@memrin I've been co-parenting my nearly 8yo 50/50 since she was two.
The only time we've done phonecalls/FaceTime is if the normal schedule is interrupted and we go longer than usual without seeing each other. (Eg. Both times get dad has COVID, when he went on holiday, when I was hospitalized with meningitis).
You are projecting your anxiety onto a five yo. If your kid isn't expressing a want for extra contact with you, you have no reason to force it.
My advice is to get some therapy to address your anxiety when your kid is at their dad's. Good luck.
@tanyastark He is expressing he wants the contact. I’d love to avoid anything with his father and wouldn’t bother if it didn’t bother my child. And yes, I’m in therapy and watch to make sure I’m projecting that I’m okay/happy he spends time with dad, and am not worried about him while he’s there. But thanks for calling that out - it’s a good reminder to check in and make sure I’m not acting in my interests alone.
@memrin Ok if your kid is actually asking for the calls then you're absolutely not in the wrong for trying to facilitate them.
With that in mind it sounds like Dad is maybe jealous or upset that the kid still wants Mummy Contact on Daddy Time? Is Dad getting any therapy for his own issues?
I fully understand how much like rejection it can feel when your kid is asking for the other parent. It fkn hurts, but Dad shouldn't punish a 5yo for that.
My stepson's mother deliberately puts TV on during my partner's scheduled calls with him. She also sits in the room so the calls are monitored and SS can't really relax and chat (SS is 8 and is a completely different kid when at Dad's house vs mum's). It's incredibly frustrating but I'm not sure what more you can do, as your kiddo is too young to have his own device.
I hope that with time your ex will feel more comfortable with supporting your son's relationship with you. The break up is still fresh so there's plenty of time. The first couple of years after my separation from my ex were the hardest of co-parenting, but things are much easier now. Best of luck.
@memrin It sounds like you are experiencing a great deal of sadness and loss because you are attempting to control people, places and things that are essentially outside of your span of control. I’m really sorry that you are dealing with this. And I absolutely sympathize that the co-parent is making inappropriate parenting choices. It’s also clear that the tactics you’re trying (control, reprimand, etc.) don’t and won’t work, so other types of interpersonal effectiveness may, however, have greater impact. For example, does the co-parent have financial problems? Could he be paid $10-20 per FaceTime call? Would you pay $1-2k per year to speak to the child? Bad food choices: this is a 3-person decision - you, pediatrician and co-parent. Get all three on the same page. Same with scary movies. Document and simply phrase things like that as polite emails to teacher/pediatrician asking what is age appropriate. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Make the co-parent’s choices very public and very visible to teachers and pediatricians.
Also, if a given issue is not critically important, drop it. Teach your child that you are an adult who knows how to pick their battles.
@memrin Are the calls really necessary? I know you want to talk to your kid, totally get that but I would follow your kid’s lead on this one. I have majority time with my kids and they are free to call their dad whenever they want. Calls initiated by the kids last for 20-30 minutes or more. Sometimes if I notice they haven’t called in a while, I’ll suggest a call or he calls if it’s been a few days or a week but those calls don’t last more than a minute or two because they don’t have anything to say and talking to him makes them miss him and sad. They have to be in the right place to talk in order for the calls to be a happy thing for everyone.
We have 50/50 of my SKs, week on/week off, and 4x/week prescheduled calls. We have a set time frame to call (after school) and the call is not to exceed 20 minutes. The kids don’t really like them. It interrupts whatever they’re doing and because we already see them half the time and we have the calls so often, they really don’t ever have much to say. HCBM uses the calls for emotional manipulation unfortunately so the calls are here to stay but they usually make the kids upset more than making them feel closer to their parents.
All of that to say, I’ve seen two extremes of the call situation and imho it really should be left to the kids to decide if/when they want to talk to their other parent. If your ex can’t be trusted to actually let your son reach out then maybe having 1x/week call (if you’re week on/week off) would help your kid feel like he can talk to you but also not be an overwhelming amount of talking. Kids don’t typically like talking on the phone anyway.
