How am I supposed to explain to dd why she can't see her father?

[MsPunky]

Dd is 5. She hasn't seen her father for 18 months and will never be allowed to again whist she is a child.

He is a very bad person but dd has some lovely memories of him. She asked about him often and gets very upset at times.

I just don't know how to explain to her that he is a bad person and that she wouldn't be safe with him. This is breaking her heart and I don't know what to do.

My first thought would be to say that he is unwell in some way, because then the 'badness' doesn't have to come into it.

And not being well is kind of honest too, isn't it, in the sense that most 'bad' people are damaged people.

Could you say something general about parents needing to take care of their children and protect them and that her dad can't do that properly? It's fudging it a bit but at her age it might suffice without actually having to say that her dad has done something bad. You might then be able to gradually explain further as she gets older. I don't know if you have any input from social services and whether they might have any suggestions as to how to handle it? It's very hard

I really like that idea. I don't want to tell her he's bad. That's just filling her head with scary thoughts. Telling her he's ill is a much kinder option until she old enough to properly understand. Thank you x

Ss have been involved and they were brilliant in a practical sense but not so great with emotional support.

I in touch with victim support and I'm hoping they might be able to give me some ideas too, even counselling for dd.

""parents needing to take care of their children and protect them and that her dad can't do that properly""

I like that way of explain got too.

I know it's a bit different but as a social worker I often write life story books for adopted children. In them we have to explain a lot of difficult info in an age appropriate way. My take on it is that's it's not a good idea to make it too flowery and gloss over it- whilst DD may feel positively now there needs to be room for her to make sense of her background and story at any point in her childhood and adolescence, when she may be feeling lots of different emotions. That said, it's important to acknowledge the positives too, as they are valid and important to her.

Maybe have a Google of life story work for children. Joy Rees is a helpful writer on the subject. Sometimes it seems a little bland but that's intentional- gives a child more room to process it for themselves rather than be told how to feel implicitly. Hope that makes sense!

What Nerdy said about not being able to take care of her properly (because he isn't well) covers it.

I suppose the most obvious question she might come back with is to ask about what sort of unwell.

I recently had to explain to DD (nearly 5) why an older 'grandma'-type woman was screaming at her neighbour as we were walking past (inner city - she's going to have to get used to this sort of thing!). She obviously had mental health issues, so I told DD that there are two kinds of not well; that you can be unwell in your body and unwell in your thoughts and feelings, and that this woman was probably feeling frightened and angry because her thoughts weren't quite right and it caused her to behave differently than we'd normally expect.

It seemed be enough of an explanation for DD to make sense of what she saw, which was a bit alarming.

So maybe something along those sort of lines? That her father isn't well in a way that makes his thoughts and feelings a bit muddled up and that's why he can't look after her properly.

I wouldn't say he was ill.

It's something people say all the time in everyday life and she might start worrying that every time you or anyone else are ill they might just 'vanish' like Daddy did.

What he did must have been pretty bloody bad if he's not allowed even supervised contact with her, and that being the case, I would be quite honest with her, whilst being age appropriate.

Something along the lines of 'Daddy hurt a little girl (boy/children, if that's what he did?) so he's not allowed to spend time with children anymore in case he hurts them too. It's very sad and I know you miss him, but that's how it has to be until you are a grown up'.

I'm sorry you are going through this

One other thing that might be worth thinking about is whether the explanation given to your DD is one that works well enough (complete yet not too complex, and as neutral as possible) if she ever feels the need to account for her father's absence to others, or if she is ever asked why he's not around, for example by friends.

Hmm, I dunno, Chipping, I'd worry about the possibility of other people's unthinking reactions/questions if she repeated that.

It is really difficult and I think some professional advice would be a great idea.

I would not tell her that 'Daddy hurt a little girl/whatever'. That would be very damaging, and goodness knows what would go through her head over the years.

I second the professional advice on this. While I am, myself, very much an advocate of telling children the truth where possible, I think that your daughter's childhood should also be as free as possible from fear and worry. I am getting that her father committed a serious offence against children, which makes it likely that she will never want to see him, as she will find out as an adult woman. I do think, though, that someone of 20 or so would be better equipped emotionally to deal with this terrible news. For now, she needs to be protected from that.

Somethingonce

That's pretty much what a child psychologist advised a friend to say, but changed slightly as they saw him in a contact centre.

Other than lying, what else can you say though really? And as tempting as it would be to lie (Daddy's working overseas) it's worse when they hear via someone else that it's a lie or keep asking questions and you end up with a tangled mess.

There isn't a good answer for a very shitty situation :(

Lying is a short term fix with potential consequences though, and as much as the op wants to protect her dd now, at some point the truth is going to have to be told, and it is going to be much harder to come to terms with when she's older and has grown up believing her dad to be ill, and all that brings.

As hard as it is, it will be better for to grow up with the truth in an age appropriate way.

Is he in prison op? Is there a chance she can visit him there as she gets older?

Thank you, I'm going to take on board all your points. I don't want to lie to her and yet I definitely don't want her to grow up fearful of other adults or to ruin her innocence.

He hurt me which is something the police are dealing with atm as it's taken me a while to report it.

But he also committed an offence involving children. He isn't in prison yet but it's very likely that he will be in the near future.

I know when she is an adult I'll have to tell her the full truth. I wondered if I should keep some photos if him for her??

Yes to photos.

The emphasis shouldn't be on secrets but on age-appropriate truths. Also, it should be clear that his choices/actions are wrong, not that there's something inherently wrong with who he is (we can all make choices about our actions but we can't choose who we are and you don't want her to wonder if she's "bad" because he is).

