Dads Losing Connection With Their Daughters

“Daughter is 11 years old. Custody is split evenly. So one week with me (Dad) and the other week (Mom). Mother wants me to punish daughter even though she is great with me. When my daughter is at her moms house she acts horrible. She is mean to her siblings, mean to her mom and other family members. Mostly verbal screaming and name calling. Some physical but nothing to concerning beyond typical sibling fights. Biggest thing right now is her taking her sisters clothes to wear to school. Her mom is”

“This is something I’ve been struggling with, and I feel a bit ashamed even writing it. I’m a father of three. I have a 9-year-old daughter, a 4-year-old daughter, and a newborn son. My oldest daughter has always struggled with language and communication. When we noticed that she wasn’t developing her speech as expected, we started speech therapy and continued until she was around seven. We’ve also taken her to several doctors and arranged private tutoring. The general feedback has been that she”

“My wife asked for a divorce a few months ago. I fought for us, she wasn’t convinced and she decided to leave. So we’ve been having our daughter roughly 50/50 while our house is being sold and when it does, we’ll be moving to a fixed schedule of one week on and one week off. Originally we agreed we wouldn’t start dating until we were out of the house, out of respect and to not make the situation more difficult. Well, she went back on that and only admitted it when I had my suspicions and confront”

“Hello to anyone who will take the time to read this. I am a 31 (soon to be 32) year old single dad to a wonderful little girl who is 7. As the title suggests, I’m struggling and fighting what seems to be an ever losing, Sisyphusian battle within my mind and heart. Feeling like no matter how hard I try to make it life and show myself and my daughter I can be happy and successful, life always finds a way to throw me back down to the ground and constantly remind me I’m not worthy of it. That my onl”

“Struggling with my 2 year old girl not wanting anything to do with me... Feels like anything of importance (changing, potty, bed) she absolutely doesn't want me to do it and will cry for her mom. We have a really good relationship, my daughter and I, but I did used to work 3pm-11pm so for the first 2 years of her life I always had to focus on work when she was home. Thinking one or two days a week we will go do an activity just us (swim, ski in the winter, go to the park). Would love any adv”

“I have 4 daughters. Ages 11, 8, 7 and 4. I’m definitely the primary parent. Their father and I have been married 12 years and together 17. We’ve had issues. I’ve noticed my girls seem to ask me and when I try to get them to ask dad they don’t want to. Is that normal? submitted by /u/Virtual_Tonight4245 [link] [comments]”

“Hi Dads, I am stay at home dad to my thirteen month old daughter, and it has gone really well until now apart from a couple of weeks of separation anxiety around ten months old. Generally we try and get out of apartment as much as possible during work hours but also spend the days in fairly close proximity to my wife who often works from spare room and generally can be heard on calls and sometimes seen during the day and has never caused too many issues other than the occasional cry and outburst”

“Hey all, I have a 5 year old daughter that I love immensely. We have great times, we laugh, do fun things, and honestly have a pretty good relationship. The issue is that there are a lot of time when she will tell me she wants her mom (when it's my time of the week), she mistakenly calls me mom and then corrects herself, isn't excited to see me at pickup, etc. It just has been wearing on me so much. I've read a few posts about similar topics where a child prefers one parent over the”

“Trying to not make this post completely massive. Basically im 32, been married to my wife for 7 years and we have a 3 year old daughter. I feel like this just keeps getting harder and harder. We’ve upgraded her to a big bed from a crib because she was too big for the crib, always slept amazing 7pm to 7am since she was born basically, the last 3 weeks she hasn’t slept a full night in her bed. Keeps getting up and coming into ours or it’s a 3 hour battle to get her into bed. Everything is a battle”

“Hey fellow Dad's, step Dad here. So my step daughter (16yo) has been truanting school. She is extremely smart but has mild depression (seeing 2 x psychologists) but uses her smarts to manipulate sometimes. She is trans (was born male - hasn't transitioned, only socially) so obviously has a lot going on and we try to assist. She has admitted that she doesn't care about life and rules much (but obviously we do). Her favourite thing is laying in bed watching anime on her ipad or being o”

“I have a 13 year old daughter that was seen my a therapist in middle school. They told me I should continue if needed. I don’t know what’s going on we’re at my grandsons Birthday party and I noticed she was crying I’m like what’s going on she starts telling me I need to drop out of my ELA class. it was just so random. Then a friend starts talking to her and I asked her well what did she say she tells me I don’t know. she tells me she’s not focused! I scheduled an appointment with a therapist wou”