@adebola68 Yep, kid wants the contact. He’d prefer a video of good morning/good night but I’m not sure that’s enforceable. FaceTime is safer.
And I’m okay if he doesn’t engage. Just want it to be available to him without dad’s interference.
@memrin In our court order both of us are allowed to FaceTime twice a day. Like you, I have a 5 year old with 50/50 and was also a helicopter parent. At first it was really hard for me to come to terms with not seeing my child every day and communicating with them, so I exercised my calls on a scheduled time so it wasn’t unexpected. I eventually found that it would upset my son more and make him want to come back to my house, knowing it wasn’t possible and his father was entitled to his time too, I stopped. Sometimes he’ll call me if he wants to tell me something exciting or something, but overall my child is happier this way and can actually enjoy quality time with his father like it is intended to be.
@geldastriz My calls were scheduled and then the videos (of me saying good morning/good night, love you) were available to him. If he chose to not watch them and requested they stop, I would. I’ve never been told they upset him and if I was informed of that, I’d work to find a solution between my child’s request for contact and supporting their time.
@memrin A lot of custody orders specify rules around telephonic contact, but my experience has been that those rules are practically unenforceable because courts aren’t willing to bring down the hammer on coparents for this—there are always plausible excuses for why compliance with telephone rules is low and I don’t think courts want to bother with it unless it’s blatantly alienating for a co-parent who can’t see their kid.
Which means that this is one of those areas where you’ll have to learn to be at peace with a perceived injustice and limitation on your parenting and parent-child relationship. It sucks, but it’s better in the long run to be at peace with things you can’t control than it is to generate endless conflict with your co-parent over it. Just acknowledge that your ex gets to control your communication with your kid during his parenting time, and be gracious for whatever he’s willing to facilitate vs. trying to tell him how it’s going to be.
@guardianone Thanks for this. Aligns with my opinion of the American family court: parental rights over child well being and cooperation. Most things I let go, but contact with our child is one that gets me. I’m sure he knows this too, as his banning was in retaliation for me supporting our child while he told his dad that he doesn’t want to watch zombie movies.
I hate being gracious to someone whose capacity for grace is 1/1000th of the bare minimum, but it is best for the kid. In a few years kid will be able to contact me independently, and maybe I’ll work on that during my time.
@memrin I have daily court ordered FaceTime with my youngest at a specific time. Our judge was very much for these calls to take place. It's mean spirited to intentionally intervene in the calls, if I know I'm going to be super busy during that where kiddo will be extremely distracted, I offer to do it another time. Some days kiddo just hangs up as soon at OP connects.
@memrin As hard as it is to hear the goal is for your kid to be okay without you. Notes and video messages and FaceTime sends the message that they should be sad without seeing you. I would give my son a quick good night, I love you, call. It sometimes lasted 60 seconds and he was only half paying attention while on speaker phone. That just means he is well adjusted at dad’s.
@memrin I have 50/50 with our 4f and 7m and I'm realizing that these calls are generally more for us parents than for the kiddos. Most of the time the kids are interested in whatever they are doing (playing, mealtime, bath and sometimes tv) and often have to be coaxed to speak during a call.
It does sound like your co-parent might be being malicious so I think adding something into your parenting plan is a great next step. Ours says the off duty parent can call once every two days no later than 7:30 but the child can also elect to call the parent if they ask to. Anecdotally, my kids have not ever asked to call my coparent and are occasionally interested in talking when they get a call.
I get that it's really tough but hopefully your kids are happily living in the moment and are getting what they need.
@memrin Sounds like he is trying to set some boundaries. The city isn't going to care about day to day things, even if you put no candy at breakfast in your agreement, when you take him back to court to say he broke the agreement by giving the kid candy the judge is going to do nothing about it.
Pick your battles. What he does on his parenting time isn't up to you unless he is putting your kid in danger.
