Mixed Signals or Just My Imagination ?

[native]

W kept D6 for two hrs today, while I tied up some loose ends w/work. When I got there, D was crying on couch. W explained that she would not communicate to her about what she wanted. It appeared they were not making headway and D looked pleadingly to me and sobbed 'Daddy...daddy....'

I said it looked like we ought to give her a little time to calm down and picked up D and hugged her.

W accused me of 'not backing her up'. I was in no mood to be accused when it looked like another episode of W being impatient.

I took D and we headed off to go hiking. Stopped on the way and got the story from her perspective.

It looked like W had gotten angry at D's frustrated outburst when W turned off video. D had wanted to watch some of it over but did not actually verbalize what it was she wanted, only expressed her unhappiness with a strident 'No !!!'

W tried to get D to explain why she was unhappy, but in the process succeeded in shutting D down even further. W had showed no patience, but had gotten angrier and angrier.

I had been through the same situation in the past year a number of times and had finally figured out that D needed to be hugged in order to regain the composure to actually express her thoughts clearly.

All day long in the back of my mind I wondered how I would approach W and have a positive outcome, one that would help their relationship and would not make ours worse.

I was tempted to draw correlations to how her M used to treat my W as a child. When W was about our D's age, and was pouting and angry ( much like our child), M would try to get her to talk but would end up exasperated and physically 'punch' or 'pounce' the bed and walk out in a huff.

By contrast, her F would come and tickle her out of her bad mood and eventually get her to talk.

After getting home, making supper and getting settled in, I called a DB'ing friend (who is divorced) and ran the whole thing by him. With his help I could see what I needed to do.

Called W and kept it all very positive.

I told her how I really wanted her R with D to be a success and that if what she was doing was not getting her the results she wanted with D, she might try an approach similar to her Dad's. ( Of course, I avoided drawing comparisons of her behavior with her Moms).

W actually said she really realized I was right and acknowledged she had been struggling with patience (this is what my D refers to when she says 'mommy is mean').

No resistance, no accusations from her, or from me to her.

It was a thing of wonder. Wow. How I wish I could have figured this out years ago.