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My 9 year old son no longer wants to see his dad

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Where do I start.....

My ex husband and I split up when our son was 18 months old he is now 9, and since then have always had the same agreed access, split Monday & Tuesday with his dad and Wednesday, Thursday & Friday with me and we share alternate weekends. We share holidays, birthdays and Christmas and this has worked for everyone until the last few months.

He now wants to stay with me permanently and not see his dad anymore but is frightened to tell his dad how he feels. I am trying to encourge him to continue seeing his dad but dont want him to begruge me in years to come for making him see him. He cries everytime he knows he is going to his dads and it is breaking my heart...

We used to live approx 15 miles away and I moved nearer and we are now a mile away to make things easier for him as his school was near neither me or his dad so he had not friends local to home but it seems this was the wrong this to do...

I am at my wits end with how to handle this as Im told by some friends I should stop all contact if its upsetting him but I need to understand the reason and not only do I have a court order with the spilt so its not that easy, what if my son is just going through a phase!

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Hi This is one for you and

Submitted by kate on Thu, 2010-08-26 12:23.

Hi

This is one for you and Dad to sort out together and understand what is going on here , to stop contact with Dad is certianly not the right thing to do many  kids will go through this phase but I am afraid unless there is a real reson why Dad should not see his children, amd by that I mean their safety is compromised ) contact and a relationship is as non negotiable as not going to school. This may sound heavy but you are the adult and you as the adult know that a relationship with Mum AND Dad is important going forward for your son. As such as an adult if he fails to a develop a relationship with his Dad this is in my opinion more likley to have a comeback to you than you bending over backwards to smoothe this tricky phase.

You have aproblem here undoubtedlt , and you do need to share it with his Dad You also need to find out if there is a particular problem such as a new girlfriend  nothing to do at Dads and so on  maybe Dad has told him off and then you need to try and help Dad to get on better with your son.

Think about changing the contact , this has worked for a long time and for you to have managed to keep this going for a while you must have a reasonable relationship with Dad . Talk to him and work it out together .

maybe he simply doesn't like so much toing and froing and would rather have one base with every other weekend and half of hols with Dad . or maybe the move has been more of a challenge than you thought. Do browse the co parent section and print off the forms.

Working this one out is the answer rather than stopping contact all relationships go through phases , you can't just let your son bunk out of one of the key relationships of his life 

 

Good luck

 

Kate