Contact issue with problematic dad, any advice?

[solidgoldbrass]

This is on behalf of a mate of mine: I'll try not to drip-feed but want to blur a few details so as not to out anyone.
Friend (cal her F) has a DD who is 8 with some SN - somewhere on the spectrum as far as I know. DD is lovely but a bit volatile at times. DD's dad (call him J) is a volatile bloke too, possibly bipolar. He's not malevolent, just an idiot. THe issue is that his hobby is swordfighting and he's been encouraging his DD to take an interest and not tell her mother about it. F is unhappy about this, predominantly because the DD has been in trouble at school for aggressive behaviour and therefore doesn't want her to think that fighting (even as performance/hobby) is a Good Thing. She is considering stopping contact, but worries about how this will upset DD who loves her dad.

She can't just stop contact, he's DDs dad. He gets a vote in what DD does. F is stuck with J and will have to find a way of dealing with him long term.

As DD has obviously blabbed to F, F can legitimately call J and say 'i know about the swordfighting, how exactly do you think this is going to help DD?' or whatever.

Well she can just stop contact for the moment as there is no court order regarding it. So he would have to go to court and apply for one.

But she doesn't really want to do that. Thing is, he's not the most reasonable of men (seems to depend on the phase of the moon as much as anything) and while he might listen, he might just as easily do the 'Yeah yeah of course' and carry on doing as he likes. Or throw a major tantrum.

His time with his child is exactly that, his! Your friend cannot control her dd forever, and cutting contact is wrong. It's not her place. It's her child's right to have time with both parents and blocking contact is plain wrong

The children's act is there for a reason...and if he had to drag this to court then your friend would not be looked on favourably.

BlackberryIce: But if the contact is doing the child harm? Or if, at least, my friend has a genuine and reasonable belief that it's harmful (encouraging a child to behave in ways that get her into trouble/risk physical harm to her)?

i wouldnt stop but say to the farther i know that you want to get dd into this, and whislt i dont want to stop you these are my reaons for being funny about it. BUT it could help her tunnel her behaviour into it, an escape for the anger and physcial ness she need to let go off.
even offer a compermise say im happy for you and dd to do this but if it starts to effect her beahviour at home and school we will have o talk about stopping it ,

SGB, there are millions of children up and down the land doing karate, judo, even kick-boxing, boxing, or joining organizations like Boys Brigade or the navy one which are linked with the military. For the most part, these things encourage self-discipline, and working as a team, and so on. But even if they didn't, and they encouraged aggression or an acceptance of military values, it isn't up to your friend alone to make decisions about her child like this. It would be laughed out of court if you tried to argue your child shouldn't be allowed to go to karate. This is similar, they aren't fighting in the street with swords, they are in a club doing a sport.

I am on the other side of the fence, my husband doesn't want my eldest to take up judo/karate, because he thinks she is quite aggressive anyway, I think it would be the ideal way to channel that and she would love it. But if I booked her into a session, so what? He wouldn't have the right to remove contact from me, her own mother, just because he thought this was out of order (we are married and therefore just have to bicker over it).

If you apply this very wide definition of 'harm' then almost anything you don't approve of becomes harm; feeding the wrong food, using the wrong language, doing the wrong activities. You cannot control the other parent like that once divorced, and to cut her off from a dad she loves over this would be a greater harm than any minor harm caused by her hitting someone in the playground, getting told off by the teacher, and her learning boundaries (the worst that can really happen).

The worst thing here is not the sport/activity, it is the secrecy, and I would be personally having a word with the dad about telling the daughter to keep secrets, and encouraging openness and honesty.

Parenting with two parents involves strong disagreements, over religion, what school, activities, friends, what time they are allowed out, money, this is normal. It is not normal to cut children off from their parents unless they are in really significant danger (by which I mean abuse or neglect or extreme unreliability/emotional distress).

SGB, I would also encourage your friend to think 'softly softly catchee monkee', if she takes a strong stance against this martial art, then her daughter will be very drawn to it, as a way of being close to the dad.

