4 year old asking about Absent father

[Singlemummm]

Hi, my daughter is 4 and she has never met her father due to safeguarding reasons, he was abusive towards me and it got worse whilst I was pregnant which lead to professionals being involved I left him before she was born, it ended up in the family courts and a no contact order is in place he’s not on the birth certificate and he’s got no parental responsibility what so ever.. now and again my daughter says she wants a daddy and asks where her daddy is, I get stuck for words and I tell her mummy loves her loads then I quickly change the subject because I have no idea what to say or what would be appropriate at her age, I feel so guilty and I feel so sorry for her when she’s asking me. Is anyone else in the same situation? If so what do you say whilst they are so young, Thanks for reading

I'm in the same boat. She needs to know, or she'll be confused - or worse, learn it's something you don't like talking about and try and keep any worries about it from you.

I try and keep it breezy and to the point. I do not reference anything he has done 'wrong' (for me, rape and refusal to be involved/acknowledge DS existence) - my DS can have the whole truth when he's an adult, if I think it's appropriate/he asks.

So 'do I have a dad' ~ I answered something along the lines of 'you do - every family is different and I/your dad decided together that it's best for you to grow up with mummy. We're so lucky because we also have Aunty X, Uncle Y, and Grandma as part of our little family.'

'Where does my dad live', I answered (again roughly) with 'he lives here in the UK'

So far we haven't got to 'why doesn't he want to see me' etc. But I'm trying to be open to questions and answer factually (whilst age appropriate/no complaining) without going on a tangent.

I think you need to give age appropriate answers. I would say you do have a dad. Your dad didn't have kind hands, so we can't see him. We can't be friends with people that don't have kind hands with us.

Thankyou for your reply and your advice, sorry to hear your in the same position, it’s so difficult isn’t it. you are very lucky to have a good support network where as I don’t have that it’s just my daughter and me, we have no family. My daughters father wanted to be apart of her life and he was the one that took me to family court for contact but because he was such a high risk to my daughter he was denied any contact whatsoever even indirect contact, if I was to let him have contact with her the social services would have removed her from my care. My worry is if she asks me questions like did my daddy want to see me, how would I answer it in a way where I don’t look asif Iv kept her away from him. Just so hard

You can tell her the truth that he did want to see her but the court/social services (insert age appropriate explanation of what they are) didn’t think he should see her while she is a child because XYZ (insert age appropriate explanation eg he hurt mummy, gets very cross or angry, doesn’t have kind hands, can’t take care of children safely etc).

I tell my LO that we don't have a daddy in our family now, but we did have one when they were a baby. He stopped being part of our family because he got cross a lot and we wanted a happy house, not a cross house. I'm sure they'll have more questions as they get older but it seems to do the job for now.

It might be worth a search for picture books about an absent parent, I'm sure I've seen them but it may have been for forces kids.

I think you need at be a bit careful because it's very easy for a child to see things differently from an adult.

I wouldn't say he doesn't have kind hands so we don't see him - a lot of kids at some point don't have kind hands but it doesn't mean they get cut out of their family.

I also wouldn't say it's because he was cross or angry - does that mean your child can never be cross or angry and always has to pretend to be happy otherwise they might have to leave home too?

I mean these things are obvious to adults but children don't always see things in the same way.

I would go with 'he wasn't ready to be a daddy and so it was much better for you live with me'.