6 yrs old DD wants dad to have equal time. Any advice?

[an17]

My DD 6yrs old 'lives with' me and 'spends time' every other weekend with dad. ExH was abusive, practically a manipulative psychopath and our child arrangement was set up by the courts, proceedings started by him claiming I had abducted her when I fled to refuge with her.

This was 3 yrs back. He has over these years told her that he needs equal time as mummy and mummy doesn't let her spend time with daddy, both untrue. If he moved closer to us, the courts have said he could have extra night.

Now DD has been crying that she wants Dad to have equal time or more time and she misses him a lot. She will spend a lot of time talking to him on the phone.

I did try a few extra nights for her at his last year but she quickly changed her mind as daddy was screaming at her. He has a terrible temper.

He has promised to buy her a dog which would shift things massively in his favour. I don't want to have a dog 😫

It's very difficult as I don't want to see her cry but also don't want her to be manipulated by her dad. I am so conflicted. Would anyone have any advice.

Thank you.

This. This 100%. Having worked in social care and various childrens services for years the approach recommended has always been giving children the truth in child appropriate language.

Of course we don’t want children to think their parent is “bad” or internalise feelings related to their parents wrong doing. However children need accurate information, without that they are easily manipulated by lies or fill in the gaps themselves with whatever they imagine to be the truth.

I worked with fathers in prisons- the approach was to tell children the truth about their fathers where about and crime in as appropriate a way as possible.

I worked in social care as a social worker. The approach was to tell children the truth about what is happening in their lives and why in child appropriate language (even difficult things like drug use/sexual abuse etc).

It is very likely that ops child has picked up signs of the abuse. Maybe mum seems anxious when dad calls, maybe she doesn’t like upsetting dad, maybe doesn’t understand why dad says unkind things about mum etc. Giving her words through which to understand these experiences will only help. Pretending it has t happens or that mummy and daddy simply don’t get on promoted covering up issues, suggests there is shame in it etc.

op - maybe you should seek support from domestic abuse services. I know several LAs have services for children who have experienced domestic abuse. They might be able to offer specialist advice.