To take my child to a therapist

[gelatodipistacchio]

She's 7 and lives with me most of the time. She spends Wednesdays and EOW with her father, whom I left due to emotional abuse.

She hates her father (she says this) and constantly tells me that he is mean to her. She refuses to explain in more detail. She is always upset before and after seeing him.

I took her to a child counselor before and she refused to engage. She is very intelligent and actively resists bringing any new adults into her fold.

Recently I have taken some recordings of us talking when she has started to go on about her dad.

Is it worthwhile trying to get her to a therapist? Or would a therapist talk to me and find these videos useful?

I'm not sure why you think your chold needs a therapist just becasue she tells you she hates her father - plenty of kids don't like their parents for various reasons.

He was emotionally abusive to you and she is telling you that he is mean to her, she upset after every visit. I'm not surprised she hates him.

@NoodleNuts I want to help her but I don't know how. Afaik, family courts don't care about light emotional abuse and I can't withhold contact.

I am also not surprised that she hates him, though I don't understand why he couldn't manage to be reasonably nice to her.

Therapy is not the immediate answer here. The bigger issue is that you are still sending a small child to an abusive man.

Is there a trusted teacher she can talk to or someone else about how her dad is treating her?

What outcome are you expecting if she does go to a therapist ? That she will learn to deal with not liking her dad? Or that is somehow proof that the contact can be reduced?

She clearly knows that you don't like her dad and if she can't give concrete examples of his meanness, maybe she is trying to be loyal to you by saying she doesn't like him too?

@MariaVT65 she refuses to talk to teachers and the school wants to stay out of it as far as I can tell

@MagpiePi I have wondered this, but she becomes extremely distressed every time she has to go and when she comes back. She actually screams that she hates him, and whimpers and curls up in a ball. So it seems sincere? I try not to say anything bad about him, but he starts arguments and verbally attacks me when I have to interact with him and she obviously doesn't like this.

I would hope therapy would help her cope and that a therapist could find out exactly what he's doing. It may be that he's "just" very strict and emotionally unavailable

Why do you keep sending her there? Something really isn't right

Think I'd rather spend my time and money working out how to keep her away from him...by whatever means.

Yeah - i don’t really understand why your focus is on therapy instead of keeping her away from him!

Therapy is not the answer here.

Firstly young children tend to struggle to engage with it; play therapy is generally a better approach if therapy is needed.

Secondly, you would be better off trying to work out how to get contact down and/or help her while she is there.

A phone so she can call you? Favourite teddies etc?

If you suspect he is actually abusing her try to work out if there is any way you can either get evidence or manipulate him into not wanting to see her.

What is she actually saying about her visits op?

Speak to your solicitor ASAP and ask to have the matter returned to Court. It is likely that a Guardian ad Litem (Children's legal representative at Court) would be asked to see and talk to the child about their thoughts and feelings about seeing her father, and anything that she thinks would make it better. Is the current contact in a supervised contact centre, where inappropriate conversation by adults to children could be interrupted and/or prevented?
In the circumstances that you have outlined, the Court will always see the children's needs as paramount.
I hope that you can get this difficult situation resolved.

My first instinct isn't therapy, it's keeping her away from an abusive father.
Therapy at 7 for this feels like your telling her that she needs therapy to accept that a man can be abusive. And you need therapy so you can maintain an abusive relationship. It's sending all the wrong signals.
Surely you can withhold contact and explain to the courts why. With the recordings as evidence? You're her mum. Is he being abusive towards her?? If so, don't send her to him.

This is horrible to read. Hopefully there are other posters that have been in this situation with an abusive OH and visits and can advise how you can stop the visits until this is resolved or have them supervised etc. Your child sounds traumatised maybe drawing pictures could help or a diary or putting her worries into a worry monster etc so you can get some more information from her

I engaged play therapist through the school to support my children during our marriage breakup. They had three sessions and advised there were no specific issues and children were adapting well. I see no harm.

Why aren’t you trying to stop sending neee there?

youve taken yourself away from his abuse - why aren’t you trying to take your daughter away from it? Surely that’s what the focus should be. In addition to theeapyt

Talk to some therapists - call up, explain the situation (including her reluctance to engage) and listen to their suggestions. You’ll probably get a fair impression of them and then go with your gut.

I’m reading between the lines and guessing that you might want testimony of her distress for the court? We had to take dd to a child psychiatrist for an assessment for court - you may find that the testimony of a psychiatrist might be treated with more gravitas, or certain types of psychologist, than other qualifications (therapist isn’t a protected term)

There are a lot of very naive posters on this thread who haven’t had experience with family courts.

Speaking as a DSL, so lots of experience dealing with both abused children and children of separated parents - it is subjective to use the term light emotional abuse. Not to mention offensive to children facing actual child abuse to imply abuse when it's not.

light emotional abuse could mean a parent who is ranty/shouty when children don't do as they are told. Or a parent who isn't as sympathetic to mental health struggles and others might be. Or even gender critical parents of trans children could fall into this. Plus much, much more.

Imagine, as a parent, being you'd you cannot shout at your child ever or you will not be able to see them? Or that you must always be liked because if your child doesn't like you then you will lose parental rights. Raising your voice at a child, sometimes showing tough love, not being your child's buddy - these are all things all parents do. Not reasons to stop contact.

Also, child saying they hate a parent or that a parent is mean - could often describe 50% of children at any given time, probably close to 100% of children would say this at one time or another. Parents who have strong behaviour expectations with their children may be described as mean. To imply a child should be removed from their parent for this is naive at best. We'd have a situation where most teenagers would be in care if that was the case.

I sence parental alienation. If you genuinely expect your child has a disclosure of harm to make, ensure school know. They'll give opportunities for disclosure in ways that don't lead the child. Separated parent videoing a conversation is not the way to do this! If your child isn't disclosing anything, don't force it. Just keep giving lots of kind, open and trusting opportunities to talk without being lead. Apply to the courts if you are concerned.

Are the visits court ordered? If not I’d stop sending her and let him take you to court.

if they are court ordered then I’d be speaking to a solicitor. While therapy may help you dd if she is being emotionally or physically abused, I agree with others that the priority should be getting her away from him.

you definitely need to know what she is afraid of, how you go about that I don’t know. For me I’d be telling her that the only way she gets to stop going is by her telling you, a teacher, dr or other trusted adult why she desperately hates going.

This is a perfect example of how the Family Courts collude with abusers to enable them to continue controlling their ex-partners by using the children.

It's a shit show and seriously needs to change. But so much easier said than done.

OP, save the money you'd spend on a therapist and use it to get a good solicitor instead. She needs to be protected from him.

This! Just stop sending her. Move if you have to but stop this

For those saying just stop, this has serious implications if it goes against a court order including risking that father returns to court and gets increased contact.

get legal advice before keeping her from Dad because even though he's not very nice to her, courts could see this as parental
alienation which is frowned heavily on. Unfair but true. Family courts seem to
often favour Dads these days.

Umm easier said than done. Ever heard of family court? Plus we don't know why she is saying she hates him he may just be stricter than mum. My parents were separated and I remember dreading going to my father's because he was super strict about not eating junk food.
Another aspect of this is if you stop her seeing him now then one day they may be on better terms and he could tell her the "your mother wouldn't let me see you" story. Then she might hate YOU 🤷🏻‍♀️just something to consider I've known cases where this happened