“my daughter (13) has a total of 19 missing assignments across multiple classes. Some of them have been due to her dad allowing her to stay home because she says that she doesn't feel well on several days and once she falls behind she starts to feel overwhelmed and won't do any new assignments. And trust me I have absolutely gone off on him about this. She has made up a decent amount of the assignments but there are still 19 due. The biggest problem has been the computer class she's t”

“Where to even start, this was a huge gut punch. My daughter has been acting out, during therapy she won’t mention anything, she will make subtle hints or tell her mom something but afraid to tell me. It’s like that with certain things since we try and keep her very sheltered(along with her younger brother). I’ve had a rough upbringing and so has the mom to both kids but we both are still learning EVERYDAY how to be parents at each stage, we don’t have family or friends all we do is work and stay”

“Hi, I’m a relatively new dad of my 18 months old daughter. I love her, and I believe she loves me very much. As a toddler can love I guess. The issue I face is that she doesn’t want to say hello , say goodbye, she often cries her eyes out when she first see me after waking up or when I come back from work. The first 5min are hell, it’s like she’s seen the devil. Tries to run to mom, avoid me. After that it goes away and it’s great again we play, we cook together, we do everything any parents-kid”

“It quite irks me in some tv shows where dads have zero clue what to do or say when their daughter goes through puberty. What about you? How did you handle it and how did you explain it to your daughter? submitted by /u/strange_omelet [link] [comments]”

“Hey fellow Dad's, step Dad here. So my partner and her daughter (16yo) live with me in my apartment, and we've struggled with my step daughter's behaviour. Firstly I should say that my partner has sanctioned me to help. My step daughter has a lot of problems, mild depression and she's trans. So my step daughter had a rough upbringing as her bio Dad abandoned them in a very distressing way when she was 9yo and this is undoubtedly where some of her problems come from. At first I fe”

“Unfortunately, my daughter and I don’t live near each other. We’re about five hours apart by car, so I’m not part of her everyday life the way I wish I could be. I have her during the bigger school breaks and holidays, and I try to see her when I can in between. Up until she became a teenager, we were inseparable. She couldn’t get enough of spending time with me, and we’ve always had a really close relationship. Now that she’s a teenager, though, I constantly feel like I’m bothering her or impos”

“I (34) have 2 daughters (6 & 5). Over the last 2 years, my oldest daughter’s attitude has worsened. At the start of kindergarten, she was put on a behavior plan because she constantly acted out for attention. Halfway through the year, her school behavior improved immensely and she was taken off the plan. However, over the summer, both kids were home full-time with myself and my husband (we both work remotely) and because of how busy work was, it kind of became a free for all. Due to my husba”

“I’m a 22 year old male I have 2 daughters one is 4 and the other is 3 weeks. My wife is 25. People are saying I need to send my daughter to school. I am so worried like crazily worried it makes me shake thinking about sending her off. We haven’t gotten many breaks at all no grandmas watching them or anything. She’s stayed with us for 24/7 for 4 years. When I think about it I think about other kids hurting her or her feelings, I think about teachers who abuse students, I think about her crying wa”

“My daughter is 12-yrs , this summer, beside studying English at home, we took on a 10 days trip together. that i don't want into too much details about the trip. but i noticed a serious issue with her during the trip we together, she has an extremely strong sense of "fairness" for every thing she does. constantly complaining about things being unfair or asking "why should I？" it's really feels like she can't take even the slightest grievance. another way, she comp”

“I’m a dad with a daughter that just turned 13. Our relationship has changed over the last year or so. We use to be so close but she hasn’t wanted to hug me in about a year. I feel my only value is being the ATM/Uber. I get the attitude more and more frequently. I’ll ask her questions and get one word answers or body language for response. When we are in stores, she is typically 10 feet in front of me or behind. She is very aloof towards me. Meanwhile, she is extremely close to my wife. I have no”

“My daughter (12) has been pretty vocal that she hates school - not just normal kid complaining, seems like a real aversion. I've been trying small nudges - talking through it, adjusting things where I can - my wife's approach is more direct/pushes harder. We haven't really landed on whether we should present a united front (and if so, whose approach wins) or whether it's actually fine for us to parent this differently in parallel and let our daughter see two different styles. Any”

