Single parents out there

[Pussinboots94]

If your children do go to visit their fathers on weekends etc, do you believe your children go to spend weekend with him and his family. Or for the things he will be getting up to? Trips out etc. Or is this not even an issue for you? And if it was would you say something? Opinions would be very much appreciated.

You’ve posted on the step parenting board. Did you mean to post on lone patents?

I’m not really clear on what your question is.

What dad does on his contact time has nothing to do with you (just like what you do on your time has nothing to do with him).

Hellooo. Sorry I meant to state that I am the partner of a single father. I probably wasn’t that clear but what I was trying to get across was people’s opinions on the subject of “if a child for whatever reason decides to go home early/stay at home etc on one of the dads weekends. That is their choice and their choice alone, and subsequently if the father did a day trip etc during the weekend that that child then missed out on. Is this then the fault of the fathers? Should he have made it clear to the child what he had planned that weekend? Should he always have to bribe the child into staying. Would she then have stayed for the wrong reasons?
Where is he going wrong here. Many thanks.

@Pussinboots94 still don't quite understand what you mean. Are you saying that your partner has planned a day trip (for himself and probably you included) during his contact weekend but he either i) doesn't want to take the kids but still want to "trick" the kids to come and stay at his place by themselves? or ii) wants to take the kids but didn't tell them in advance about his plan?

So basically the issue is should the child be allowed to choose whether to have contact with the NRP? It all depends on how old the child is (assuming there is no abuse/neglect of course). Mid/older teens should be able to choose as they move towards a more adult-to-adult relationship and develop their own social lives. Younger children should not have that choice because they don't have the capacity to understand the impact of refusing contact.

So if in this case your DSC is older, it might have been nice to share with them your plans in, my older DSC just visit for meals or days out or whatever as we wouldn't expect them to come round just for the sake of sitting in the house their dad's in. Having said that if we fancied doing something nice on the spur of the moment we wouldn't not do it just because DSCs are already doing something else.

If however the child is not old enough to decide contact then your plans should be neither here nor there. This is how Disney Dads and spoilt kids are born.

When my partners son comes to stay it is for the set amount of time. Doesn't go home early he know what days he will be coming for and that's how it stays. Depending on what we have planned to what we do. Sometimes is just a weekend at home playing in garden indoors etc and sometimes we may have something planned that we go too. But never do we make special trips/day out every time he comes to visit. And on the other hand when my children go to their dad's they do what he has planned and that is none of my business as long as my children are safe and happy that is all that matters

@user1487168313 I understood it that OP's DSD didn't want to come round/stay at dad's, but would have changed their mind had they known that dad was planning X activity. I.e. is it right that DSC should be allowed to come only for the fun stuff and not normal family life?

Agree with @Catsnothelpwiththis

My DSC are 10 & 13. They have a court ordered contact order. They (or mum) don’t get to choose. Nor do they go home earlier.

However, they will get to an age where they’ll want to spend weekends with their friends and we’re prepared for things to change.

I read on another board yesterday that a 3 & 4 year old didn’t want to visit their dad. This is really sad. IMO kids at that age are too young to be making that decision.

We have the kids EOW. Yes, we try to do fun stuff, but not all the time. My OH doesn’t want to be a Disney Dad and the reality is we’re a working household and we don’t always do fun stuff.

@ACatsNoHelpWithThat IC, thanks very much!

Standard family probably won't plan weekend that far ahead unless there is sth special, and it's not practical to have "fun weekends" every time. When kids are older they can start arranging their own weekends, but before that, they need to learn the routine and stick to the contact times no matter what the dad plans.

