to wonder what's more important for dc - contact or extra-curricular activity?

[flummoxedbanana]

Dc in question is 6. Her father wants one full weekend Friday from school until Sunday evening in contact per month, as well as every other Sunday and one or two midweek contacts each week. Her mother says no to the full weekend on the basis that the dc has an extra-curricular on the Saturday morning which she doesn't want to give up. Her father thinks contact, and a whole day of it uninterrupted, is more important. Her mother thinks the father should work around the child. The mother says she'll compromise by letting the father collect from school on Fridays as long as he takes dc to her activity on sat morning. The activity is just over an hour from where the father lives and involves the other children having to travel alongtoo, ttaking them up to 1pm on a sat before they're back home which the father objects to as he says it's taking up too much of their time.

Who do you think is BU?

Gran takes the DD on the mum's weekends.

If gran was sick one week and couldn't do it, would the mum be awkward and lazy if she didn't take all the kids along?

If the activity has been in place for a while then I'd say in general changes, such as new contact arrangements, should be made to accommodate the pre-arranged activity. At the age of 6 I don't think the girl's opinion should be taken too strongly (though it shouldn't be ignored completely). My kids have a weekend activity they love, though given the opportunity to stay home they always say they'd rather do that and complain about having to get there. They aren't as happy after two hours at home as after two hours at the activity though and their sense of accomplishment when they get through another level is vast - they wouldn't get that if I didn't make them go each week.

I do see the difficulties with all the travel involved, especially with other children. I think they all need to be a bit more creative to find a better solution though. The dad's proposal makes serious commitment to anything that happens at weekends almost impossible, which cuts out a lot of opportunity, especially as they get older. Also for visiting family, can't the dad take them more in the holidays or have family visit him on contact weekends? My kids don't get to see my family outside of holiday time - it's just too far if we're going to have any kind of life here. Isn't that pretty typical when people move a distance?

When two parents have different ideas on what's important for children there's always likely to be tension. A mediator could be useful for them to help them talk about what values they want to instill and how so they start working from the same page. They both sound a bit entrenched from your descriptions.

Yes doctrine the mother would be lazy of she didn't ensure her dd got there because she cba

Tbh surfing - which ds1 does regularly is just under an hour's drive away (an hour in summer) & ds3's golf which he does every week is half an hour so I'm not really seeing the problem. As I said my kids sometimes have to accompany their siblings (maybe more than once a month on occasion). Heck the who family drove for two days to take ds2 to one thing he was doing (combined it with a holiday when we got there).

If the siblings are younger they're likely to find their own activities they want to do when they're older - so this sort of juggling is likely to increase unless the father is going to refuse to do any activities at all.

Relationship break ups change thing, contact with one parent is often difficult, limited and fragile.

I think the mother has not realised that she shouldn't be calling the shots over this anymore, he needs some freedom to decide how to spend a full day with his children.

Yeah, the child may not get any main roles if he miss one class a month but insisting in the fill half of the day been spent protecting an activity when the parent only see the children once a month it is very shortsighted.

I guess that many here are looking at this from the point of view of the industrictible relationship between parents and their children, which as many of us know, it is not really so after taking all the knows down that come with a divorce.

If the relationship between the children and their dad is not allowed space and time to flourish it would get more fragile overtime. It is protecting that relationship that needs to take priority, as it would have more weight than any activity in the longer term.

Saintly when she was signed up it was local to both of them and dad didn't mind taking her as it was only an hour out of their day. Ex moved and now it takes them past lunchtime, a lot of travelling for other kids, expensive fuel, lack of quality time etc for dc to be able to do the activity so now he objects

That doesn't make sense. If it was local to dad and he hasn't moved then it is still local to dad.

I'm not sure making a child give up an activity they enjoy is protecting a parent-child relationship.

And I know he'll say that he's not making her give it up - he's just asking her to miss once session a month, so if she gives up that will be blamed on the mother... But see sillybilly's posts. The reality is there aren't that many big class/group activities that can be realistically sustained/continued if 12 sessions a year are missed.

Sashh - yes, the activity is still on near dad but dc is enrolled in it the other three weeks near mum and mum says she must attend that one, not his local one.

I'm torn tbh. My dd cannot do activities or parties at the weekend because she has contact with her father eow and I think it's massively unfair on her but mainly because he usually doesn't do anything with her anddrops her off at his parents while he carries on with his plans. In this case, where the dad would actually spend quality time with the children and others are being dragged along for the sake of one child I don't think it's fair. Yes, siblings watch activities as part of family life - my 18 month old comes along and watcheseach aactivity dd does. But then, I see them themmajority of the rest of the time. If I only had the potential of one whole day per month I wouldn't want to do it and think 6 yr olds are capable of understanding some things are more important.

Saintly - my dd, who's also 6, sustained the same activity while missing eow due to contact. It had to be paid for to keep her place but it can be done.

Well it's hard to know without knowing what the activity is, but if it's a team sport or competitive or performing arts I would say while you can go along whenever a miss lessons the child is going to miss out hugely from missing so much. Even if you tell yourself they're not missing out. Even a martial arts would mean the child would get behind on grading etc

Ds3 can miss the odd golf lesson as he's being taught skills, he's not playing it nor being assessed- if he ever gets competitive with it he could not.