Something like "He hasn't made some very good choices and he's done some things that have hurt people. So we're not going be seeing him for a long while".

I second the unwell idea. DS1 has no contact with his father, who was a violent alcoholic. I have always said (since he was old enough to ask) that ex wasn't well enough to be a Dad and so I looked after him by myself instead. DS is 15 now, he has struggled with it at times over the years but has accepted it. Now that he is older he has come to realise things for himself and shows genuine appreciation for the fact he has grown up in a loving home.

It's tough, you are doing a great job keep going.

And yes to the photo's. DS knows quite a bit about his Dad and has asked for information and I have always answered kindly but honestly. He has no interest in finding him now (that may change when he is older I know) he is content to know about him but is secure in his own life an family. I am glad now that I did things the way I did even if it was hard at the time.

MsPunky, I'm very sorry for what you're going through.

I have a (fairly close) relative on the sex offenders register. Because of "family keeping secrets", no-one told me, and when I went to visit the branch of the family who live in (insert very far-flung location...), I took DS to visit him for the afternoon. The first I knew of his offences was when I got a phone call, completely out of the blue, from one of the police officers on his offender management team. The police were absolutely great, but were very firm that no contact was the only option.

Now of course my problem is that DS has now met this bloke, and asks about him (and we are, as a family, very close to this guy's sisters). My line is very much "X has done something bad and he's not allowed to see you any more, it's not the sort of thing I can tell you about now, but I will tell you when you're older."

Of course I understand that it's far, far harder when it's your child's father, but I think others are right - secrets do more damage. I'd go with what other people have suggested - that he did something bad, hurt a child and so is not allowed to see your DD while she is a child. (NB, I'd stress that he did something bad, rather than phrasing it that he is bad - your DD will be exposed to all sorts of stray comments from popular culture about how children take after their parents, so it's important not to leave her feeling that she's in any way different because "he's bad".)

Definitely keep photos & anything else you have.

This is such a difficult situation and it sounds like you're doing an amazing job

I never knew my real father (well, I met him when I was 27 but he was a bit of a tosser so never saw him again!) and I was told all sorts of lies/half truths whilst I was growing up and each time it became apparent that another lie had been spouted it made me all the more intrigued. When I was told what I now know to be the true story by my very angry, very bitter nan at 8 years old I was devastated. My mum has always said she wishes she had been honest, in a child friendly way, as you can't control words that come out of other people's mouths.

She doesn't need to know details but the basic truth may or may not prevent issues a little down the line?

My DS was adopted and your "script" I would think needs to be very similar. No lies ever she must trust you totally but an age appropriate amount of informaiton which can be increased as she gets older.

Yes make a memory box for her of photos and other things which she can look at from time to time.

I would say:

"Some people can't look after children because they aren't very good at it and children need to be looked after very carefully so you won't be able to see him until you are much older"

When she's older you can start adding more detail.

I'm sorry it must be very difficult for you both.

I don't see it as lying or even untruthful; to me, it is an age-appropriate way of beginning to explain something that is conceptually complicated (and I accept that not everybody understands in the same way).

There was a thread last week about the Bulger case. A poster linked to a piece from the Independent about children who commit very serious offences and how they are rehabilitated which set me thinking.

Though one tends, understandably, to react with shock and anger faced with such offences - and it feels easy to label offenders as bad, wicked or evil - moral judgement isn't particularly helpful in coming to an understanding of how people come to commit awful offences (or the possibility of rehabilitation).

I do regard extreme incapacity for empathy as a mental deficit resulting from inborn unfortunate brain structure, or adverse life experiences which effectively 'damage' the brain (or a combination of both), so that it is unable to function in a way that results in behaviour within social norms.

This dysfunction seems to me to fall into a broad category of illness of thoughts and feelings, as opposed to illness of the body, and I feel that would be a legitimate place to start explaining extreme 'badness' to a small child, without having to bring 'badness' into it at all. It can be expanded upon as the child is capable of processing more, but in the meantime covers it without being frightening.

That said, I'd be totally open to being told this is all way off the mark by an expert. DD heard part of an item on the news about a mother who killed her children and it made me think that at some point it will be necessary to begin to explain some of the horrible things that happen in the world.

Sorry, that post was a bit lengthy, but absolutely yes to avoiding the possibility of OP's DD feeling in any way bad by association.

Not sure about referring to things that can't yet be discussed; surely that leaves the way open for all sorts of frightening wondering and imagining.

SomethingOnce - I think I agree with most of that. The relative I mentioned is a sociopath (not an armchair diagnosis by me - this is the diagnosis given by the criminal psych on his offender management team), and in fact displayed many of the classic signs of trouble to come as a child (including torturing the family cat to death).

Recent research points to something fundamentally wrong with the brains of people diagnosed with sociopathy (and interestingly, suggests a role for epigenetics - there is a gene that pre-disposes people towards this sort of brain malfunction, but how badly they are messed up in terms of eventual behaviour patterns has a strong environmental component - in my relative's case, a father who used to beat seven shades of shit out of both him and his mother). To oversimplify, if you have this genetic predisposition and a loving upbringing, you'll end up as a ruthless (but non-violent, non-law-breaking) captain of industry, have the predisposition, and be unlucky enough to have a crap upbringing, and you'll end up in prison.

get professional input. go to GP or get referral via SS - eg play therapist/family therapist/child psychologist. they w ill have experience, will know your unique situation and can help and advise. it is something you may need to revisit again s she gets older. support for you and her from professionals is vital. they will use play and other tools.

for you a space to talk too is important.