To be startled at the advice given to DD..

[spudalicious]

My husband and I separated at the beginning of the year. Lots of reasons but primarily due to his alcohol dependency and emotional and verbal abuse.

My DD (7) is struggling to come to terms with the separation and has been seeing a counsellor.

My ex sees her regularly (3 times a week) but is not living somewhere he thinks is suitable for a child to visit so comes to see her at our house while I go out.

It's not ideal but it's all I've been able to arrange. Terms of court order specify that he cannot come to see her if he has been drinking. I do handover in order to monitor as best I can if he is in fit state.

He regularly gets sad and cries or shouts at me when he leaves after visits particularly if he thinks I 'have not been nice enough to him'. This obviously distresses my DD and so both of them end up crying and this is the primary discussion point in her counselling sessions.

In my catch up with counsellor she said she had advised DD to try not to get too upset when her dad goes so he doesn't get too upset and the end of the contact is better. I am a bit shocked by this and queried it at the time as I feel that my DD takes too much responsibility for his feelings already (that is partly his historic EA and my behaviour during our relationship and partly the way of all children of separated parents feel I guess). I appreciate it may be a practical way of dealing with the situation but I can't help but feel it's not great for my daughter's counsellor to be reinforcing that sort of behaviour. One of my reasons for leaving was watching DD start to modify her behaviour to manage her relationship with her dad as I did.

So AIBU to think that this advice suggests a lack of expertise in the dynamics of EA relationships and to consider whether this counselling is in my DD's best interest?

I should say that she enjoys her sessions very much and likes the counsellor a lot.

[JamieandtheMagicTorch]

spudalicious

A nice but missguided/inexperienced counsellor is no use to your DD. I think you should stick to your guns. You speak perfect sense