Is it really best for kids to keep in touch with absent parent?

[evilstepmom]

my ss (6) and sd (3)see their mother every other weekend from saturday afternoon until sunday afternoon. wkend just gone they stayed from fri nite til sun afternoon. they used to do this as standard but stopped in new year as they came home grumpy, tired, dirty, sulky,whiny etc etc. just staying one night still come home all of those things but not quite as bad.
so far this week we have had children from hell. to cut long story short, if they are nice normal well adjusted children the majority of the time why send them somewhere to just seemingly mess them up!!
if they dont see their mother for a while (which frequently happens as she cancels a lot)they dont even question it and are the lovely kids we know and love.
it just seems like we end up with a miserable household every time they go.
is it really fair and "good" for the kids to keep in contact with someone who really does not seem to be a positive influence in their lives?!
sorry for rant, this has been going on for nearly three years with no respite...

yes, I think it is. because they are too young to make up their own minds.

if they weren't allowed to go they might turn round in 10 years time and say "why didn't you let us have a relationship with our mum?"

they should carry on seeing her until they are old enough to make up their own minds IMO

i know you are right, that's why we still send them! it is just so frustrating grr especially when we later find out that she or her family bad mouth us to the kids which upsets them. pointless trying to talk to the silly woman though as she just denies it all.....grrrr!

yeah, I can imagine how frustrating it must be for you and i've never even been in that situation!

does the mum have "issues" of her own? Have you tried being reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally nice to her (overly so) and getting her to buck her ideas up a bit by making her think it's all her own idea?

Does she actually want to see them or is it just because that is what is arranged IYSWIM?

from what Ive read, this is "normal" behaviour
they feel safe with you which is why you get the bad behaviour when they come home

you are in the situation I am in (except Im alone) but am continuing until the children say "no I dont want to go"

you certainly dont sound like an "evilstepmom" at all

evilstepmom, I know I will get shot down for saying this BUT in my experience it is not always best for kids to keep in touch with their absent parent.

My dd's father wanted nothing to do with her from 2.5 to 10 and then was briefly in her life and has now been in her life for the last 18 months (she is 16). he has caused her nothing but grief and she has become a changed and sadly unhappy young woman since he has been back in her life. So much so that I wish that instead of keeping my mouth shut, not brainwashing her and turning her against him I had brought her up telling her what he is like so that in the event of interfering relatives she would not have been over the moon to have contact, have her father on a pedastal and constantly want to believe he will change. (He is an alcoholic and drug addict and his sole is himself )

However, in reality, I know that your step children have to make their own mind up as my dd has had to and as the parents taking on the responsibility you and your partner have to be their to pick up the pieces every time it all comes crashing down around child/children :(

history is that she had an affair and left my dh and skids for the man she now lives with. intially she did not have contact at all with kids for 3 months and only when dh actively encouraged her to do so was she up for it. we have offered her more time with them but she is "too busy" but if we bring up any issues at all then we are apparently threatening her realtionship with her kids.
we really have tried everything, including niceness to her but nothing changes. she seems to view her kids as pet monkeys - nice to spoil and pet for a bit but hand them back as soon as they start to get a bit out of hand!
thanks for support though guys :)

Evilstepmom - my ds goes to his dad's in the north east from Saturday to Wednesday every other week and this has been a gradual build up since August. I have good reason to believe that he's developing two sets of rules - one for down here and one for up there. He comes back as high as a kite, and I'm facing the same problem too. I can't say anything as what ex and his parents do up there is none of my business as long as ds is well looked after, but he comes back almost like a different person. Is there an easy way to deal with exes and separate lives??

But I think your situation is very different, Winnie. Evilstepmom isn't talking about her stepkids spending time with a drug addict.

Do you have a friendly/ useful HV you could talk to about how to manage their reaction when they come home? Or maybe contact Gingerbread - they are for single parents but might have some advice, or know where you could get some. There are bound to be books on this, somewhere!

If it's been going on for three years, then their mother must have left when they were very small - the 3yo must have been a baby, surely? Very sad.

