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?

Your child is traumatised when she returns.

This may be a long game but you can protect her right now. The only fact you have is that something is wrong. You don't know what he will will do or what a court will do or even the time scale. Protect her now

Op I have a 7 year old Dd I have stopped seeing her dad (although this was due to her disclosing step mum abuse rather than her dad).

It’s been 2 years now and I do get therapy for Dd every week so she can work through her feelings in regards to why her dad couldn’t protect her, and chose his gf over her.

However I don’t think you’re at that stage atm, I think you need to cease contact at this point and give your Dd the space to work out what’s going on in her head without having to see her dad. Make sure she know s she can tell you anything.

You can stop contact for suspected abuse without any proof, I did and the courts sided with me 100%.

@Jellycatspyjamas yes, she is participating in a programme at school, against her will. I think she's staying pretty close lipped there.

I think your starting point has to be she doesn’t feel able to say what’s going on. Therapy can be a place for her to express herself, get support, feel secure which might, possibly help her to speak but the expectation that she goes to X place or person and they’ll help her tell might be putting her off.

I wonder if presenting it as having people to help her with how she’s feeling might make her more open. If you had a secret and thought you’d be forced to tell that secret you’d be reluctant to go too.

For a 7 year old who does not want to talk I think any formal talking therapy is dead in the water. Play therapy might be the way forward but you can't load it with expectations of her making a disclosure. Let it just be a safe space to play and express herself to start off with.

Stop recording her as well. I understand why you would want to but if you try to submit the recording you will be a sitting duck to be accused of alienating her as rehearsed recordings are a classic in that playbook.
It unfortunately doesn't prove anything by itself.

Just concentrate on making as sure as you can that she feels safe to tell you if something is going on in her own time.

I will say op that even as a teenager, i didn’t tell my mum or anyone else about the abuse from my dad because he told me not to and told me he could see what i was doing all the time. Please protect your daughter right now.

What can you do? If there's no court order then stop sending her there.

Let him take you to court. In the meantime speak to solicitors, the police, school, any outside agencies who may be able to help you build your case against having to send her to him.

I'm fully aware of how backwards and mind-bending the Family Courts system can be in favour of abusive fathers, but you have to at least try for her sake. Don't decide it's not worth it before you've exhausted all avenues to protect her from him.

You can't force her to have therapy to magically make her okay with being abused. Her feelings are valid. The problem is him.

@fulgrate you seem quite naive to the family court system. It's not at black and white as you make out. She could be in contempt of the court order. The child's father could gain more access as a result.
The family court do not take abuse seriously. Especially when it is not physical. It is not as simple as 'stop sending her'. There could be serious consequences for both her and her daughter.

Op has said there is no court order.

I'm not naive to the court system at all. The facts as they stand are that there is no court order so any talk of court proceedings as a reason to keep sending a 7 year old to be abused is ridiculous/

@fulgrate I thought she said there was an order in place?

No she said there is no court order.

She chats a lot about the repercussions of a non existent court order

Children go through phases of “hating” one or both parents, at various times. All seems pretty normal.

@fulgrate oh I see. In that case I would try and limit contact but she has to be sure to explain why with evidence.

Sadly, I've been through the same road before. I tried everything (SS, police, school, therapist) unfortunately it was not enough! My ex presented very well in court and the system just does not recognise emotional abuse the way they should.

With that said, it did mean I ended up with slightly more custody at around 70%

@Boomer55 she has never been that keen on her father, which led to extreme jealousy towards me (by him) when we were together. He would not really pay much attention to her then and I doubt it's gotten any better.

the only way she is going to trust adults and you is if she feels they are there to protect here, right now no one especially you is doing that, you are still sending her to someone she is quite obviously terrified of. Once you stop doing this she will feel safer. Just because your ex is threatening court does not mean he will follow through, if he dose you be very clear about all the contact you have allowed and why you ceased. You keep everything documented, the contact and any abusive messages you receive, if he turns up in person you call the police, get records, keep records of text messages.

If she is being abused then he is probably threatening her with being taken away from you if she tells. If she sees you have stopped contact and your still with her, she might open up more.

Yep. My ex was abusive, left him during my pregnancy because of the abuse and he made threats to kill me and unborn baby and to set me on fire etc so I had to go to the police. I had back up from police and health visitors to not let him near me or baby when he was born.

Ex took me to court, failed drug testing and I had proof of his abuse. They made ME out to be a monster, HIM a victim and gave him everything he wanted.

It gets worse with the courts enabling in which, I asked for a third party to do handovers. ex said he only wanted to see me. So courts explicitly put in the order ‘NO THIRD PARTY ALLOWED’. So they enable abuse of both children and parents - regardless of evidence

God I feel so much for you both. What a horrible situation you're in.
There are so many reasons she'll be scared to open up and they're not nice to think about. He may have made her promise not to tell, threatened her with things, and there is also the fact that because you are the one taking her to her father's, she may also feel that it is what you want for her, and so can't speak up to you. It's so heartbreaking.

Talking therapy is not going to help here as others have said. Play therapy might, but therapists aren't quite detectives and you can't go into it expecting them to get to the truth. It could be worth exploring tho, especially as she won't necessarily experience it as "therapy". It's playing games with someone she comes to trust, outside of the family, and who maybe can open up to... But it would be a very slow process.

This next part is outside my area of knowledge but I wonder if there is any kind of assessment that can be carried out which would definitively capture what you are observing is that time with her father is causing her emotional and psychological issues...? I'm sure others will know more than me.

@orangeleopard this is the outcome that terrifies me. I'm so sorry to that you have experienced this.

So what will happen if you just ignore all court orders and don't allow her contact, change your number and move address. No way would I send my daughter to be traumatised over and over again! Wtf

Just don't comply with any contact orders

This is ridiculous. What do you expect the therapist to do?

Your best bet is to see a solicitor to work out a legal plan for your child NOT to see her father who makes her unhappy

Quite what a therapist can do, is beyond me

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

yep and the pp’s post above is a perfect example of this. “Parental alienation” 🙄🤬

Play therapy was very helpful for my child when she was struggling. Talking therapy requires a level of development that many young children don't have, and the play therapy sessions let the child lead the activities and express themselves in a variety of ways.

Because the court makes her

Art therapist? Play therapist? Music therapist?