Just found out she already filed

[ImprovedRomeo]

Nikita, I checked in on your thread. I read a bit of par4me's sitch but I'll need to read more to see if I can contribute anything useful.

FM, thanks so much. I post here to get feedback if I did something wrong, I very much appreciate the 2x4s. I have read two books recently 'How to talk so kids will listen and how to listen so kids will talk' and 'The complete single father'. What I remember from the latter book is 'you won't be a perfect parent, there's no such thing, you'll make mistakes the key is to learn from them'- I get it, it's kinda like life in general.

You're right this stuff is not easy and sometimes I don't know I'm handling a situation properly. 8 out of 10 times I validate her and be the adult. It's the other 2 times when I feel I need to put my parent hat on and tell her that her continued behavior is not acceptable. I know I've been more structured with her than her mom and I've been trying to do less of it. I'm also sensitive to her feelings; when she misses her mom I hold her and tell her that I know she misses mommy and that she'll see her in a day or two days and she can call mommy and talk to her but she always says no to calling her but will say she wants to see her. I tell her I know she does but it's daddy's day with her and mommy's probably out running errands etc too. Are these the right exact words to say? I don't know but from the first book it's about letting them know that you understand how they feel and then be direct about what you want them to do. This is where the 'you need to be nice and polite' comes from. She understands how she can be nice, like I said without me asking she wanted to help me wash the car and cleaned up her room etc. She also knows how not to be nice and that's when she'll act a bit bratty, not answer me, or be passive-aggressive...which is not like her but I think she learns it from her school from the other kids.

Anyway, I think the bottom line is I'd like to know if there's a better way of handling this situation. How would you suggest I handle it in the future?