Practicalities of overnights to avoid pitfalls please! History of DV/EA

[NewBeginningsSnoopy]

Firstly if you want to write negative, unhelpful stuff, please move on somewhere else :-)

Please can I have practical advice re: overnights for 4 and 7 y.o

I'd like to hear about:

Your method of communicating with ex?

What things you communicate and how?

In case of emergency?

Communicating with the children over 24 hour period? Necessary or unneccessary? Cause unneccessary upset? By phone? Saying goodnight?

Clothes. I'm thinking there should just be clothes for each house that get washed in each house and stay there. (Previous negative experience of this. Advice about this really welcomed)

Anything else I should troubleshoot?

Please if you have no experience of DV or EA, don't comment at all. Thanks :-)

Gratefully received. Gratefully* lol

I think my 7 year old daughter may be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. How can I prove this ?

This thread has been a great support for me. I've really appreciated all the advice. Please keep it coming. This is such a hard time! Thanks :-)

Yes. SS wouldn't do anything even when my Ex-H's (then) partner actually left bruising on my DC, other than advise me not to send him there overnight (!) in breach of my Court Order.

If my Ex had at any point in that year where DS1 wasn't having overnights had gone to Court, I would have been screwed, despite acting on SS's 'informal' advice.

Ex-H was EA and DV towards me - but has ended up suffering far words under his (thankfully now Ex) partner's hands - financial, emotional and DV.

Just passing on what I heard, it might be the best thing for your dd to let things calm down and let the new arrangements become entrenched and start working well (hopefully!) before you start trying to get mental issues diagnosed. It can be hard to separate out the stress of the transition from other concerns.

That said, it's worth finding out if the school has someone who works with dcs facing emotional difficulties. This person might be able to help your dd through the transition, and then if there are concerns that the distress is related to ptsd or similar, this person can be a point of referral and can also be someone who can provide independent testimony for a court.

Thanks so much for these advices. Really appreciated.

Womens aid also have childrens workers who go into the school and see the children...He had to be 5 before they would work with him so he went on a waiting list when he was 4.... They went into the school and essentially did paly therapy...This may be more helpful than a dx...

Can I also advise you keep a diary. Make a note of concerns (don't fish for details just note any your dc express) it would be helpful shoud you need it