Has anyone's DSC stopped contact while DC were young?

[QueenOfCarrotFlowers]

Due to situations beyond my own control, my DSC mum is withholding contact with DSD. We previously had DSD 50:50, but since starting secondary in Sept (and a couple of other changes) DH and his ex are unable to agree changes to contact arrangements. Things have got quite unpleasant and DSD mum is not agreeing to send her until this is sorted. I have no idea when/if this will happen.

At the moment, my 4yo DD is having phone contact only with DSD, and really misses her. It's hard to tell her what to expect about contact in the future as I have no way of knowing.

Has anyone been through similar? Any experience or advice you can share?

I am otherwise trying to keep things as normal as I can.

Are arrangements court ordered? If not maybe it's time they were if contact is being totally with held? Down to your DH though I guess.

Maybe ask dad if she will meet you are the park with dd if that'd OK with her mum. Phone contact is though on a 4yr old.

My DSDs mum did this. The arrangement was 50:50 and she wanted to make changes which my DH didn't agree with. She withheld access for 2 months in a bid to force his hand. Lawyers were hopeless, took ages to send correspondence and sent it with incorrect information. They ended up going to mediation and came to an agreement that way. The agreement was written up and signed by them both.

Even if he wants to go ahead with a court order they now require you to attend mediation first so I'd get that arranged ASAP.

I think it's disgusting that women think it's acceptable to hold their children hostage just to get their own way. Ultimately it's the kids that suffer.

What has happened to make your dsd’s mum do this so suddenly? Is she properly withholding contact because she doesn’t want her daughter to see her dad or is is about changes to timing and arrangements?

If the child is in secondary school it will be up to them so no real point in trying to get a CAO through court.

No they are not court ordered. DH had not wanted to go that route as he feared it would get nasty. But it already has now. So I suppose if it doesn't get sorted out soon something like that might happen.

I think I will have to organize a meetup... I had hoped this would all be sorted out by now.

To answer a few questions, I'm not sure what DSD's mum feels. They have always had a very fraught relationship, but they also had contact arrangements nailed down and rarely had to speak.

Once they started speaking again and trying to negotiate contact arrangements and timings as DSD started secondary, etc, things broke down quite quickly.

There have also been a few other changes: DSD's mum has moved house (although not much further away), and her youngest child has started school. But, I don't know if that had anything to do with it. I think the issue is that they simply can't seem to agree.

I'm most interested in how others have gone about supporting their younger child through a situation like this.

I can see how this is difficult to explain to a small hild and you don't want to involve children in adult issues.
My best advice would be to distract her away from the issue and try and arrange remote contact ( facetime for example).

What does your DSD want in terms of contact? She's old enough that surely she should be starting to decide for herself soon.

Can your DD do some drawings and maybe you can write a letter together to send to DSD?

DSD was always happy with the arrangement that existed, her parents parted ways before she was 1. I expect that she does want to resume contact, I have no reason to think otherwise, but I also have no way of knowing what she has discussed with her mum.

Drawing pictures and writing letters sounds like a nice idea. And so does distracting DD. It is hard to know what will help and what will make things worse.

What has DSD said about the situation when you speak to her on the phone?

What exactly are the parents disagreeing about? Sounds like they need to grow up and sort themselves out for their child's sake. It doesn't strike me as unusual that contact arrangements would change when a child reaches secondary school age, so presumably one or both of them are being unreasonable about the details of this.