when order not folowed

[TheHumancatapult]

Am curious dd and ds3 dad took me to court for contact after 2 years of not seeing them but he refued medation with me in same room

But with caf-caf help we was able to draw up a contact plan .with first contact him being to write to the dc , then me to help them write back and then onto contact centre and then regular contact one day a fornight9 he does not want overnight)

Now been 2 weeks and i have talked with dd about her dad and him writing to her and that she can write back , but so far no letter from her dad and she is now getting upset and have had a few issues with her behaviou as have school.But they are aware of situationa nd that she need time to adjust

Bu8t what happens as he has not written ( he had solictor due to legal aid i had to sef represent

I'd guess it'll be the same as happened to me - I now have a court order where the only provision for contact is that if XP writes to DD, then I'm to facilitate that - ie I'm to read the letter / whatever to her.

XP was told by judge that contact would either be at a contact centre or wouldn't happen (SS had become aware that she'd exposed DD to DV - turned out had been going on for nigh on a year).

Me and my solicitor gave her all necessary info on local contact centres within a week of that hearing. She was chased two further times, and by the time of the next hearing she had done nothing to either take up on the contact centre nor had she even tried to make indirect contact (which I would've facilitated if she'd made the effort).

XP didn't bother turning up for the hearing - good thing too, as she'd have had a very hard time explaining why she didn't take up on the contact that was offered.

So in the same way that my solicitor chased my XP, I'd suggest you chase your ex via his solicitor - some sort of short, factual letter along the lines of "It has been x days since the hearing on date wherein it was agreed that XP would begin to re-introduce himself to his DCs via letters and cards. I am yet to receive any cards or letters and wish to check as to whether any have been sent and perhaps gone missing in the post?"

Meanwhile, all you can do with your DCs is to try and manage their expectations. I've written and deleted a few suggestions, because I'm not sure what to suggest there. Hopefully someone wiser will say something.

Thank you .Will sit and write to his solictor and state that we have not heard and has been 14 days ( i woud ahve thought if he was that desperate to see them he have gone home and write that letter)

.They was given details of teh contact centre by caf and the court and was tol that his solictor must make contact with the centre as well as writing to the dc first .Ds3 is ok as his understanding is mor elimited due to his sn

But dd is almost 9 and does not miss much asks every day when in from school has a letter come .And i am running out of exscuses as to why not and she is now begiing to ask some hard questions

sad thing is I knew it woud happen some point but was thinking more when it came to open contact as he has form for last minute let downs hence the formiliasing of a order

We ar enot due back in court untill July

I think all you can ever do is tell DC the truth, or an age-appropriate version thereof.

I tell my DD that hopefully when Mummy is better that she'll be able to see her. I'm edging it towards Mummy has MH issues from her own rubbish childhood, as DD won't understand that Mummy is selfish and immature for many years (I hope). I try to go down the "not well" route leading to "doesn't know how to be a Mummy" so that it's definitely not DD's fault, and it's also not Mummy's fault that they don't have contact.

I guess all you can do is tell your DD a simplified version of what's happened - Daddy has told the court that he wants to see her and DS, but the court want to be sure that he does want to see them and that he'll keep seeing them, and so they've said that he has to write to her and DS a few times, then you'll go from there, if he writes to them. You could go on to say that that was decided two weeks ago, and you don't know why you haven't had a letter or card yet, so you're going to write a letter to his solicitor to find out.

I'd suggest that you need to make it clear that this will probably all take some time because no-one wants Daddy to come in and out of DD and DS's lives (again).

Thank you will chat with DD later .She was unsure if she wanted to see hium but after talking with her said it may be nice for her to see him

Sadly i do think its he fact that he has a new baby that is taking up his time but dont want to tell dd that as dont want her feeling he has replaced her

It's always hard to concilliate with someone who isn't present. Dot your i's and cross your t's and use the proper channels. You can only do so much.