I agree with some activities it'd be missing a lot but the one in question is tap dancing. My dd, when missing eow, still managed to learn the routine and be in the show. If friends dd is so super talented that she's destined to be a professional, surely she could manage this too?

memysonandi the dad isnt only seeing her once a month- he is seeing her two mid week nights, one weekend a month friday-sunday and every other sunday. So he is seeing her 3 times a week even without the full weekend.

Well, this is not cast in stone.

Rather than have an all out row with her DM the Dad should find some really fun things for himself and the rest of he family to do whilst she is at activity, in a short while she will ask to join them and not be in interest activity. What about swimming or walks/adventures in the woods/ ice skating? He just needs to try harder, there has to be something, even cinema? Even if he is stuck in the car are there some funny games, great talking books?

The chances of any child following the activity into stardom is prob several million to one (if you think of the pop of the UK and how many famous female artistes you can reel off) so at 6 I feel sorry for the kids with their time filled with this formal teaching, better having happy fun with her family.

I thought it was just the dd's dream to be professional, i dont remember reading that she claimed to be 'so talented and destined to be a professional'.

Dozey she already asks to join them. The activity is only an hour and parents have to stay in case their dc needs escorting to the toilet because it's in a leisure centre, sooother dcs have to watch and wait too

SillyBilly - mum agrees that she will be a professional one day

If she misses 12 sessions she won't be a big part in the show. That tends to help with confidence building etc and the move towards being professional.

Performing arts is HUGELY competitive - she won't get anywhere missing that much (she won't be allowed to as she gets older - even for amateur stuff).

If she is doing it to while away a few hours on a Saturday for a few years & she isn't bothered about getting anywhere then it's fine to miss 12 sessions a year. There's nothing wrong with doing an activity in that way - that's how ds2 approached horse riding, but if she is serious about it & very into it then I'm afraid tap dancing is something she really does need to do it properly from the beginning. Or she won't get anywhere - and I don't mean professionally - I just mean she will be left behind in terms of everyone else in the class.

I'm really confused as to your involvement in all this. If, as you say, you're a friend of the mother then (a) you're not a really good friend and (b) you are besotted with the dad. Why do you know the ins and outs of the dad's decision making process and why are so hell bent on painting him as the good guy?

Leaving that aside, I think he needs to suck it up. Why is contact only once a month if he's always been in their lives? Why should the mother bend over backwards to facilitate happy fun times constantly when she doesn't get that? The child shouldn't miss a quarter of lessons and you can't swap classes from one area to another - it just doesn't work like that.

Saintly their dance shows are group dances where everyone has the same routine, there are no 'big parts.' Dc hasn't even begun on any of the grades yet, to say she's going to be professional is the mum being a bit over enthusiastic I think

More - dad is dps best friend. Mum is school run and coffee friend, not best friend or anything. Mum happily lets dc miss activity if she has something planned with her.

Ok, DF can arrange childminder to stay, maybe pay a 16 year old to watch her for the few hours. Perhaps ask leisure centre for ideas.

There might even be a system in place for helping DCs on their own, ask the tutor.

There is no point in me or anyone else saying that the DM is unreasonable - the prob is still not solved. DF needs to try harder.

Mum is not agreeable to any but dad looking after the children

When our kids were young then neither adult arranged for regular activities for the children on weekends as it was felt that was too restricting. The children only started doing weekend activities when at secondary school when they started having school sports fixtures etc on a weekend and the child was old enough to ask to do it and get the agreement of both parents. Now they are older teenagers we work around them as most teenagers don't spend much time on a weekend with their parents and they spend time with whichever parent they fancy, we just both make sure we see them regularly.
Age 6 neither of them would have been going to this and it would never have been arranged on a Saturday.

Actually I disagree - performing arts is an area where children have an opportunity (with some talent) to actually do professional work - until they reach the magic height of 5 foot anyway. For some children this can be hugely enriching & encouraging and can set up their future career.

That's certainly been the case for one of my sons. Performing arts is very competitive - his early professional experiences have given him the confidence to think that he can make this a career. It's not about fame - if anything seeing close up how the general public treat the famous has put him off - it's about loving the activity & now having the confidence to go for it. I doubt very much that he would have had the confidence to go for it without those early experiences. One tends to lead on to another. It doesn't matter if he does end up doing something else (he has plenty of plan B's) but he's seen a whole bunch of different things he could do.

And he's still quite a few inches under 5 foot :)

If it's in a leisure centre why can't the other kids do something else as well? Or is there not a cafe on site? My kids would go anywhere with the promise of a biscuit. And if the partner is only working some weekends surely the other kids only need to tag along once every other month or something.

I'm confused about the issues tbh. Other than if she loves the activity then ideally she will be supported, if she is talented she could be using the skills professionally in a few years - or less. If dad doesn't want to take her she could give up but the whole family will need to come to some agreement about classes or this will happen more often as all the children get older & starting & being forced to quit does no-one any favours. If she is the eldest this same question will come up with the others.