DP's son doesn't want to see us

[bells2810]

My DP has a 5 year old son who stays with us at weekends as he lives with his mum through the week. My partner absolutely adores his son, thinks the world of him, I love him too and think he's a wonderful little boy. Since the summer holidays we got out of our routine of seeing him at the weekend, we were on holiday for a couple of weeks, he was also on holiday with his family/grandparents, or otherwise had plans with friends and parties etc, so we got out of our routine. Since then when we have tried to see him he goes into full meltdown mode and doesn't want to leave his mum.

When we go to pick him up he'll scream and cry and try to stay at home, we normally have him for two nights, but the last two weekends he has been so distressed and upset, we have had to take him home early. He will cry and cry for his mum, lash out at us, and scream until we give in and take him home. We tried to stick it out so he gets back in his routine but it was really hard to see him so upset.

We don't understand why he's suddenly got like this. When my DP and I first got together, he would sometimes be a bit teary when we picked him up or he got dropped off, but soon get past it once we explained to him what we were doing for the day. We always try to make our weekends with him really fun as he's quite an energetic, active child and doesn't like to be bored or sat in the house. We will go to the park, adventure playgrounds, the zoo, the aquarium, bowling, to feed animals etc, spend plenty of time playing outside, we have movie nights or games nights... if it's bad weather we'll paint/draw/colour in, bake together, read books, or play games. We also try to see his cousins on DP's side as they are all primary age and get along really well and can play together. We just want to spend quality time with him so that he looks forward to seeing us like we do him.

We try really hard to make sure he has a lovely, fun time when he comes to stay with us, and it's breaking my partner's heart that this has started happening. My partner has got really upset the past few times this has happened, and worries that his son doesn't love him and only wants his mum. It really gets him down, which is understandable, and he's started to worry about the weekends when we have his son as my partner is now just expecting the tantrums and screaming and that we will have to cut our weekends short with him.

Does anyone have any experience of a similar situation? We partly think it's because we were out of a routine for 6 weeks, but we also don't want to force him to stay with us for the weekend/day if he gets so distressed. We love him to bits and just want to enjoy our family time together.

We've had this on and off for years with DSS from a similar age. I agree the change in routine is likely to have triggered it.

I don't really have any advice as it's not something we've cracked, DSS goes through phases of being like this and then snaps out of it and is happy to come. He's been coming just fine for a good while now.

The only piece of advice I could really give is not to get too upset about it. It's inevitable that he will be very attached to his mum and yes, perhaps he does miss her more than he wants to come. But it will eat your DP alive if he lets that upset him. He needs to be at peace with it.

There could be all sorts of reasons why he’s feeling unsettled all of a sudden. I think you need to start small as long days/overnights/weekends are clearly too much for him right now for whatever reason. For the next few weeks I’d just plan an activity where you pick him up at his mums and drop him off straight after. I’d see how that goes and then build up to going out for an activity and then maybe he’s dads for tea afterwards before he gets dropped back off. It sounds like contact has dropped over the summer and he may just be unused to being away from mum now.

That sounds so hard. I would think it's partly the break in routine. Going back to school can be very stressful as well.
If mum is generally supportive of the relationship between Dc and his dad I'd be inclined to follow the child's lead. Obviously don't stop contact but let him stay with mum and just take him out during the day. The child's is clearly indicating he needs the security of being at home, whatever the reason, at this time. I think forcing him will be detrimental in the long term

No experience so no advice. Just wanted to say you sound like a lovely partner.

Agree that forcing him to stay with you for the whole weekend is not a good idea.

Your DP needs to build back up to it. Have contact time at his house with his mum there. Build up to taking him out for the day close to home. Then work on weekends. Contact should be about spending time with the child and should be in the child's best interests rather than the parents.

When you say "out of routine", do you mean he didn't see his dad for 6 weeks?

I'm not sure how you get "out of the routine" of seeing your own 5 year old child but it seems likely to me that he currently doesn't feel that his dad is a reliable and consistent caregiver (whether you agree or not, it's easy to see this would be the case from a 5 year old's perspective) and he's developed a sort of separation anxiety as a result.

It would probably be wise for your husband to build up slowly back to a stable routine that his son can depend on, and not prioritise long holidays over seeing his child. I wonder if the little boy's mum could just "get out of the routine" of parenting him for an entire summer.

This is unnecessarily nasty, if you read the post it's clear they had one holiday and the rest of the contact changes were on his mum's side. You're jumping to conclusions that this is why the child is acting like this, many children act this way when their parent has never missed a single contact day. It's possible for them to just miss their mum and their main residence.

Thank you for all of your lovely supportive messages, as some of you have said it is probably being out of the routine and we will have to ask is mum if she would be happy for us to have him for evenings after school/shorter days and build back up to him staying with us again. Thank you again!

It's not nasty; it's honest. I feel desperately sorry for the little boy. It takes only a smidgen of common sense to see that the sudden distress he's feeling coming immediately after this "6 weeks out of routine" (whatever that means) is unlikely to be a coincidence.

I don't know a single mother who would ever "fall out of the routine" of seeing her 5 year old for 6 weeks. The bar is on the floor for men. And sadly this little boy is bearing the emotional brunt of it in this case.

Could your partner spend some time with him without you?
I am not suggesting you are doing anything wrong but you talk about “we”, perhaps it should be just the 2 of them for a while

@RoutineLow yes, but as I said they had one two week holiday. The rest of the missed contact was due to DSS having other plans.

He's 5 so he doesn't really have plans. His parents make plans for him. OP has been deliberately vague so we don't know how much was down to his mum and how much was down to his dad. Regardless, it doesn't sound like much effort has been made for contact to take place around those plans. His dad hasn't prioritised spending time with him and now he's suffering the consequences.

“He's 5 so he doesn't really have plans. His parents make plans for him. OP has been deliberately vague so we don't know how much was down to his mum and how much was down to his dad. Regardless, it doesn't sound like much effort has been made for contact to take place around those plans. His dad hasn't prioritised spending time with him and now he's suffering the consequences.”

did you not read the original post?
his dad was on holiday for two weeks. He was then on holiday with parents and subsequently other family. Followed by birthday parties.

when our children were 5, they were at birthday parties at least every second weekend.

not all ex husbands are arseholes with no interest in their children and not all subsequent partners or stepmothers are witches. OP and her partner clearly aren’t.