To think pinning a child down is absolutely unacceptable?

[LottieG100]

My DD is 10 and sees her dad every other weekend and some extra during holidays. I have wondered about mild SN in the past - one of the reasons being because she can get very hysterical very quickly over minor things. She hates being enclosed, any slight injury or pain and bodily related things like being ill, having her hair or nails cut.

Bearing this in mind; her toe nails have a fungal infection. She can't bare to look at them and getting samples to send for analysis was extremely difficult. Because of the infection, they grow very slowly yet her dad is insisting on cutting them every time she sees him. I'm not exaggerating when I say that she is horrifically upset over having her nails cut. She panics and screams like she's being murdered.

She's come back from his several times now saying he has forced her to let him cut her nails. I've asked how he can force her (knowing how difficult it is to persuade her) and she's said she gets as upset as she does at home but he pins her down and does it anyway. He later laughs about it. I've pointed out to her that she would be absolutely livid about being pinned down if I were to do it and that she'd tell me so and that no one has a right to do something to her body that she doesn't want them to. I've told her she needs to stand up to him and say it's unacceptable but she said she's worried he won't see her anymore if she does. I said that she can't carry on letting him hurt and upset her on that basis but she then clams up.

Having tackled him, he thinks she needs to get over it and is being ridiculous to get in such a state about it all. He doesn't see anything wrong in what he's doing. AIBU to think pinning a child down is absolutely wrong and to take matters out of her hands and tell him that if it happens again then contact will be restricted until he takes matters to court?

So I wasn't going to post but read this and couldn't stop thinking about it.
I think given all your posts I agree you should stop contact with your dd and her dad. He's being abusive emotionally and physically.
My mum had to do this for me when I was 12 with my father and it's the best thing she ever did for me. The sense of relief I felt was immense (despite loving him and having the same feels you describe your dd having). I needed someone to take control and say this is not acceptable for anyone to treat you this way. Your dd needs the same. She is a child and needs your protection. I would seek some advice from a solicitor first but I can't see him being awarded unsupervised contact given the history.
You can explain to your dd this but make it clear it is not a negitiation. If it gets as far as her having to discuss with authorities simply reassure her that all she needs to do is tell the truth to them.

She will not speak out about him against him to anyone but me so I am stuck because if I stop or reduce contact, he absolutely will take me to court and say I'm blocking contact. She'll say she loves him and wants to see him and residency could end up being reversed.

Be worth getting legal advice but my recollection was that I didn't have to "speak out" as such. Just answer questions. Eg When your dad does such and such how does it make you feel.

Also looking back the social works and solicitors involved were well trained to spot abuse and I didn't actually have to say anything against my dad. It was obvious by my behaviour that he was extremely manipulative and controlling.

If it's a matter of her health then sometimes you have to do what you have to do. We have an 11yo with severe SN and yes we do have to restrain him at time. We had to deal with a claw like toenail, the other week because it was hurting him. At times, one of us has had to hold him to clean his teeth. He needs to have eyedrops put in so he can have his sight tested at the hospital and he hardly sits and willingly allows us to sinister those. If, however, we had decided that restraining him was never acceptable, there's a high chance that he could have been classed as partially sighted by now.

Sinister = administer.

I would take exception to your ex's attitude, mind. he sounds vile.

If it needs to be done, it needs to be done. This sounds unpleasant for your DD but if she refuses to have it done any other way then theres really no choice.

DS had to have some utterly vile medicine not long ago and the GP advised I physically restrain him and force it down his throat. Which sounds abuse but its for the best really...

It's an extremely well-known phenomenon that children with social communication and sensory disorders (including autism) do tend to manage to hold things together in school, but the build-up of stress during the day causes a bit of an explosion once they get home. Therefore I really would suggest you go back to your GP and push for a referral, including a referral to a sensory-trained occupational therapist.

I've told him they've been cut already. He does it anyway. It is exactly the situation that if it's not this, it's something else. He made her have her hair cut short when she didn't want to, he forced her to share his bed when she didn't want to. He lies to her and breaks promises and she feels powerless to stop him.

In this case yes he does sound abusive. I think you are going about this the wrong way though making your DD tell him? Seems kind of like you are telling her this is her own fault for not standing up to him. I don't really understand what he can be cutting though, is he cutting her skin instead?!

