She doesn't want to go for visitation...
What do you/would you do in this situation?
Caro doesn't want to go to her dad's. Ever. I think it's probably because he doesn't see her much and she's just very attached to me. But anyway, she flat out refuses to go with him and clings to me and screams things like "I no like daddy" and "I want to go home, go home with mommy".
What would you do? I can't legally keep her from him, but I don't want to just walk out on her and force her to stay overnight with someone she clearly doesn't want to be with. Any suggestions? She's also supposed to go with him 2000 miles away for two periods of two weeks each this summer (he will be gone for about 3 months and that amount of summertime visitation is in our parenting plan)-- I'm worried about her going with him for that long if she doesn't even want to stay with him overnight... but what can I do?
Re: She doesn't want to go for visitation...
Ok this is one of the most un-fun parts of divorce.
When PC didn't see his dad for so long (almost two whole months) he fah-reaked when it was time for him to go to his father's house. He clung to me, screaming, terrified. I cried, he cried, even ex h teared up.
Now, he is just used to it. He knows he gets cookies, juice, and god knows what else there.
Ok so try this- when you guys do the handoff what I do is just be like super sickeningly sweet- being super fake-nice and sweet to ex h and saying things like "ok C, i'll be back at the end of the afternoon to get you and we'll do (insert fun project/ fav. dinner food)" helps a lot.
also we do a lot of finger painting that involves two houses and mom and dad in each respective house and lots of hearts and puppies and rainbows and barfy crap. and we always make one for his dad. so during drop offs and pick ups i will be all "oh look what C made for you!" and he gets all "oh wow chance, what a great painting you did, this is so nice."
basically we just vomit puppies and rainbows all over the place. it seems to be working.
Also, sometimes when C asks about "da da" - I'll call him and put him on speakerphone so he can talk to C. He loves that. and ex will say "oh this weekend we are going to do x,y,z, does that sound like fun, PC? and he gets excited to go there. And he wouldn't dare say anything nasty to me while he is on the phone with C so it works well. and if he tries to bait me into discussion i just quickly get off the phone. Good luck.
It's not easy at all, but hopefully it gets better.
LOL I will try this. I do try to talk to her about him when he isn't around, and I've tried to have her talk to him on the phone, but he cancels so many visits and travels so much that the fact is, she just doesn't really know who he is. Or at least she'd much rather be with me. And you know how little he was around when we were together...
Darth, unfortch he doesn't have any family around, they all live in North Dakota. It does work if he picks her up from daycare and I'm not there, but we're supposed to split the driving equally according to the CO so that won't work every time.
It sounds more like a separation anxiety issue than he's not good for her or that visitation goes poorly. More than likely once you are out of sight she stops crying and has a fine time.
You can either vomit rainbows or you can detach your OWN emtions, it's nothing more than when you drop her off at daycare or pay the checkout guy at the grocery store. Cry on the inside or in the car when you drive away. But she's taking her cues from you and if you are all anxious about it so is she.
When she gets a little older and has a longer memory span she'll be fine and remember him.
This. All of this. WHEN exH was still coming there was major inconsistency so it was hard for DS. He freaked out. I had to suck it up and act all happy for him to go and oh-so-happy to see exH and tell him how much his daddy loved him and was so happy to see him (cue the barf in my mouth) etc. and once he really saw that I was "happy" to see exH and how fun it was going to be (gag) he was better. Not 100% by any means, but it wasn't him screaming, me making exH peel DS off of me (NO way would I do it and hand him over. NO.EFFING.WAY) etc. I tried to put it in exH head that the more consistent he was with coming the less this would happen but instead he just chose eventually to stop coming alltogether. I dread the day he shows up again out of the blue for his visitation(continually crossing fingers and toes that it NEVER happens). We'll cross that bridge if it ever happens.
This is my gut feeling about it, actually... he says that they have fun once she is there and settled in, and I believe him. She just doesn't know him that well at this point because he doesn't follow through with many visits.