason. I remember working with families and hearing what the foster moms
would be going ballistic about and it was always your run-of-the-mill
stuff, but I knew that the dynamic must be so powerful anyway for it to
be having such an effect on them. When I think
about it I recognize that she's just looking for connection, attention,
even though I try my hardest to incorporate this into our day always.
She's always been a kid though that requires 100% of my time, which is
hard to give her when it is just me, even when
I only have her half the week. My family is supportive and always want to
take her which does give me a break…
I feel like I've tried to create
more opportunities for us to connect, even if it's just at home, I
forced myself to start doing creative play with her
which I suck at but once I started it really wasn't so bad especially knowing
that's what she needed.
Still, I could spend a day fully engaged with her,
and she could still act out after or on the way home, getting out of her
carseat multiple times, etc…I rack my brain
and figure that it must be that she's tired, or perhaps she doesn't
want the enagagement with me to come to an end, or maybe now she is just
acting out her “difficult” role in an unfortunately familiar pattern…
But
still I think to myself, geez, is it really supposed
to be this hard?? I don't really see anyone else around me with pre-schoolers having to struggle THIS hard…I remember reminding foster
parents that this is what they signed up for (no matter how much you
prepare them, they're never really prepared, LOL), but
I did not sign up for this, I thought…
You may also be wondering how my
ex plays into all this…I don't have any concrete reason to think that
he is feeding her anger, but I do know that he can be very
passive-aggressive and it would not be the most shocking
thing in the world if I found out that there is some subtle sabotage
going on. I have def had to speak to him a couple times about speaking
negatively about me to others (although he denies doing this in front of our daughter), and I also found out that for a long
time he was not prepping her for my arrival at all, just completely
springing it on her, she'd be happily playing and boom there I'd be, and
I will never be convinced that he didn't have the common sense to know
that this was feeding in to her meltdowns. …and I'm
quite sure he plays up the fact to people that she has such a hard time
transitioning to me, etc…
I never ever ever show any kind of negative emotion about her
feelings about Daddy or her feelings about me, just some sadness maybe that
all of this makes her feel so badly, but hopefully
not enough where she has to worry about my feelings…apart from the other
responses I've told you I've also said “I would never want you to think
that Mama didn't love you or didn't want to see you” (to address why I'm
depriving her of Daddy)…
I worry a bit that
she thinks that I'm putting my needs before hers when I say things like
“Mama loves you too and wants to spend time with you too”…recently I think
I said something like “It's important when you're 3 to see both your
Mom and your Dad, even if it makes you angry…when
you get older you will understand better and you can maybe decide more
yourself who you want to see more of…”
None of which feels like it is
helpful …I guess maybe I should re-focus my goal on just accepting and
handling the situation better instead of trying
to change it, it may just be that she is going to be mad at me for a
long while…I know that in cases of a death, there is NOTHING you can
concretely do to make the main problem better obviously, you just need
to be there with them in their feelings, maybe
this is like the same thing…
Or maybe there are more concrete things I
could be doing, but that is part of the purpose of me contacting you! I
hope this has made some sense to you and hope I covered all of the main
info, and I thank you so much in advance for
any support you are able to give!!
I am so sorry you are going through this with your daughter. I'm glad you reached out to me.
Here is the summary of what I understand from your letter (just the basics):
1. Your 3 year old daughter lives part time with you and part time with your husband.
2. She has always been highly sensitive and challenging.
3.
You use gentle parenting practices. However, you had a hard childhood
yourself and you have anger issues. Even when you try to minimize
external stresses, your anger is still
there. So you do get triggered, and sometimes have a hard time
controlling your anger at your daughter to the point where you feel like
you're "turning into a monster." You yell and at times "have been a
lot rougher with her" than you should be. You notice that naturally this is undermining
your relationship with your daughter.
4. Your daughter gets very
angry at you. She provokes you by whining, peeing on the floor, making
repeated messes, throwing water on your laptop.
5. Recently your daughter has begun saying that she is angry at you because she wants to live with her dad.
6.
You have been able to be non-reactive about your daughter's preference
for her dad, and have handled that beautifully by empathizing. You
wonder if the things you say to her about the join custody are helpful.
7. You wonder if maybe you are "doing her more harm than good w the joint custody" because of your anger and her anger.
8. You wonder how to help your daughter with her anger and with her preference to be with her dad.
9. You wonder whether there is a better way to work with your husband on the transitions.
Right? Ok, let's take this one step at a time.
1. Your 3 year old daughter lives part time with you and part time with your husband.
Good. She needs a relationship with both parents.
2. She has always been highly sensitive and challenging.
Yes, she sounds very challenging. Remember that sensitive kids are
usually empaths. They pick up what we feel but don't know how to handle
it.
Also, I wonder what things were like during her first year.
Did you and she form a secure attachment? If not, it would explain
some of this. Luckily, that is something you can remedy, but you would
need to see a therapist with her. Someone who specializes in early
development and in seeing mother-child dyads. (NOT one of those
attachment specialists who does forced holding or other traumatic
interventions.)