Hello all. The child in question is 9. The reason she stays less time than the others. Without going into a huge backstory. Is because both the child the mother and the father all felt best that she go for less time because, the mum needed a break apparently and the dad obviously should see her, the child wants to go home to her mother. And there is obviously some bigger thing going on with the daughter missing her mum and having huge issues with “missing out” even though it will only ever be staying at home with her mum. She still worries about missing out. He doesn’t tell the children plans in advance because if for whatever reason the plans change he doesn’t like letting them down as they have a lot of false promises made by other family members. And also unfortunately their behaviour isn’t the best so it is better not to let them know about said plans and see how their behaviour is. The daughter went home halfway through the weekend. We had all agreed upon this. He shouldn’t have to tell her his plans, he doesn’t tell the others. And because of this she went home (despite him repeeatedlt asking if she was sure) and now the mothers family have caused ww3 because she’s missed out on something. Although if what the mother did with her was more fun than what we did. It wouldn’t have been an issue. As everything with that child is a competition with her siblings unfortunately. Opinions.

This is exactly it. Thankyou. Acatsnohelpwiththat. X

At 9 she shouldn't get the option to go to her dads or not. She's been given too much choice by the mum by the sound of it.

Unless there are serious extenuating circumstances, time as dads is time at dads regardless of the plans.

Yes,9 years old is too young for a child to decide upon contact. It’s an adult decision.

Draw up a schedule and stick to it.

My OH prepares the contact order the 1st week of Jan (drafts it and mum reviews). It then doesn’t deviate. We all know where we stand for the year ahead.

I agree at the age of 9 she should be told you are going to your dad's for x amount of days and nights. Obviously if other things crop up such as party invites from friends ect then there should be room to change days and that but not just because she Is bored with family life and wishes to leave. And if it was her choice to go home and missed out on an activity that is not her father fault. I don't think you should have to tell her that something exciting is planned ahead just to make her stay.

She hears a lot of things she shouldn’t unfortunately. She’s adopted her mums crappy attitude of the father sadly. She will even listen in on phone calls that are made by the family members arguing with the father. As is what happened last night. Unfortunately he tried to warn about the way her attitude was going ages ago but no one would listen. Now it’s crying phone calls from the mum about how bad her behaviour is. He has tried to take the approach of days out for the others and not for her because she hadn’t earned it. Then he tried taking her out with the others anyway and seeing how she was as he didn’t want to be bullying her and causing her issues. But she acted terribly. And it’s always after she’s had the treat which riles us something savage. He was going to see how she was on our trip this weekend but as stated she chose to go home. You cannot win with this family. The other day she had a day out with us alone as the other child was ill. She had a whole day of child version fun. And went home and kicked off because her ILL sister had merely taken a walk to the shop with her mum. Which comes back to a clear mum attention issue. And you just find yourself thinking “she had a whole day of being by herself with us. Doing what she loved and she went home just to kick off over one little thing”. It’s always a competition with her. Always. In her mums eyes though even if she is naughty she has to be treated with the other two because there’s no way of leaving her out. I appreciate being a single mum must be so hard but if I was naughty as a child I would miss out on things my sister did and it did me no harm.

9yo is way too young to be deciding contact. Both her parents should have found a way to work on the issues causing her anxiety, ironically her being able to choose when she comes and goes at her dad's instead of relying on her parents for boundaries and the stability they bring is possibly contributing to her anxiety.

We actually had similar(ish) when my DSD was 12 and suddenly decided she hated DH. This fed her mum's narrative of DH being useless (he's not - he had just shy of 50/50 care!) and she let DSD decide week-by-week whether she wanted to come to ours, apart from one night a week which was mandatory because mum always stayed over with her partner that night. DH went along with this for a few weeks until he was advised that it's harmful to burden children with adult decisions they're not equipped to handle emotionally. He told DSD's mum that he was either good enough for his children to stay with or not, but he was not going to be deemed a good enough dad only on the days where it was inconvenient to mum. So either DSD came for the whole weekend or not at all, and in the meantime he would arrange counselling for DSD. DSD's mum didn't want to give up her night with her partner so she reluctantly agreed to refuse to allow DSD to dictate contact. Once that decision was taken out of DSD's hands things started to improve rapidly. She and her dad have a good relationship now. She just needed her parents to...well...parent her.