children acting out

[sevenyears]

UNOCPD XH and I are in court since we can't agree on which school to enroll DS5 next fall. He refuses to let our son be enrolled in a school that instructs in both our languages, because my language (the "foreign" language here, yet a world language) isn't important to learn.

Anyway, he's been telling DS5 and DD9 that I believe that I'm always right and am not cooperating with him and will force DS to go to a school that he doesn't want to go to.

ExH has also been taking the children to dinners at a neighbor's house in spite of the fact that we are in a lockdown due to the pandemic. And, he tells them not to tell me because I'll get angry and won't let them go. (It's true - we don't go to people's houses when they are with me - but he's trying to make me out to be the bad guy).

Needless to say, the children have been acting out. DD9 - who has her own issues, blew up last night and started hitting and pushing me (she weighs almost as much as I do, so she has some force). It was all I could do to manage the situation so that she didn't injure either of us. Tonight she told XH that she hit me while they were talking on skype. He asked her what happened, but never once said "don't hit mommy." 

This frustrates me so much!! His manipulation of the kids escalates when he is angry with me. By not saying anything it is like he approves (tacit consent); and it feels dismissive of me.

My daughter and I are working on her anger and aggression. It was getting better over the summer. Now, her anger is getting worse. I talk about it with her and we're working on developing anger management strategies. I also talk with her social worker about helping her manage her anger, and helping me to help the children build resilience to UNOCPD EXH's criticisms and dismissiveness about me. I will ask the social worker to advise him that he should say something directly and immediately about not hitting mommy whenever DD tells him that she has. He says he does when they talk privately - except that he is lying.

I am so at a loss. There is only so much I can do to help the children build their own coping skills. But, when he condones aggression towards me, what do I do?     

[notrightinthehead]

I totally sympathize. When my little daugher, around 10 then and half the size of me, hit me, I made a massive fuss about that. I was furious and yelled at her that she will never do that again. (I had been hit a lot by my mother and swore to myself that I will never let another person hit me again). Then I walked away and I was cross with her for hours. When I had calmed down I told her that this is something I will not tolerate ever again.
I could not rely on my husband to do some good parenting so I had to sort problems with my kids myself. I had only a few rules that I enforced consequently and not hitting mum was one of them.

It might help you to stop looking at what your h does or does not do, make your rules in your house, stick to them consequently. You might think about appropriate disciplinary measures,  I remember there were some excellent programmes on TV when my kids were young, something like super nanny,  where the nanny came in and helped parents to deal with problematic behaviour. I learned a lot from them.   Praise and rewards work better than punishment. For example, putting up a board and every day without a temper tantrum gets a star. After 7 stars the child can get a reward, and so on. I am sure you know what to do.

My kids grew up bilingual. I only spoke my language with them. This is the easiest way for them to learn a language. Even when they spoke to me in the other language, I repeated what they said then answered them in my language.  Now they speak both languages fluently without accent.

[sevenyears]

Notright - you are so right. I should stop looking at what unocpd xh does or doesn't do. Normally, I focus on my children and parenting. DD has her own baggage prior to our divorce. I'm working with her to identify, validate and let out her emotions without hitting/hurting. I do my best t to give my children a safe and consistent environment. We also have a no hitting/hurting rule. Kids get a warning, and then screen time is revoked. There are some times though, when she explodes.

This time, I felt that her blow up had been exacerbated by his winding her up before she came and then, when she told him, he basically condoned it by not telling her to stop/that she shouldn't hit mommy. I feel like I'm doing everything I can to help her, but he manipulates her, and then condones it when she acts out. I know he won't change. It is just so frustrating.

[notrightinthehead]

Some PDs really enjoy destroying relationships between people around them.  Maybe your h gets pleasure out of the difficulties between you and your daughter. I agree this is frustrating.  But only if you let it get to you. If you emotionally distance yourself from him and observe his behaviour instead of getting emotionally involved, it might affect you much less.

[athene1399]

I am so sorry this happened, Seven years. I think Not Right has a lot of good points. Try to focus on what you can control: the kids at your house. I also like the idea of the rewards for positive behavior. It's an incentive not to act up, and you can define what that looks like when you discuss it with your kids. Have you been able to talk to DD about the incident? While reinforcing that the behavior was bad, maybe also try to have her talk about the feelings that led to the behavior. If she is comfortable doing so.

Also, I cannot think of any setbacks to being bilingual. Knowing another language looks good on a resume when you grow up and your kids would get to learn more about your culture and language. I hope you are able to teach your kinds your language, either in the school you want or at home.

[sevenyears]

Notright and Athene, thanks for your insights. I do have rules (ie, no hitting, hurting etc) with consequences, firm boundaries. I talk to my daughter about anger and aggression, and I talked to her more after this episode. We work on problem-solving, anger management and exploring our feelings and all such things. We talked about this time, and the trigger was that I wouldn't let her watch tv while we were eating dinner (something her father lets her do). But, she couldn't say why her anger became so explosive.

She is a foster child with her own baggage and has witnessed a high conflict divorce, and has a foster father with control issues, who manipulates the kids and criticizes and disparages me. I think it all builds up and then it's too much so she explodes. And, she explodes with me because it's safer for her. At her foster father's she lies and yells and has destroyed things too, but doesn't hit him because she's afraid of him.

When her aggression started about a year ago, I asked the social agency to evaluate her. The social agency determined that she had a loyalty conflict brought on by her current family situation. SInce then, UNOCPDXH and I have been meeting regularly separately with a social worker. One of the agreements was that he would tell the kids not to hit mommy whenever they tell him about it. He is unable to say that - which gives the children the impression that it's ok. In spite of that, I've managed to help my daughter reduce her episodes.