3. You use gentle parenting practices. However, you had a hard childhood
yourself and you have anger issues. Even when you try to minimize
external stresses, your anger is still
there. So you do get triggered, and sometimes have a hard time
controlling your anger at your daughter to the point where you feel like
you're "turning into a monster." You yell and at times "have been a
lot rougher w
her" than you should be. You notice that naturally this is undermining
your relationship with your daughter.
I know you know this, but you need to be
in therapy. I realize you have been working in the field for many
years, but it is different when it is our own issues. There is no shame in getting help. The shame is in hurting our kids because we don't get help.
This anger
is from your own past and it needs to be processed. I hear how much
you love your daughter and how hard you try to be a good mom. I think
you are doing a wonderful job, considering that she is challenged and
you have your own issues. BUT your rage is hurting your daughter.
These are her formative years. You don't want to ruin her life by not
getting the help you need now. What can you do to get some counseling?
4. Your daughter gets very angry at you. She provokes you by whining,
peeing on the floor, making repeated messes, throwing water on your
laptop.
It does sound to me like your daughter is indeed provoking you.
Usually, this happens when kids need to cry. It makes sense that when
you get angry at her, she is very frightened. But it is not safe to show
you those feelings at that time. So she suppresses them. But then at
other times when she feels safe, those suppressed feelings bubble up.
That suppressed fear is also what is behind your daughter's anger.
That, and of course, her hurt when she feels attacked by you. We all
use anger as a defense against fear and other feelings we don't want to
feel. She is
terrified of YOUR anger at her. She needs to show you her fear, but she
is not trusting you with it. She desperately needs to cry in your arms
and show you her fear and hurt.
That is why even though you are very attentive and engaged with her, it
is not enough. She urgently needs a chance to cry and let out these
feelings.
So when you have a good day connecting and she acts out by getting out
of her carseat three times, she is telling you that she feels close
enough to you to let out all her upsets now. They are bubbling up
precisely because she feels safe. She wants to let that fear out but
can't just start crying. So she acts out. She needs you to set a kind,
calm, firm limit
("when we drive we need to stay in the carseat"). She will respond by
having a meltdown. You pull the car over and hold her while she cries.
She will not understand that what she is crying about is actually her
terror that her beloved mommy gets so enraged and visits the rage from
her past on her. She will seize on whatever she can -- Oh, right, I
wish I were with Daddy at the moment! Anywhere but here!
5. Recently your daughter has begun saying that she is angry at you because she wants to live with her dad.
It is natural for three year oId girls to prefer their dads. BUT I do
not believe this actually has much to do with her dad. This is a
convenient way to explain it to herself. We frequently see this in
preschoolers who are trying to explain themselves and don't really
understand their own emotions. AND remember she is angry and lashing
out at you. I remember my three year old daughter crying that she
wanted her dad whenever she was angry at me. And we were not divorced,
and she was very close to me. It was just anger.
6. You have been able to be non-reactive about your daughter's
preference for her dad, and have handled that beautifully by
empathizing. You wonder if the things you say to her about the join
custody are helpful.
Sounds to me like you are doing a great job staying nondefensive,
empathizing, expressing your deep love for and need to see her, etc.
7. You wonder if maybe you are "doing her more harm than good w the joint custody" because of your anger and her anger.
If
you give up joint custody you are giving her the message that she is
not important enough to you to fight for her. You will always be her
mother. Not living with her will not help either
of you resolve this. You owe it to your daughter to do this hard work
and get past your anger. Joint custody is not the issue. Your anger is
the issue.
8. You wonder how to help your daughter with her anger and with her preference to be with her dad.
You
are doing great at helping her with her desire to be with her dad.
Empathy is the key there, and not taking it personally. She may also
bring up the theme in creative play, which is always helpful to kids in
processing their emotions. You could do some art around this theme.
You could take three bears and act out the handoff of the child and see
what it triggers for your daughter and just be there with her feelings.
To help her with the anger, you need to help her cry. There's a lot to read about how to do this. You might want to start on my website with this article and there's lots more there if you go exploring.
When Your Child is Hellbent on Misbehaving
I also think you would find my book very helpful. Many parents tell me that it really helps them to support their children emotionally as well as work through their own turmoil.
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting
9. You wonder whether there is a better way to work with your husband on the transitions.
Yes. Sounds like things are good but not great there. He needs to
give your daughter notice of transitions FOR HER HIGHEST GOOD. This is
not about you, but about her. You need to make an agreement with him
that you will both do this. Partner with him as the parents of this
child you both love and get him to agree to help you with this. Call
him before you head over every single time and ask him to please go
right now and give her advance notice that you are on the way.
I hope this is helpful. I know that it is hard to work through
our own issues, but your love for your daughter is tremendously
powerful. Let that be your motivation.
Blessings,
Dr. Laura
