mental abuse of a 4 year old!?

[IanD]

Hi im in desperate need of some advice and help.

My partners ex husband in my opinion is mentally abusing his daughter, when she is with him she almost always comes back and says things like when im older i can choose to live with my daddy, just recently she went to stay with him for a weeks holiday when she came back she said to her mam "did you leave me to go on holiday" obviously the father has told her that her mam has left her to go on holiday, the last episode involved her coming home and saying to me "did you try and punch my dad?" now for a 4 year old these things just should not be entering her head and im in desperate need of where we can go to stop this from happening.

Thank you..

You have to keep reinforcing the truth and not make this a huge issue. Make sure you are supportive and not divisive. You could ask him directly not to lie to her but that is likely to cause friction.

thanks scurry

i think its all happening because he lost a court battle to have residency, its been going on now for over 2 years and i cant see it stopping anytime soon, supportive is what we are doing but its really hard for my girlfriend to have to listen to her daughter saying shes going to live with daddy, obviously at 4 she doesnt know what she is saying and how hurtful it sounds..

Write it all down. Times, dates, exactly what she says. Ask him to use language appropriate to her age and understanding, send email / letter, keep copies. If he keeps on, after a while get a solicitor involved.

Try the "Silly daddy, that's not true is it" approach when she reports back. As scurry says, reinforce the truth, without going into unnecessary details.

Good luck, it's really selfish behaviour on his part.

thanks lanky we do try the silly daddy approach and try and tell the truth in as basic detail as possible, she will then burst into tears as she doesnt understand any of it, the worst part of all is that she thinks her dad is god and nothing can be said against him..

I would be reducing his access. If it's an informal arrangement then the child's mother can say she's not happy about what's going on and not let her visit. And if access has been decided formally, then she could threaten to take it back to court and have it reduced to supervised visits only. It's not fair on the child to be piggy in the middle of this one.

Hi Chil yes thats what we are deciding now, there has already been a civil injunction on him because he attacked my partner things seem to be escalating again and only supervised visits may stop all this once and for all..

I wouldn't wait for the courts to decide, if it were my child. There are too many cases in the newspapers about bitter/nasty/aggressive fathers doing horrible things to their children just to get back at their exes. Keep the little girl at home for now until it's all sorted out to her mother's satisfaction. I don't think any court would consider that unreasonable behaviour if he's got a history of being violent to the girl's mother.