Yes and no. Much of the time lone parents/ parents with care and control face exactly the problem you're having every time there's a contact visit and it's obviously not in the best interests of the child.

However, the alternative is that the child builds up the absent parent to be a hero and then has that ideal shattered when they eventually do meet them. To say nothing of the unsatisfied curiosity and sadness of having a missing parent.

I suppose you have to go through a) to avoid b) but for it to go on for years, is very tough on the kids and tbh I do question whether long term, it is in their interests to do it exactly this way. I guess we'll find out when this generation of children who are living this experience (the first ones en masse I think) find their voices and tell us when they grow up.

No easy answer to this one.

We have spoken to HV in the past who was sympathetic, but bsically told us to hang in there and if it got really bad go back to court, but you cant say to a judge "we do not want these children to see their mother as they return home and misbehave" can you?!!we have no hard and fast evidence we can produce :( it is really sad, for the kids especially as they were only 4 and 1 when it all happened. not even sure the little one really understands who she is. unfortunately they are still little enough to be able to be "bought" in the short term with sweets, mcdonalds and no rules so it must be a bit of a come down for them to return home to brocolli and "pick your toys up!"
oh well, you just have to keep smiling and battling, dont you?!!
thanx everyone

i agree with you 100% winnie, my eldest ds now 11years,didnt see his father till he was 8. i sent the ex letters and pictures from his son, tried desperatly to get him to have a relationship with him, never ever slagged him off and made excuses for him when my ds got upset when his friends commented on 'not having a dad'. when he did see him EVENTUALLY it lasted 2 months then his father disappeared out of his life again only to ring a year later pissed up asking to see him. i said a flat "no" , not until he could prove that he wouldnt let my son down and leave me to pick up the pieces. my son doesnt wana see him now, but is glad that he met him.

funnily enough his father phoned up at the weekend pissed again and ive now found out hes been heavily in to drink/drugs for years so im glad we have nothing to do with him

It's interesting isn't it 7up because probably if your ex took it to court, an idiot judge would order you to allow contact. In your case it's pretty clear cut that the guy is unreliable and can be guaranteed to let his children down, not that that appears to matter in contact arrangements nowadays.

But in evilstepmom's case, it's much more difficult to nail down - a lack of boundaries, a regular opt-out from real life, a laissez-faire regime bordering on neglect - which a court would simply define as "different household rules". After 3 years, different household rules should no longer be so upsetting for the children - they usually adapt and get used to the idea that the rules in Mum's house are different from those in Dad's - but the plain fact is, if parents don't co-operate with each other for whatever reason (and it only takes one person to unilaterally decide on non-co-operation) those differences will unsettle children for years. And I guess only they will be able to tell us if unsettled contact is worse than no contact. For some, I guess it will be and for others, it won't.

I suppose the major contribution parents with care can make to try and ensure that children with such negative contact are not damaged by it, is to try and ensure that their regular home has security, order, boundaries, safety and lots of love. It's no guarantee that contact with a lunatic won't be harmful to them, but it must shorten the odds.

luckily for me caligula eldest ds father doesnt want to know him really and wouldnt bother going to court, hes got 4or 5 others that he has not contact with so i spose i should be grateful for my ds sake that if when hes older he wants to see him i could ring the ex up (who is a polite drunk on the phone) and arrange something.....when ds is 18!

agree about having a stable, loving home to come home too. must be hardwork getting kids back in a routine tho, think you'd have to be pretty strong not to stop contact for your own benefit really. dont envy evilstepmom. think she should change her name tho, doesnt sound evil to me

evilstepmum. the expression you use " seems to view her kids as pet monkeys - nice to spoil and pet for a bit but hand them back as soon as they start to get a bit out of hand" could apply to dd father. He sees her for about 1 hour a week (when he can be bothered), spends a fortune on her, and takes absolutely no responsibility for her whatsoever.

