Child wants to live with dad

[Mummyto2girls19]

Hi girls I have a very important question!!!! I have an 11 year old stepson who desperately wants to live with me and his dad. We get him every 2nd weekend and half of the school holidays. (Court orders) the boys is absolutely miserable with his mother… it seems like he has no childhood there whatsoever. His mum never plays with him, hardly talks to him and always seems to be annoyed with him over tiny little things. He is really a good boy so he is, he never does anything wrong (apart from not always keeping his room tidy 😂) but from what he’s telling us it seems like he hardly ever gets a chance to do what he wants…. Every night after school he has chores like hoovering ect. Yes I know children do have responsibilities at this age which he also has in our house but I would never make him do all my house work for me or tidy up his siblings toys like he does at his house. The poor boy gets grounded if he puts his washing in the washing basket inside out 😫 we are really starting to worry about his mental health as he always seems so upset going back to his mums and counts down the days to see us knowing he will be able to be him self around us. Trust me this isn’t even half of what’s going on at his mums but if I was to write it all I’d be here all day. So my question is….. if we went to court for full custody would we have any leg to stand on???? Would the judge hear him out? Believe me I am not being bitter, all children get grounded and have chores, but from what he’s telling us and from what we are hearing from other people he doesn’t seem to have any sort of childhood and is made to do everything. Please let me know what you think

From my understanding, at the age of 11, the court would hear the boy's opinions and take them into account to some degree but full custody might be unlikely at that age as it would come across that he wants to leave 'because mum made me do some chores' rather than anything more serious. His mum would likely put up a fight too (not unreasonably).

Are you sure what he is saying is all correct though? Is his mum just busy with his siblings and wanting a bit of help? Is she a single parent coping with a lot? From the custody arrangements it sounds as though the day to day responsibility of school and homework falls on the mum whilst dad only gets the fun relaxed time off. I'm not judging but it could skew the child's perspective.

I would say ask your husband to chat to the mum about the boy's feelings in the first instance. He may then apply for more custody (a weekday too to start with) and then ramp up from there if needed and everyone is in agreement.

Yeah what he’s telling us is the truth as it’s coming from some of his family members too. No she’s not a single mum, she has a new man who she had kids with and ever since this has been going on. Dad has a family too as we have 2 kids together so we do know how busy it can get with having multiple kids but I would never make my child do all my house work for me, there’s helping and there’s being a proper slave which it seems like he is.

Also dad was seeing him more and wanted more but they moved an hour away from us which had made things even more difficult. We’d have him every weekend if we could but mum didn’t agree to it as she wants a weekend too

It's pretty hard for you to know exactly what is going on there, and thus even harder for us.

An 11yr olds truth, even exactly as they see it, is rarely the actual truth. One of my teenagers just doesn't notice her own part in things.

Is he doing ALL the housework and chores? If so, that's loads, I know everyone is different but for me that's a few hours every day. Or just a few chores?

Of course he is going to prefer your house if at home he's got homework and chores to do, and at yours it's just play.

But then maybe yours is objectively better for him. If it is, you will need to find far better examples than the presumably top ones youve chosen for your op.

I ask you the questions to consider -

Does he do jobs at your house ?
Do you do homework with him ?
Does he has structured bedtime ?

I ask these questions because it is often easy to see your house as more exciting if they just have fun times.

Also be aware if there was a change of residency there will need to be a change of school due to distance so you need to be really sure it isn’t just seeing the grass isn’t greener