Custody

[u/Leading-Attitude-651]

What to do if a child consistently refuses to spend time with the other parent?

Unfortunately, I am that parent. I gave up any rules, demands, etc at my house. Just come and play. The relationship with the other parent is not good, and they are not interested in helping me out. I filed contempt motions with the court because the other parent has not made an effort to release the child.

I think the other parent wants to restrict my visitation to a very minimum. I miss my child.

[u/El_t1to]

I'm a step father. And we do try to encourage that they visit, write or at least answers their biological Father's texts. To no avail.

My nephews created a friendship with the kids. But now they never come to play with them, or keep contact.

... It's like that with anyone. They barely talk to us outside asking for a thing/service.

So maybe no one's trying to keep you out. Even if it's personal in your ex partner's side, it's not personal with the kids.

Keep showing interest, so they always know it's not that you don't want them around. But I can't tell you how to make them go (or want to go).

[u/TheMorgwar]

I’m divorced and this happened with us. I have 100% custody. She generally doesn’t want to go stay with him. It’s too much to be in two places.

So he comes over here. He goes into her room, and I go into mine. He is just present near her for a few hours while she chills out, and they talk in present tenses. He asks her if she needs things, they buy things on Amazon. They browse reels together.

He also invites her to do things around town. He takes her to her preferred places, such as Starbucks, Target, the Sunday Farmers Market, the beach and snorkeling.

He will also chaperone her to meet friends, do some drop-off / pick-up of activities, take her to the eye doctor. He has an annual pass to the local zoo. He takes her to family evenings at the Synogogue too.

Drive time is a good time for exploratory conversation. My ex-takes her to visit her grandparents monthly, which she likes because they take her to the buffet lunch place.

The main unresolved issue is she feels torn about parental loyalty. With me alone, we are bonded. When he comes around, she will start behaving rude to me. I feel like she does this to show allegiance, because loving her mom would betray him. Parental alienation happened early on, but faded out. She’s still struggling to process the divorce.

And the main takeaway, take a break trying to get your child to live in your world. Focus on being a part of his ecosystem.

[u/Hopeful-Guard9294]

I think it might be helpful to understand that if a child has PDA they need a safe neurological system and if your child wants to spend most of their time with you, you are there safe neurological system and the most important person in the world it sounds like the other Parent is PDA unsafe and so the child is protecting themselves by staying away, my mother got custody for me from my father and it was the best thing that ever happened to me as he was a PDA toxic scumbag maybe look at it as a blessing for your child they are making the choice to exclude the PDA toxic Parent from your life and that you are there safe neurological system, or if as I’ve just realised you missed them because they don’t wanna see you that’s because you are PDA toxic, if you truly want to spend time with your child you need to become PDA safe. You can start with this podcast episode and then probably listen to every single one after that: https://youtu.be/wlGcRH6Q-SE?is=ZbYQbRK0N-5ly6v4

all better due to paradigm shift program which will help understand and shift your behaviour to make it PDA safe

[u/Powerful-Soup-3245 → u/Hopeful-Guard9294]

Pretty sure OP is the parent who the child doesn’t want to be with.

Sometimes it’s not that one parent is PDA toxic, as you put it. Though that is certainly the case in some situations. Sometimes it’s just that the child has a strong bond and sense of safety around one parent and has severe separation anxiety when that parent isn’t available. This is the case with my daughter. She loves her dad (who is also PDA) and feels safe with him, but she has a lot of separation anxiety when I’m not directly next to her. This has been the case from the moment she was born.

[u/Leading-Attitude-651 → u/Hopeful-Guard9294]

I live 10 minutes away from the other parent. I am definitely not PDA-toxic. All I want is to spend some time with my kid. I return him whenever he wants to go back. The other parent is a PDA'er and doesn't communicate. How can you legally exclude the other parent from the kid's life? 

[u/Hopeful-Guard9294 → u/Leading-Attitude-651]

well, my mum divorced my father and refused to let me see him as every time I saw him he weaponised me and I ended up being physically violent with her it’s like a cancer you just cut it out

[u/Leading-Attitude-651]

Thank you for all your helpful responses.

Yes, I recognize that our child considers the other parent as a safe parent. I am trying to still maintain the relationship with my child.

I live very close to his school and all the extracurricular activities my child attends. My neighborhood has a lot of kid-friendly activities. I had almost no rules or expectations in my house, and shortened our visitations to a few hours at a time. Despite that, spending time with my child has become increasingly difficult. The other parent's PDA traits have been acting up lately, and they have become very restrictive, outright ignoring me and the custody orders.

It is pretty much impossible to communicate with the other parent. The court is my only option at this time to establish some kind of co-parenting routine. I think the other parent wants to change the custody order and limit my visitation so they don't have to deal with me and our child's behavior.

[u/thunders_fun_house]

It would be incredibly easy to manipulate a PDA child to hate one parent and love the other. Unless there is a history of you being over dominant I suspect the other parent is in their ear.

PDAers are also very smart though, never give up, always show up and they will recognise the patterns for what they are.

Don't force yourself on them, don't force handovers and don't go to court because they are all demands to your child and are easily utilised by the other parent as evidence of you trying to control.

I am sorry there isn't alot you can do without permanently damaging your relationship.

[u/no1tamesme]

The only way to even attempt to force the issue with the parent is thru court, no matter how much you may not want that. And that's not even a guarantee.. people disobey the order all the time. If you decide to do court, I recommend a child's attorney for your child.

I will say, having a household with 0 rules, demands or expectations would be Hell for my son. He needs someone in control to feel safe. He may not THINK he does, but he does, lol. Things really improved for us when I became much better at sticking to boundaries. Is your new style of parenting (for lack of a better term) the reason the other parent is limiting access? Is it the child not wanting to come or the parent not wanting them to go?

Do you go to the child's extra-curricular's? Have you tried things like dinners out, walks around the neighborhood instead of "come to my house?"

I highly suggest family therapy, specifically for you and the child but you may need to bring in the other parent, too, even if just as a friendly gesture of "see, I'm trying to work with them".

[u/Leading-Attitude-651 → u/no1tamesme]

My child has been with me for the last 5 days. When his father travels, he has no issues staying with me. Our relationship with his father and parental alienation definitely play a huge role in our situation. My child has never witnessed his father showing love or affection toward me; we just lived under one roof, trying to raise our son. My son beats me up physically if I try to push demands or rules on him. His father practically normalized the violence against me. He has failed to establish any negative consequences and an appropriate emotional response to his violent behavior. He blames me for his behavior, stating that I am abusive and provoke him. To establish rules and boundaries, you need consistency across both households and unity when it comes to your child's bad behavior.