The episodes were quite rare until a few weeks ago. Now they happen weekly. At the same time, while we're facing court because of the school enrollment for DS, UNOCPDXH has regularly criticizing me to them (more than usual), and telling them not to tell me things. So, it seems to me cause and effect. He's angry at me, criticizes me and yells at the kids, they come to me stressed, angry and act out. I think she may have her own problems. He makes the problems worse, and then blames me and says things to social worker to try and convince her I'm a bad parent and that's why the children aren't well-behaved. That part, I don't worry about because our social worker knows very well how I parent, and that I'm a good parent.   

In this country (in central Europe), many in the mental health field and social workers adhere to an approach called family systems theory. What happens in one part of the family has an impact on the other parts of the family. Even though we're divorced, we're still one family, just living in two houses. 

After DD's episode, and her telling XH that she hit me, and him not telling her to stop, UNOCPDXH called the social worker a couple of days ago to tell her he doesn't believe in using violence; she reminded him to tell the children not to hit me. Right after that, I got an email from him saying that he told DD not to hit me. She is also having trouble in school. I've talked to her social worker about having her evaluated again. UNOCPDXH hasn't said no, but he has started his campaign full of excuses. I predict there will be a lot of resistance from him about the evaluation. But, the social agency supports evaluating her again and can overrule him.

[Penny Lane]

I'm glad you're getting another evaluation.

I think Athene and Notright are correct. Your ex absolutely should be following the rules about telling the kids not to hit. But he is not doing that, and no one not even the social worker can actually make him do that. The more energy you spend on trying to get him to do the basics of good parenting, the more he gets what he wants.

I don't think it's a coincidence that his behavior is escalating after you filed in court. BM always finds a way to punish DH for filing court motions she doesn't like. And the easiest way to "punish" him is to hurt the kids in a way that will have repercussions at our house. It is very sad to watch and there's not a whole lot we can do to prevent it - sometimes you have to go to court.

I realize that you can't fully solve this problem without his buy-in and help. But you can take that energy you're spending on him, and rededicate it to giving your daughter what she needs. It's not enough, but I think it'll move you farther in the right direction. Move forward with what you can do, and give that your all. That'll better position you to deal with the roadblocks he throws in your way.

[Rose1]

Don't know enough about your situation but I wonder if as a foster father he actually has the right to see her at all? He's not the biological parent and seems to be causing her to trigger maybe some sort of ptsd from a previous situation.  He's certainly playing games. I wonder why he has the right to say where she goes to school etc? Would it be better for all if he is cut out of the foster situation totally since he obviously is not a good parent?

In my experience also kids are used to punish the other parent. Its not good for anyone.

I've just remembered an episode with bpdexh's ubpdm. Youngest d was reacting to chocolate (probably medication related since its resolved) and it made her act out and be very emotional.  This kid is on the spectrum and has a lot of issues.  Without fail ubpdmil would give her chocolate and tell her, wait till you get home to eat it.  What's that about if not purely malicious disruption,  passive aggressive too, so its deniable? You know,  crocodile tears, I was just trying to help. 

Except I knew very well she was happy for me to have a tantrum filled morning, either because d ate it or I said no. Very malicious.  (BTW d hated the way it made her feel and we used to bin the stuff as soon as she got home from a visit)
So even little things are used to manipulate. I found nc the only good solution and we were able to manage that over time.  I tried most everything else but if a person feels manipulation and punishment using kids is ok, words and all the social workers in the world won't change them. The only thing that you can do is remove the offender from the situation or put the effort into the child relationship to have them able to deal with pd behavior and to strengthen your relationship.

There is one other way and that is if the pd decides to moderate their behavior because in some way its damaging to them  ie makes them look bad. But even then I found they just wait for an opportunity, or bad mouth you to the kids.  The pd is out of control and trying to get them to control their behaviour is a path to endless frustration. Sadly true peace in the family came once my daughters went nc with bpdexh as adults.

[sevenyears]

Penny and Rose, thanks for your insightful responses. It's soooo helpful to know that there are people out there (sadly) who understand what I'm going through. And, I'm soooo sorry for what you and your families and children are going through. UNOCPD XH's behavior is not apparent enough to the outside world for them to get it, but it's enough to manipulate the children. The social agency is aware of it, but not acting. Since I complained to the social worker, he's now making a big show of telling the kids not to him me in my presence and that we're cooperating for DD's sake. If only this was for real! Rose - we both have fostering rights, so unless the agency takes that away from him, he stays involved in her/our life. I don't know how bad it has to be for them to take away his foster right.

Meanwhile, I've been concentrating on getting help for my daughter. I'm working with the social agency for an evaluation and therapy; as well as to enroll both kids in a support group for children of divorced parents. I'm also working my way through the court regarding the school enrollment for my son, and ultimately, sole custody rights for educational matters. And, I've started (again) therapy for myself to deal with the stress he causes.

[athene1399]

Seven years, I am glad you are trying to find a divorce group for the kids and have gotten yourself back in therapy. It is an integral part of self care IMO. The therapy should be helpful for the kids as well. Has their behavior changed? Or are they still acting out?

[Rose1]

I don't know much about fostering, my only experience was with with a kid who kept running home to his mother from foster care and was made to go back. It seems very mixed up. Anyway a question. Are you able to adopt as a single parent? I know that's not too easy either but trying to think outside the box.
I find it disturbing the social worker knows what is going on and has for some time and doing nothing.
Its also disturbing your ex moderates his behaviour when watched. But this is very common in a pd. I have never been able to work out if they can't keep that going or have no wish to. I suspect the latter.
Take care, you're doing an awesome job