Edam, you are right as far as we know evilstepmoms step childrens biological mother is not a drug addict but it doesn't just take drug addicts and alcoholics to mess children up and I did add however, that despite my personal experience, I do believe that children have to make their own minds up. But it is hard. Courts etc assume both parents are reasonable and often this is not the case :(

part of my reason for not slagging x off to dd was that I didn't want my relationship with dd affected... as it happens because of his influence it has been and we have not got the greatest relationship right now :(

7up dealing with the fall out caused by a child desperate to see an absent parent is heartbreaking. Caligula is right (as always ;) ) absent parents can be put on a pedastal and that has its own problems.

I think I'll be dealing with that one in years to come Winnie. My x doesn't bother having any contact except at birthdays and christmas, and then it's only a card and maybe a present or a tenner. I got the children to phone him and thank him for the presents at Christmas so at least they had the chance to talk to him then, but he never bothers to take the initiative himself and speak to them. And I do feel very sad for my DS because he's just getting to the age where he's beginning to notice that everyone else has a Dad and he hasn't, and wondering all about him and where he is and when he's going to visit us.

Caligula, I hope you don't :)

Sorry haven't read all the posts so sorry of I'm ground hogging..

Kids are bound to do this in such situations aren't they? They can't articulate how awful and shitty it makes them feel so they just act it out/lash out on those closest to them. As adults we need to try to be more intuitive about this and give them more love and security even when they are being little shits. Some adults aren't good at it either. The mum must struggle with it in her deepest thoughts and he attempts to act distant may be an attempt to handle it. She did a stupid thing by choosing a man over her kids - if I were her I'd always hate myself for doing it while being constantly in denial - what a thing to own up to! (but that's the secret of course) People (inc kids) are so complicated. They have a right to see their mum as long as she isn't a danger to them. Poor kids.

evilstepmom, you have my sympathy as we're in a similar situation but we're lucky that DS1 only sees his Dad a few times a year. DS1 is normally a happy, polite, well mannered, easygoing 9 year old. However, after every visit (usually during school holidays) he returns home with an attitude, all manners gone, deliberately defiant to see what he can get away with.

DS1's Dad is very unreliable, if we don't phone him we never hear from him. When he does speak to him, his Dad talks the talk, You're so important to me, you're the most important thing in my life etc etc but then never gets in touch of his own accord.

We've found that we have just had to say to him each time he got home, whatever behaviour that is acceptable when you are with your Dad isn't when you are here. And its reached the point now where he just snaps out of it, and returns to his usual self.

Its hard when my instincts are to protect DS from being hurt, to allow the infrequent, irregular contact with his Dad to continue but I feel that as long as we are providing a consistent family home life for DS I have to let DS learn for himself what his Dad is like. I never put his Dad down infront of him but it is slowly starting to dawn on DS1 that his Dad's words don't tally with his actions.

Be proud of yourself that you are being the mature party in this and have the childrens best interest's at heart by asking this question in the first place. Your stepchildren will learn to deal with this situation as they get older and even though you want to protect them and stopping contact could achieve this, i think its better in the longterm if they learn it themselves, confident that they do have you and their Dad to turn to as the ones who have always been there for them (thats quite rambling but hope it makes some sort of sense?!)

Oh Winnie, I know the non-residential parent doesn't have to be a drug addict to mess their children up... my parents divorced when I was 10. I think all you can do is love and support your children, reassure them, and try your best to avoid bitching. Hearing my mother's (entirely justified) complaints about what a swine our father was only made it worse for us kids.

I agree with Anniemac - my parents divorced when I was seven (this was back in the seventies, so very unusual then), and even more unusually lived with my dad and stepmother.

We saw my mum every fortnight, and I remember being vile on Sunday nights, but not because I'd been spoilt, but because I was desperately missing her, and also because this is the only way I was allowed to express how awful I felt about the whole situation. (My father was very keen on believing that 'everything was all for the best now', an attitude that with hindsight I think was much more damaging than the divorce itself).

So I think what I'd say, is that you need to allow kids some space to feel bad about the situation, and while, like my dad, you might find it easier to tidy the other parent out of the way, that might not be the best thing for the children, even if they do seem to be upset as a result of it.

Very good point anniemac