Hi everyone. Decided to post this under a throwaway for privacy purposes.I’m divorced from my kids’ mom. She’s currently in rehab and isn’t a very reliable parent, so 99% of everything falls on me.I’ve been planning to go on a weekend trip with my kids for about a month now. Daughter is 11, son is 6. The plan was to leave Friday right after school and then come back late Sunday. I packed for my son and my daughter was supposed to pack her stuff. But even though she told me Thursday she was “working on packing”, on Friday morning she admitted to me she’d packed absolutely nothing and would do it when she came home from school.Well that was going to throw everything off because I was planning to pick her and my son up from school and get directly on the road rather than doubling back. (I had told my daughter this before but she apparently didn’t listen). So I figured I would just pack for her. I really wasn’t thinking it would be a big deal. I grabbed up the school supplies that she hadn’t taken, put clothes in a bag along with hygiene products, and that was it.So I pick her up from school. I let her know I packed for her already so we can get directly on the road after we get her brother. She starts opening up the duffel I packed and pushing things around. All of a sudden she starts flipping out. Apparently, she was mad because I had “touched” her underwear and her pads.I didn’t handle it well. I was kind of stressed out already trying to do everything myself and I got mad when she did. I told her I didn’t want to hear it since this wouldn’t have happened if she’d packed her own stuff. She got really emotional and said she didn’t even want to go anymore. I kind of lost it at that point and snapped at her and said “do you not think I’m aware you have a period and wear underwear? Who do you think bought them?!”She got really upset and didn’t end up speaking to me much the entire trip. We were going to see my parents and apparently my daughter talked to my mom (her grandmother) about this and my mom talked to me and I realized this was maybe worse than I thought. I do feel guilty about it now because apparently my daughter is still really ashamed that she even has a period. I didn’t know that before but I probably should have. In hindsight, I didn’t do much to prepare her for it and just sort of went out and bought what she needed when it happened. She said she knew how to use everything already and we didn’t really talk much more about it.Anyway, it’s been a few days now and things haven’t been the same. She’s not giving me the silent treatment anymore but she’s quieter than normal. I don’t really even know how to talk to her about everything now. I’m embarrassed, honestly, and I feel guilty for how I spoke to her. Any advice would be helpful. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2ivlIPg
No comments:
Post a Comment