“Last year, I got separated from my wife. Things are in courts, and she has played all kinds of tactics to delay me seeing our daughter. I just saw her once in the last year, for 30 or so minutes. Now, I was doing reasonably fine - things were slow, but they were moving. I had something tragic happen in the family during this, and I think I was able to cope reasonably with that too. I was there for my family, taking a lead on different things, different. But lately, I don't feel so well. My w”

“Our daughter is going into her second year of college. She LOVES college. Everything about it is wonderful and we are happy to see her feeling successful. The problem is now she is very, very unhappy when she has to be at home. She is rude and picks fights. She makes it clear that she finds her parents and her younger siblings to be unbearable. She loves that college means she basically goes to a restaurant for every meal and gets to pick what she wants. She HATES that summer at home means that”

“My 1.5 year old daughter is in a phase where she is constantly pushing me away. All she wants is her mom. We’re both very involved parents, but I was a SAHD for like 9 months and her and I were as thick as thieves. Now, she is obsessed with mom, which on its own is a great thing, but I literally can’t even come near her most of the time. If I come in for a kiss, she puts her hand up and shoves me away. If I’m near her in any way, shoves me away. A few times I’ve simply walked into the room and s”

“So the past couple of months, I’ve (33m) noticed a steady decline in my daughter’s mental health. We’ll call her G. Some background: G is an only child. I’m not with her mother anymore and we live separately, which I’m sure affects her because she’s always been close to her mom. Unfortunately, due to circumstances (that are being worked on, restraining order on her batshit sister) I’m not allowing G to visit but she has an open invitation to come see her daughter at my place. I’m confident this”

“I’m a single dad, and I’m lost. I have 2 kids son is 17 daughter just turned 14. Never had issues with my son, but my daughter…holy crap. I’ve seen that lately she’s been a lot more moody. I know this isn’t very mature of me to say, but I’m genuinely scared to really sit down and ask her what’s wrong. Cause I know how it’ll go. She just won’t tell me. I can’t tell if it’s hormones or there’s something going on I’m not aware of. I just want to try to fix it cause it’s exhausting for the 3 of us.”

“I hsve a 17 year old for some reason, she does not like talking to me. We do not live together. We are separated. So of course, the phone is the only way of communication. But even then, it's like I have to force her to talk to me. She refuses to pick up the phone and call me. Texting is the same thing submitted by /u/Hesallcap [link] [comments]”

“My daughter is in elementary school, and none of her activities are "team" activities, which means no competitions, weekend practices, or travel. they're all once a week activities, lasting between an hour and an hour and a half. She does piano, trampoline and tumbling, cheer, acro, jazz, tap, and ballet, and hip hop. Last year she did everything but jazz, tap, and ballet and she did good, so maybe my fears are overblown, but I'd love to hear others experiences. submitted”

“I have a daughter 9f and son 6m. Son is fine, plays by himself, listens to both myself and wife. Daughter though mostly will not play by herself. More importantly, since she has always been all over wife to the point where she does not get a break. And since she turned 9, she no longer wants to do anything with me. So with my wife, let's say she is not feeling well. Wife will want to stay in bed and try to sleep. I would inform the kids. Son will stay with me, but daughter would go straight”

“My daughter is almost 3 years old and my wife and I have drifted apart, to the extent that she asked for a divorce last week. We talked and talked and to be frank, I really fought my case as best I could, but she wants to go ahead with it. We‘re living together until the house is sold, then we will share custody of our daughter 50/50. We've already told her what’s happening in very kid-friendly terms but obviously she doesn’t really understand. She knows that we’re leaving this house soon an”

“From birth to now, age 5, my daughter has been 100% mommas girl and glued to me at the hip. Kind of naturally so and understandable when ive been the one who stayed home and did everything with and for her for the most part 247. I should also mention she's special needs and medically needy and so I also handle ALL of that and every appointment, etc. But now shes almost 5 and just this past week she seems to have switched sides so to say 😂 it was surprising and I was glad to see her want to”

“My daughter is 13 and missed 115 days of school this past year. Because of her high absenteeism, the school board’s mental health and attendance review committee recommended that she see a psychiatrist and a public health nurse, but she completely refuses. Her pediatrician ran some simple screening inventories and confirmed she manifests symptoms of anxiety. However, she is still very social, does not appear depressed, and scored very low on depression scales. Right now, she is refusing to come”