You dd obviously loves her dad and wants to see him. I don't think you should change that. Children can be very conflicted in their loyalties and she may complain to you as a way of showing loyalty to you. If she came bouncing in saying what a good time she had had with dad she might think you would be upset. The over sensitivity is a seperate issue. If she is fine at school then maybe she is not as sensitive as you believe. Could she perhaps be picking up stress from home? Maybe you need to sit down with her and have a grown up heart to heart with no pressure that you will change any current arrangements?

This is sounding not unlike the early stages of a situation my son had with his dad.
In the end to manage contact we had to have a huge number of court orders forbidding him from doing things like haircuts meeting people,sports and all sorts.

We got the orders and now contact happens and for the most part I'd enjoyable for them both without them contact would have stopped

What you've described sounds really toxic for your daughter.

He mocks and belittles her when she doesn't comply, which teaches her that those she loves will hurt her and make her feel unloveable unless she does what they want her to do.

He ignores her strong objections to breaches of her privacy (bed sharing) and bodily autonomy (nails and hair), which is teaching her that her boundaries don't matter, and that a man she loves who is stronger than her can make her do things she doesn't want to do.

Even if you can't block contact (which I would try to do) I would start to diarise everything he does and also get your daughter some counselling so she can learn a bit more about how she reacts to healthy and unhealthy relationships, and tactics she can use when people behave like that around her.

Mixedup I'm glad it worked out well for you but my experience so far hasn't filled me with confidence. We have been to court before and CAFCASS spoke to DD. I'd given them detailed accounts of what I considered to be abuse/neglect. She wasn't asked about any of these situations. Instead, she was asked 'do you miss Daddy?' (rather than something less leading like 'how do you feel about seeing daddy?') and because she said yes to missing him, the CAFCASS officer didn't probe further and ordered contact.

I don't have any experience of this situation. Could you try again. And put in writing that the question last time was "do you miss daddy?" Which was leading and designed to elicit a yes/no response. This type of interaction never gets to the bottom of the issue and the person involved should have known better. Ask that this time only open ended questions are used to probe into the issue? Wasn't it possible to complain about this at the time?

I have not RTFT but this does not sound right to me.

On the medical side: I do not know how serious your DD's infection is. Could you and your DD go to the doctor together and discuss the situation? Can a ten year old grasp the concept of likely consequences if her toe infection is not investigated, as explained by a GP? I have no idea, but a GP might be able to explain the whole situation in an age-appropriate way and your DD might be able to consent or not consent as she chooses.

The circumstances in which restraining a child is acceptable are, in my view, minimal. Perhaps when they are about to run out into a road without looking for example? I have been restrained in the past and it was horrific. Whether or not the restraint is abusive is somewhat context-dependent, but from the point of view of the child I was there was no distinction between abusive and not abusive. From a medical point of view I was in a situation that was considerably more risky than a fungal infection of my toenails, although a fungal infection could spread I suppose; this is something that a GP might know.

The more I read about your DD's time at her father's the sadder it is. And the more worrying about the prospects to come. She's likely to start pushing boundaries more soon and it's clear that this would hit your ex's warped sense of identity and need to control hard, likely leading to more abuse.

You're right it's hard to know exactly what to do with it. The quickest and easiest thing to do would be to stop contact, but i understand there's an order in place and if no good reason is found for that other than your word there could be serious implications for you and dd. I think you're right to be concerned and careful about that despite what some other pp's are saying. I am a Social Worker and sadly some of my experience of CAFCASS in contact cases is similar to yours, probably because they are massively underfunded.

I would recommend that your first step is to seek legal advice and see what they say about the best way forward.

Incidentally, would you and her father both be ineligible for legal aid?

Does your DD have any outside counselling or support?

Women's Aid have children and young person's workers, who help children where there has been abuse in the family and contact is on-going. I suggest speaking to them if you have not already done so.

And in my experience, you need to keep pressing on through the legal system. Is there a court order for residential contact? If not, then yes, restrict to daytime contact. She is ten, she cannot make the decisions or ask him to stop doing something he is intent on doing. It is about bodily autonomy, he is pinning her down for something which is unnecessary. That is abuse.