I'll try not to be too longwinded. Just need to get something off my chest. This is more of a rant than a support request... but maybe this cautionary tale will provide support to others. And if any dads of older kids have been through this and are aware of things I can try that I haven't tried I'm all ears...

I can not stress to you dads of younger kids how important it is to be on the same page with your kids mother in how you handle creating structure for your kids. This goes for what behavior is rewarded and what is punished, what punishment actually looks like, etc. All of it.

My wife and I were NOT on the same page for probably the first 8-10 years of my kids' lives. We are paying for it now with our preteen daughter in a huge way.

Long and short of it: my daughter has a less than great teacher in school. She's in 6th grade. She goes to an Intermediate School. It's a really good district and the school itself is great. Her homeroom teacher, who also teaches her Language Arts class, is the one in question. This lady is older. She's nearing retirement. She does things very old school. Like things I remember teachers doing when I was my daughter's age.

This has been an item of contention for my daughter all year - not even in how the teacher treats her directly (she actually seems to really like my daughter) but in the treatment she has to watch this lady put her peers through. I think a big part of it is my daughter struggles to keep from speaking up or mouthing off to stand up for her peers. She's very much that kind of kid.

I mean honestly - it really isn't impacting her direct friend group. One kid she talks about is one of her "bullies" and she's upset at how the teacher embarrasses him in class. Throws pencils and erasers in his direction. Raises her voice, etc. That's just her thing.

I will say at this point that at the bare minimum - the teacher is being reported for unprofessional behavior. We're already on top of that. We called earlier in the year and wifey is already on it this morning again after the last 12-18hrs or so.

So enough background.

The situation most recently: Teacher has a book they are doing group reading with in class. Did the thing where kids put their names on a bunch of popsicle sticks, and then they draw sticks to see who is reading what characters parts aloud as a group. I remember this from my youth. It was a tense thing, and it was annoying... and yeah it kinda sucked if you got picked because there's embarrassment and vulnerability to doing anything in front of the class... and doing it for a teacher that isn't your favorite amplifies this.... but like... it also taught us to do things that we didn't want to do because we had to. It teaches how to be part of a group and pitch in and do your part to some lower level. And honestly - if you're a shy kid like I was it teaches you to get out of your shell a little bit.

All painful lessons. All growth. All necessary. I think the teacher has the best of intentions in this case specifically, despite her other "stuff".

So guess who's popsicle stick got pulled? Yeah that's right. My kid.

Not only was it pulled... but like they pulled sticks and then didn't read at all that class - they did it at the end of class so that they could build on this anticipation and dread all night and day until this afternoon when they're going to have class and do the reading. (Seriously - who does THAT?)

My daughter has been reeling since my wife got home from work last night. She held it together until then. I think that has to do with things we "taught" her accidently when she was younger. Honestly, until my wife got home I actually thought maybe my daughter had a pretty good day for once... because usually there's a mini-typhoon of preteen angst that blows through the door when the bus drops her off. I just brace myself, listen, apologize for the bad feels and try to be there however I can. None of that happened yesterday.... until wifey got home.

THEN She was screaming, threatening violence on herself and others, she kicked my wife at one point in the hours long fit... all because she has to go to school today and read in this class in front of her peers. It was an all out tantrum.

She's always going on about how everyone "abuses" her. Everyone "screams at" her. Everyone "hits" her. The list goes on. I was very quick to point out to her that she was the only one yelling or hitting anyone the entire time, and how that was unacceptable.

I am proud to admit that I kept it together as well as I did. I didn't lose my temper. I spoke calmly and clearly and with empathy to where she was in her feelings. My son tells me my voice got loud at a few points but I wasn't outright shouting. (He's basically a control variable in these situations.) It didn't fix a lot - but it helped. It was just plainly evident that this is what happens when a kid gets older and is used to screaming and crying and pitching a fit until a parent gives them what they want to shut them up.

(Wife used to do that all the time when she was little, btw.... It was a HUGE source of my marital arguments at the time. Apparently I wasn't being empathetic enough at the time... but here we are.)

So Hurricane Angsty went to bed at like 8:30 or 9. Was back up at midnight when she heard me come up to bed. Kept my wife up all night with more drama, shouting, etc. She kept half the house up honestly.

I've already told my daughter if she won't listen to reason with us, we will seek therapy to get her a productive outlet. We've done this before. She claimed it was fine, she didn't need it anymore... we cancelled the last appointment. She stopped writing in her journal and doing the other things she was equipped with to handle her feelings.... so we're back at that again.

I've told her that we don't measure love by doing things for people (She went through a whole stint of the tantrum where it was like "If you love me then you'd let me stay home tomorrow..." and I nipped that manipulative behavior right away) I told her that sometimes we have to stand up and make her do things she doesn't want to do BECAUSE we love her.I also told her if she keeps talking about harming herself, screaming things about why does she exist and flirting with suicidal ideation speak, she'll get professional help for those things as well.

She deflects a lot - whatever we observe in her and try to help contain she throws the "yeah well what about YOU" and makes it out like whoever is talking to her is guilty of the same thing.

It's just incredibly draining. Exhausting is the word. My wife was backing me the entire way - that's the silver lining. Even if it does feel "too little, too late."

I know that there will be more of these spats. She's only 12.

Just really... I don't know if we did anything wrong in the here and now... but I will reiterate - please find a way to get on the level with whoever else is helping you co-parent your kids... Build a foundation. Be unified - even if only in their perspective. It will help you in the long run.

I'll also own my contributions to this situation. My intention here is not to drag my wife for being lax when they were younger. In fact, i don't even blame her. I totally get it. I wanted to do the cave in thing but she caved in long before my own breaking point...so I never really did. I love this woman dearly and we're more on the same page now than ever before... and in our defense - we didn't know each other more than a month or so before she was pregnant with our first kid... we didn't have time to "calibrate" before adjusting to parenthood... (that's probably another cautionary tale, but we all have different paths as well - and this is already approaching character limits for posts...)

Honestly, for my part, when the kids were younger I raised my voice a lot more than I should have. Now she (my daughter) screams to try and get compliance with her wants and needs. Ouch. I see it. I did that.

I was raised in a home where spanking was a big part of the culture. It got out of hand quickly when I was a kid, but once or twice both of my kids have been subjected to this when they were much younger... Now she acts like she comes home and gets beat up every day. I never LIKED spanking my kid. Especially given how I was raised. But here we are - she's tempting me to think "well, maybe she's acting out like this BECAUSE we STOPPED spanking" and that is messed up because I know given my experience that it did more harm than good for me. So she rants about being "beat up"... "EVERY DAY"... and it's amplified and exaggerated... because there's been nothing remotely close to that in probably 5-8 years... but I helped create the platform for it none the less.

You might think you're exhausted, it won't hurt just this once, you'll give them the thing they're crying for because you just need them to quiet down before you snap. They'll take note and without realizing you'll be creating a habit. Just be careful out there, dads. I clearly don't know what DOES work for that instead... I was the one who would just deal with the screaming, and she (my wife) chose "peace" in that moment. But listen - there's a ton of other dads in this subreddit who can probably give you techniques that work or worked for them in that situation. I found this group long after that phase of life... but anyway thanks for listening to my TED talk.