My Question of the Day for 23 February 2010 – UPDATED
My Question of the Day: You’re the custodial parent of a 5-year-old child. The non-custodial parent has rarely ever been around, hasn’t called on a consistent basis, and pays child support sporadically. Suddenly, he/she realizes what a huge mistake this has been and now wants to be in your child’s life. The only problem with that is the child will have nothing to do with the non-custodial parent.
Whenever the-noncustodial parent calls, your child refuses to come to the phone. When you agree to let the non-custodial parent come by, your child refuses to leave his/her room. When you agree to allow the non-custodial parent to take your child on a day trip, your child refuses to go.
You’re about to get married and your child willingly accepts your fiancé as his/her other parent. Your fiancé has been in you and your child’s life for the last two or so years, and your child and your fiancé have an excellent relationship, because your fiancé has always treated your child like he/she is his/her own.
Do you try to force your child to bond with his/her other biological parent?
(this question was submitted by Rahsheen Porter; thanks)
My 2 Cents: I wouldn’t force my child to talk to his/her biological father on the phone. I wouldn’t even force my child to see his/her biological father if he came by our house. However, if I have a court order that grants the child’s biological father certain visitation rights, I’d be bound by law to force my child to go with his/her father.
Children understand more than we imagine, and I’d actually sit down with my child and explain that if I don’t force him/her to go with his/her father, I could get in trouble. It’s hard to explain to a judge that you allowed a 5-year-old to keep you, an adult and authority figure, from following a court order. Now the behavior of my child would be something for his/her father to handle once they are together. If he can break through the rebellion, maybe they can build a relationship. If not, maybe he’ll stop trying to take my child away with him for visits.
As with any adult, I’d instruct my child to show respect to his/her father, but I wouldn’t enforce that. It’d be up to his/her father, who has disrespected my child for most of his/her life, to bring that to pass.
This situation is hard on everyone involved, especially the child. If, and only if, I was legally bound to put my child through this, would I even bother. If there is no court order for visitation, all bets are off. We all then take our lead from my child. When and if he/she’s ready to allow the relationship to happen, that’s when it will happen.
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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:
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TankaBar_JasonD What I would do is just let the kid know they exist and if they want them in their life the kid will allow it to happen.
Fem_Pru This will damage him in the future. I would take my child to therapy cuz he doesn’t know forgiveness
JoshDamage no I do not it’s up to the child, but something tells me you already knew that lol
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