I would do the opposite, email the dad (no phone contact, too stressy) saying I hear you are doing this with X, what a great idea! Provide the uniform, don't hinder it in any way. Perhaps mention being slightly concerned about aggressive behaviour, but that she is sure the dad will monitor this closely and will take any action if there are issues at school.

Either the daughter will take to it, it won't have an effect on behaviour and then she may have a new hobby (or take up an alternative martial art). Or, more likely, she will find it not that interesting, like with most people's parents hobbies and her enthusiasm will wane and her dad will have to deal with that.

Making it the forbidden fruit, or the reason to cut the child off from contact with a perhaps not entirely unproblematic but much loved dad is completely the wrong way to go.

When you say 'swordfighting' do you mean 'fencing'? That always seems to me to be about agility and strategy rather than aggression. Suspect an aggressive person in a fencing match doesn't last very long.

Fencing? What you mean an Olympic sport?

Can you ever win?? What sport /exercise does the mum do with her dd?

Inspire a generation remember!

I agree with Mumsyblouse. The issue here is not the sport, it is the secrecy. Sports such as karate, fencing, kickboxing etc. actually teach kids to channel their aggressivity.

Yes, the 'don't tell your mother' bit is obviously wrong. But if he knows the pacifist ex is going to object so strongly, that's always an incentive to lie.

Well she can just stop contact for the moment as there is no court order regarding it. So he would have to go to court and apply for one.

There are lots of things you can do that then require someone to go to court to stop you from doing so.

Usually things you shouldn't do.

(and I accept there are some situations where the children are in danger if contact is continued but disagreements about after school activities aren't one if them)

No contact order? Then equally he could collect his child from school and move her in with him.... The mother doesn't hold all the power here... No contact order or residency order remember!

Of course if 'swordfighting' means this volatile man spends his weekends slugging it out in bear-pits with scimitars while punters lay bets on the outcome... that would be different :)

Did he not want the mother to know as she'd threaten to stop contact?

I think threatening to stop contact should only be used when a child is at risk.

Thanks all. Um, it's not fencing, it's historical re-enactment. So the teamwork/channelling aggression into skills is probably not going to work.

I think what the mother is scared of is the father teaching the DD how to use a sharp blade and telling her that it's exciting, glamorous and cool to do so. I know the father quite well myself and I wouldn't put it past him to suggest to his DD that taking a sword to someone who annoys her is a good idea. He would think he was joking, but his DD, being on the ASD spectrum, and already having form for fighting, might take him literally.

They don't use 'sharp blades' in anger in historical re-enactments, surely? Whenever I've seen it, it's all been rather theatrical. Lots of charging about making noise and setting off thunderflashes. Very low on actual bloodshed. I'd have thought they go to enormous lengths to make sure it's entirely safe & no-one gets hurt.

I think it's extremely unlikely the father is going to provide his young daughter with a lethal weapon and tell her to use it.

I don't think saying to a judge, I don't want my daughter to go to historical re-enactments is really going to cut the mustard.

Presumably, if the child is that aggressive, she could walk into her own kitchen, pick up a knife and recreate a historical re-enactment anyway without her dad's encouragement.

I think the mum is worried about the dad in general, his stability, her daughter's inability to perhaps see the more complex picture, and it is fixed on this swordsmanship, but the chances of the scenario actually happening has to be low, and if it is that likely, she also needs to be kept away from all Disney films with fighting, all TV news and so on and so on.

If dad is seriously mentally unstable, that's a different issue and not really about swordsmanship. On the face of it, his hobby or her propensity to idealise her dad and believe things literally is not so intrinsically he can't be allowed to see his daughter.

An alternative way of looking at it is that at these types of meetings (like church, activity groups, hobbies), people tend to be pretty accepting of difference. Perhaps this daughter can take a role in the reenactment. I can't believe they allow small children to re-enact sword performances, and certainly not with real blades.

I'm sorry, I think the mum's anxiety about the dad in general is spiralling, and fixing on this. If she's worried he's really deteriorated mentally, that is the issue she may need to consider but again, to cut him off completely when nothing has actually happened is pretty extreme.

Thanks again, you've all been fair and reasonable. I might get my friend to read the thread for herself.