Anyone around to pull me through the next hour?

[Oak99]

Just dropped my 4 year old off at contact centre to see his dad for the second time (first was 2 weeks ago). Lots of domestic violence and courts prevented contact for 4 years due to this. They've now decided contact in a contact centre is OK.

His dad was told to turn up 15 minutes early, which he did. He was then to wait in the room until I dropped son off 15 mins later. This is to prevent us coming into contact. He has told them he needed to nip back to the car and will be back. He's then proceeded to wait in his car for 10 mins until I walked round the corner, got out of the car when he's seen me and gone straight into the contact centre with our son. He looked at him and said 'come on then'. I didn't get to say goodbye and was just left stood outside not knowing what the hell just happened.

Staff came out a couple of minutes later and apologised.

He's trying to intimidate me. This is all going to go wrong. My son is now in the centre without having had a goodbye from his mum. He looked awkward when he went in.

I feel awful that I put my own emotional safety above a goodbye. But I froze and just watched them walk in.

I'm now sat in a park feeling sick.

Is anyone willing to chat this through with me? Am I being dramatic? I don't even know anymore.

Write it down, exactly what he did. Get the staff to write down exactly what he did.

Can’t chat all the way through but hold tight - your little one will be ok in the contact centre.

If documented properly it’s almost a good thing as it shows he can’t be trusted

On the positive side maybe the visit will go so badly that the Dad won’t want to do it again?

I'm going to chat with them when I go back in to collect him. She agreed that it was clearly Intimidation.

His abuse should be noted and pointed out in court

How old is your son?

They have a really nice time when they are there, but there's always a honeymoon phase with visitation so l honestly can't say how it will go long term.

He's 4

Deep breath. Your son knows you are there for him and love him.

Decide what needs to happen different next time. Can you agree with the staff that once he has clocked into the centre he must not be allowed to leave in future?

To be honest, I'm more concerned about the wider implications of the fact that he is still being abusive. He had to complete a domestic abuse perpetrator programme to prove he has changed, and this was the basis of the visitation being allowed. It clearly didn't work.

Write a note of what happened. The time will pass slow. It’s good you reached out here.

what a busy he is.
The staff are very experienced and will be watching your son's interactions with his father and will do what they need to if they are concerned.
Please font worry about the goodbye,he will have so much going on he won't worry about it and will just be pleased to see his mum soon.
You can do this.💐

Write it all down. It'll probably go back to court at some point. Tell the staff you want it logged as well.

Tell them that they need to contact you when he's in his room before you come up to the building in future so he can't pull that stunt again.

It's passing ridiculously slowly. I feel physically sick.

Christ on a bike. Your DS doesn't need contact with the abusive bastard. I really do wonder what goes through the officials minds.

I hope your DS was ok
xx

I didn't want the contact to go ahead and think I had good reasons for that. The court agreed that my concerns were genuine and not obstructive. But they still feel contact is OK so I have no choice. It's not what I want.

I'm so sorry that he managed to manipulate the situation. You're away from him and whilst handover didn't go to plan take solace in the fact he can't hurt you beyond handovers . We're here for you and youre doing great x

Again that's not really what I'm concerned about. I'm more concerned that unsupervised contact which is inevitable really will see things go very, very downhill.

Thank you though.

Next time have your phone recording you going in and out of the centre.. Can a friend go with you?
Write everything down. Keep a note of ds's behaviour over the next few days. Do nursery know op? School are good at providing evidence of any changes in your ds
.

I'm so sorry this happened OP, is there anything your son would like after the meeting you could go get? To distract yourself? Kinder egg, magazine...something small to kill some time x

Yes his nursery are absolutely amazing. My friend came with me last time and it all went OK.

We're going to the theatre! I will buy copious amount of sweets, popcorn and whatever else he fancies!

It’s really good the staff member witnessed it and agree it’s intimidation. Get it written down and put on the file, even if nothing changes right now, it’s building up a body of evidence.

You’ll be home soon. Hold onto that.

That sounds fantastic!

Have a great afternoon and a relaxing evening.

I can't help with the child aspect, but see if you can find a spot to lie down and do the following:-

1. Breathe in counting slowly to four. Try and inflate your chest, then your stomach so that you get a good deep breath.
2. Breathe out slowly counting to five.
3. Repeat the above for a good ten minutes.
4. While you are doing the above, tense your feet muscles for the in breath, and release the tension for the out breath.
5. After you've done 4. tense your calf muscles on the in breath and release for the out breath.
6. After you've done 5. tense your thigh muscles on the in breath, and release the tension for the out breath.
7. Keep going until you've done all muscles up to your shoulders, then do as many of step 1 and 2 as you need.

Good luck.