My daughter is eight years old and her father and I have been divorced for four years. In the last year she has had a lot of changes. My parents, who she was very close to moved far away, I got married, and we moved to a new home. Her cousins were next door and went to school with her. She is in a new school. She was having a hard time with school and I thought some other problems were coming from the stress of school. However, she is settling in now, and though things aren't perfect, they are better. She loves my husband, but when she is upset doesn't want him to speak.
Saturday we dropped my daughter off at her fathers. The same thing happened that has been happening for weeks now. She refuses to get out of the car. I have to drag her to her dad, and then he holds her while she screams that she needs me. She fights and fights and is very hard to handle. He holds her until we drive out of the driveway. I usually cry as we drive away because it is so hard on me emotionally. Her father had a terrible temper and was very verbally abusive. Apparently he has it under control. She tells me if he punishes her or yells at her and he hasn't lately. However because of the past it is very hard to drop her off.
Then on Sunday she comes home and she is fine for a few minutes and then when we tell her no about anything, (tonight it was no to pie, and then the tv went off, not as punishment.) She started screaming at the top of her lungs, and sharp high pitched horrible scream. She screams and screams and then cries and says, " Why don't I ever get to have fun? I never have any fun because I am the worst child in the world!" That goes on and on. From then on it takes quite a while to calm her down and get her to sleep.
Is there anything I can do to avoid this? Sometimes we play a game and that helps, but tonight I had a migraine, and we watched some tv as a family. We also cuddled. We make sure she does a lot of fun things, art and crafts, games with us, visiting with cousins etc. I know that right now she has separation anxiety and doesn't want to be away from me at all. She used to go places with my husband, but lately she won't go with anyone anywhere unless I am coming too. I am a stay at home mother and I spend a lot of time with my daughter. I try to regularly spend time with her in which we just have fun, however, she is expected to do a few chores, and behave.
She does have adhd and we are going to a parenting group which has helped us deal with her in different ways, and it has helped a lot. She is on a low dose of adderall but has not been having it on weekends due to her father. He has now decided to start giving it to her on weekends.
Stassy