Emailing and children

[scatterbee]

Again after advice for my partner.

He is the NRP. He wants to set up an email address for his DC (5 & 7) so that they can email each other. He wants this private from his ex if possible. Also wants them to be able to instant message each other / web cam / skype if him and the DC are on at the same time.

She thinks hes unreasonable. That expecting them to email is daft. And that she has no objection to trying to webcam but it needs to be a set time, and its likely to be a brief moment before they race off, and she is not willing to have a webcam left on so he can see what they are playing / generally doing as thats an invasion of her house.

So Is he unreasonable?

Is he seriously writig to tell them about his week and expecting them to plugh through that to the end? Isn't that just for the ex's 'benefit' so she knows what's going on. She will clearly need to ready anything that is longe rthan 2 lines to them.

My ds's grammy writes to him regularly. She writes about things he like - that she put some bird seed out and the squirrels ate it, that she found some stickers she hopes he likes (enclosed for his use), that they have gt lots of candy in for halloween and here is some money for him to buy some.
That is stuff he likes to read. He still struggles with the hadwriting and usually hands it over to me to read for him.

If she told him all about her week he'd be bored to tears I'm sure. She doesn't need to know about getting the car serviced, or booking their holiday, or going to visit friends (though he did like to hear they went to see great grandma as he didn't even know he had a great grandma till then).

He has to think about what his dc want and need from him. Not what he wants to write, or tell them or get in reply from them.

My ds chats to me about school in the car on the way home. When grandma asks him at the weekend how school was he says 'fine'. Because it is no longer relevant. However if she says shall we play a card game (which he loves) he'll be enthusiastic as hell.

What are these 2dc in to? What can he chat about to graps tehir attention. If they like a tv show get them some stickers for that. Then ask if they got them and have they made a poster or stuck them on their bedroom door or somethign with them...
Then he MAY get a response.
Think small. Think child. And keep on regardless of getting a reply. Then one day he may get to reap what he has sown.
Right now he's sown not a lot, so he's n ot going to get anythign much back now is he...

Scatterbee - again, you NEED to step away from this. These are not your children. This is nothing to do with you.

You need to let your DP work this out for himself.

DandyLioness - no he CAN drive, he's just BANNED because he was DRINK DRIVING

He was supposed to return them at 9am on the Sunday. He returned them just after dinner. He drank a bit too much at his cousins 40th and we all overslept. He felt perfectly sober enough to drive them back on the Sunday, but obviously it was still in his system.

Its only his ex who wont let him see them at her house, he would go there if he could. The contact centre is not very nice.

He was late returning the children following a family party. Ex called the police, they by a fluke pulled his car over. He was slightly over the limit when he was stopped by the police. His ex stopped contact. DP went completely off the rails, disappeared, started heavy drinking, got in a fight with exs partner, got banned from driving

I feel so sorry for the mother of these kids.

The only good thing is she got rid of the useless waste of space.

Just after dinner means hours and hours late I am sure the ex-wife was FRANTIC so would any caring responsible parent.

Both of you got hammered to the point of not being able to get up the next morning whilst in charge of two wee boys. Ridiculously irresponsible.

He has no right to go to his ex's house, she's quite right not to let him go there.

Tough shit if the contact centre isn't nice - it's his fault for being such a waste of skin that they have to meet there - oh sorry they don't hardly coz he can't be bothered

GRRRR

I'd love to see the cafcass report on him.

As I said it's his inability to be a protective parent and minimising his behavior that I would have serious concerns about.

He doesn't just sound like a Pratt his actions have evidenced he's is one!

That should've read "any caring responsible parent be"

DOH

Its not that easy to just step away from it. I dont particularly involve myself in convos with the ex, its just trying to help DP that it do. Ex used to get on well with his family, buts its all just gone to hell in a handbasket!

He doesnt list his week inn massive detail, but you know he used to tell them something hed learnt at uni or about a film he watched and then ask them about their school or what they have done.

They are into anything superheroy at the moment. Typical boys i think! He sent them the X-man movie but ex returned it.

SGM - I was just about to type that!

Both of them so drunk that he was still drunk after lunchtime the next day. Beggars belief that the OP thinks he's a great man.

He was drinking heavily. Continued. Disappeared. Got into fights.

And what else?

He sounds a great caring lovely man - not.

X-Men is rated 12.

I know because I was shocked when I got it out to oogle Hugh Jackman

Of course the ex returned it.

Jeez.

Oh and they are 5 and 7.

Unless he was doing a degree in play based learning, they would have no interest in what he was doing at uni.

It's not about him.

To be a good parent, a lot of it is about giving with no expectation of return.

He needs to get his head around this.

Dandy - he is suffering heavily from anxiety. He is at the moment incapable of leaving the house without someone with him. His contact was originally supported at a contact centre, but because of his panics its being upgraded to supervised.

With regards to being late. We woke at about 10ish - texted the ex, but it turns out we had an old number. The kids were with other relatives as had left the party earlier. We collected them and then took them straight home. The ex did not have my number at that time (would have had it when we texted) and DPs battery had died. We apologised, offered all the contact numbers in case it happened again. Kids were fine, but yes she was frantic understandably

Im not explaining very well. Really hes not as dreadful as I appear to be making him sound. He has made some very bad choices. However i made the decision to stand by him and I will do so. Hes trying to turn his life around, but his ex is (again understandably) having difficultly letting go of what happened. I didnt particularly want to go into all the circumstances about what has happened, because it does sound bad!

Im just trying to help him have ideas about what he can do going forward

You are seriously irritating me.
Stop casting blame everywhere:
'the kids don't write back'
'it's all because of the ex'

NO

It's because your partner is not thinking of the children. Just himself. They are KIDS. They look to their parents for guidance. Kids are not stupid, they have a great sense of self preservation mostly, and try to keep away from people who hurt them. He needs to think about that when he's trying to force them to interact with him.

I'm so angry I can hardly type. Their poor mother having to deal with him being a complete fuckwit and unsettling her children. And you, you need to wake up and grow a pair. Stop pandering to him.

And everything that ItsNotGoingWell said x100.

It just gets worse and worse.

You really need to go and get professional help - the two of you - before you try to build a relationship with these kids, and your daughter FWIW

Honestly, you have an excuse for everything. Both of you drunk on an access weekend, kids shipped off elsewhere to enable this, still drunk at lunchtime, incapable of having correct phone numbers - inexcusable.

Oh and if the only number the ex had was your partners number, you could've swapped sim cards round so that she could get you.

Or was your phone dead too?

what about the fact that the mum hadn't updated her phone number with OP's dp?

or is that a forgivable mistake, because she is their mum?

OP and her dp were not able to contact the mum (and not just due to no battery).