How do I talk to my child about why she doesn’t see her Dad?

[hopefultragedy]

My child is 5 years old, turning 6 in December, she’s quite switched on and remembers a lot for her age. Her dad and I split up when she was about 1.5-2 years old. He’s a very challenging character… emotional abusive, gaslighter, narc, just an all round nasty person who’s very manipulative.

I always tried to co-parent and keep it positive, never spoke a bad word about him. He was always flakey and whenever he had a girl on the scene he would never see our child. Anyway… long story short, he got someone else pregnant, moved away, didn’t pay our child attention, they split up, police involved, he’s not allowed to see their child either for safeguarding reasons, I also stopped him seeing our daughter because of many many reasons.

I haven’t told our daughter why she can’t see him and I obviously haven’t told her what he’s like because the sun shines out of his arse to her of course. She’s not old enough to know why she doesn’t see him so when she asks “when am I seeing daddy?” “I haven’t seen daddy in a long time, can I ring him” “why does daddy always work” I get stuck with what to say as I don’t want to bad mouth him but I don’t want to break her heart even more. Whenever she asks about him all I say is “daddy works a lot and lives far away” she asks so many questions on why she hasn’t seen him and when she will do. She’s also been asking to go to his ex partners house as she thinks he’s there, it’s so muddly, how do I explain that they’re not together so she can’t go there and oh guess what you also have a baby brother who daddy isn’t allowed to see too!

please help!!! What do I do and say

I think you are doing yourself a disservice not providing an age appropriate explanation. I would say something like “daddy wasn’t very kind and he did some things that hurt people (or whatever best characterises the situation) and we need to wait until he apologises and starts being kind again before we’re able to see him”. Edit to capture accurately whatever happened in your situation.

It’s not the same, but my dc have a (step)grandfather and grandmother they are not allowed to see. He sexually abused a child and my mum stuck by him. My eldest was once very close to my mum. We are NC with both of them now. The way I explained it is that “Bob did a bad thing that hurt someone. It’s not okay to hurt someone. You mean the world to me and my job as your mum is to keep you safe, so we can’t see Bob anymore. Granny didn’t support us in trying to keep you safe and did some unkind things to dad and I that were really hurtful (she spread lies about us to explain why we went NC, but they were really mean and completely untrue…I digress). We are waiting on Granny to apologise.”

This isn’t exactly what I said, but you get the idea in a nutshell. You explain that the reason you don’t see him is because of his bad behaviour and put the responsibility on him to fix it. Presumably, he could sort this out by sorting himself and going through social services and courts to request contact. He hasn’t. I think you need to be honest, but gently. And make sure that what’s communicated is that it’s his responsibility to get things together and spend time with her. This emphasises that this has nothing to do with her. Isn’t her fault. There is nothing she could do to change it. Girls especially internalise this stuff. Make sure she understands, kindly, that this is because he did a bad thing and he needs to fix it.

Similar situation here, I simply said 'Daddy has done some really bad things and it isn't safe for you to see him'. As the DC gave gotten older, I've managed to let them know more details of what really happened. Best thing to do is not hide things as it creates more curiosity but try and be as age appropriate as you can. My 13yo now pretty much knows the full story and it helps with that feeling of 'why doesn't Dad want me', he knows his Dad just took the wrong path in life and it was nothing to do with him but also knows he's not a nice person or someone he wants in his life.

Thank you, I went about and discussed it with her and said about him making bad choices etc and she took it much better than I expected and I feel a weights been lifted off my shoulders!!

I’m sorry to hear your family had to go through that and experience that!!

thank you for your advice, I had a discussion with her later that day and said what was advised to me and she took it so much better than I expected and feel a weights been lifted off my shoulders now!

Just tell.her that daddy is working a lot ..you doing great make her an album with pics of her dad talk things about you and her dad how he was his family stories of his childhood and his family never bad things to her because she's too small to know things that going to hurt her she loves her dad put dad pics in her wall and .just call him and tell.him.before that his daughter wants to call.him if he gives you money tell her it was him and buy things for her and say is from dad