Divorced Parent Discipline

two weeks grounding for yelling and slamming doors seems completely unreasonable (given only the facts originally presented)

As the co-parenter in that sort of situation, I'd be looking at ways at taking over full custody - to get my child out of such a situation.

Right, I see it as a situation that didn't quite go mom's way or d's way, d got angry, spouted off at mom and mom pulled a power play. There are many, many ways that adolescent girls try to show their need for independence. One of the primary ways is by standing up for themselves against their parents (particularly their mothers) whereas adolescent boys detest conflict and disappear into their rooms (or their friends houses).

If she's going to get grounded for two weeks every time she spouts off she's going to be grounded for the next few years. This is absolutely the age when "pick your battles" becomes very important from the parent's perspective. A two-week grounding over a test of wills (who gets to decide if she can have some chips) isn't a good beginning.

2 weeks is tough but as a kid where I come from, you'll think twice about spouting off at the mouth and slamming doors next time. And all of us should realize that there's much more to this incident, don't we. Who knows the battle they'd had two hours earlier? And the one the day before? And the day before that?

I agree with eoe, 2 weeks is tough, but we don't know what brought it on
and if this was a punishment after things escalated over a period of time or not.

I am still holding up my initial recommendation that parents should be on
the same page when it comes to disciplining a child - receiving mixed signals
from one parent is a sure invitation for the child to manipulate one with the
other. I have seen this scenario over and over again, especially when parents
are divorced and not necessarily on good terms. It creates a very unhealthy
situation for all involved and even more so for the kids.

I'm sure there's more, I'm just going by what's here.

And from what's here, I think this kid is more likely to shut down emotionally and cease to have a functioning relationship with her mother than improve her behavior in any meaningful way.

Punishment has to be consistent, deserved and commensurate with the infraction or else it's counterproductive. Parents wielding power just because they can are not good parents.

Anyway, definitely interested in hearing more from scrump-daddy (and welcome, btw).

I know, but the other side of that is that my mom was really, really careful to avoid bad-mouthing my dad and avoid contradicting his parenting decisions, and as a result I felt really alone and like I had nobody in my corner. I detached from both of them as a result. (They were divorced.)

I was a good kid, and wasn't actually doing stuff wrong, just was on the receiving end of my father's fury every now and then. And I just thought I deserved it until quite a while later.

But a parent shouldn't let things build up and get out of control like that. Nip it in the bud, before you're so furious that you pass out huge punishments.

This.

Yes, huge punishments don't work anyway. Explaining the kid why certain
things shouldn't happen and having the kid understand and acknowledge is
a much better solution. Not always achieved by young adolescents, but definitely more effective than any punishment - at least that's my own experience with my 14 year old daughter.

Worked for me. My father put me on punishment for a week once because I didn't fold the napkins and put them in the holder. He'd been on me about it for awhile and i just couldn't remember to do it. But after that week of no tv, no going off the front porch to play and no one hanging out on the porch with me, I remembered to fold the damn napkins. If I'd been so bold as to yell back at him and slam doors, I'd STILL be on punishment.

That's a style of parenting, and it may work with some kids, but other styles of parenting work better, with more kids.

This is why an ex-beau of mine took over full custody of his kids from their mom.

There is sometimes no way to get on the same page with someone who is unreasonable.

M's kids were much happier, calmer, and better able to cope with their mom's craziness on the occasional times they had to deal with her after he retained full custody. The kids have all turned out quite nicely. I didn't think that was possible when I first met them 15 years ago - sometimes I thought I could see their heads spin in fury. M being very open about his belief in, and support of, the kids, rather than his ex, made a huge difference.

She eventually got herself into the counselling he'd suggested for a lonnnnng time. Maybe it's that the kids are older, or that the counselling helped, but she's not nearly as crazy with the kids now.

~~~

Sometimes, the former couple working as a co-parenting team is possible. It isn't always. The most important thing is the kid/s being treated fairly.

and maybe the parent was unreasonable each time.

~~~

We only have scrump-daddy's initial comments about his daughter, and the history between her and his ex to go by. Hard to know what the full picture is, but it doesn't have to be that the kid is that far in the wrong.

In my world, as a child and as an adult, two weeks is far too severe a punishment for the incident described.

If your ex isn’t training your daughter to win a race, then this is a nasty thing to do to a child (if the story is accurate). It wouldn’t necessarily be inappropriate to ask them to run a mile, but the time limitation is the nasty bit. The message behind it (ie the reasons for the demand) isn't particularly good either.

Is she angry as not reaching the unrealistic goal your wife set, not getting the chips, or the intention behind your ex’s demand that she run a mile in 8 minutes, and the denying of the chips put together?

Is this inappropriate behaviour from a child for what was just asked?

For yelling and slamming a door? For getting angry at the parent making an unreasonable demand and the parent then punishing the child for not being able to meet the demand (by witholding the chips)?

You want to support your ex doing the above? Remember that everything you do here sends two messages " one to your daughter, and one your ex. By supporting your ex in this : Your daughter learns that you support unfair systems, your ex learns that unfair systems are alright for her to impose.

In reality you wrote here because you know that you shouldn't be supporting her in this, but can't quite comprehend why, considering everything we are taught in the west goes against your feelings.

Probably you are projecting your feelings to your child, but if it is accurate as described (and there’s no guarantee either will tell you exactly how it happened) you still need to teach your child how to handle such thing respectfully (both for the ex, and for herself)...they’ll be valuable lessons for her.

You will also need to explain to her why you are handling things differently to her mother " the reasons for it - be respectful to your ex when you do this, even if you don’t feel that way about her " she is still your childs mother, and how you talk about her will reflect in how your daughter deals with her as she grows up.

Just a note : usually it’s better for both parents to show a united front. This is fine where it’s just a matter of perspective (ie. Different ways of handling things with both being something the child can handle) " but it’s not fine when one parents actions are going to have a long term detrimental affect on the child, and they ask you to support that.

Another note : if you support your wife in this, you won't be able to teach your daughter how to deal with the matter respectfully...put yourself in your daughters shoes and think about why

Parents out!! Out, out, out. Parents out!!

Oy, spendius has arrived! Now it really will get complicated!

In most cases I'd say tosupport your exwife. It wold be great if the 2 of you could work together parenting your daughter. That said, I think the punishment is excessive and the competitiveness your ex has can be damaging to your daughter.
Is there a rule about chips? Does your daughter have weight issues that your ex is "tryng" to control?
If shes playing games to mess with your daughters mind, thats not cool. Your daughter is going through enough with her body changes, mood swings, ect to deal with mind games.
Talk to her and tell her you feel this is excessive, and though you want to back her up when your daughter has done something wrong, you feel this is to much. I know how explosive things can get, my mom and I used to fight horrible when I was going thru puberty. I had a hard time contolling myself. But she never instigated a fight like your ex did.
Its great that you and your daughter have such a wonderful relationship. It would be nice if her and her mom had a better one.
Seems theres always one parent who has issues (I know thats not 100%tru, but I've seen to many children who have 1 parent who doesnt get what it takes to be a parent)