Sarah, thank you for this article. My daughter was …

Comment on So you grew up with a dad who didn’t know how to express love? Here’s how it could be affecting you today (part 2) by G.I. J..

Sarah, thank you for this article. My daughter was 5 and a half when I deployed for a year. The first years were so precious, but I reflect on the time leading up to my departure and regret not recognizing how the stress must have weighed on her emotions. Skype was infrequent, as were phone calls; she didn’t take too well to talking over the line and the nine hour time zone difference made planning difficult. As such, calls were on-the-go… likely when I was free, but when my wife and daughter were trying to make the best of the void. I returned from the year-long deployment and relocated with the family to my home country. It had been 14 years since I lived there and I felt like a stranger there myself – my wife and daughter were even moreso affected. We made the best of things and travelled, but I had an image of my daughter frozen in time; a year before I deployed. This conflicted with how she acted and reacted in the then-present day and my disciplinarian approach took root, much to my regret. My wife and I had a son, eight years younger than our daughter and the family dynamic changed dramatically. I was an only child with a single parent, my wife was the eldest of two sisters from a full family and we had accepted being a single-child family; but our boy delightfully surprised us. It is sometimes difficult to ensure equal attention is shared between both children, but I do recognize it must be a priority. Our relationship is suffering: I feel she often disregards my authority as a parent and I expect she feels I disregard her validity as a maturing young lady; an independent soul in her own right. Until recently, my mind was locked into a punishment-as-consequence-based approach to discipline. Papers my wife has recently shared with me are reshaping my understanding of disciplining children; changing from forcing change to fostering change. We’re doing better, but I still have hiccups and am often at a loss on how to regain control of matters when my daughter lashes out (due to my direct and authoritative approach when an activity needs to come to an end, e.g. nighttime reading.) Do you have any words of advice for father’s in similar situations as mine who cannot gain control… or more importantly, gain the wisdom to share control of our relationship with my daughter in this stage of her mental and emotional development?

Many thanks for the research you have offered.