How Would You Handle This?
My 5 year old son has recently started telling me things his father has been saying about me. Some of the things are pretty off the wall; his apparently father calls me a B$#ch and tells him that I am spoiled (my son said I don't understand what he means when he says your spoiled) My son told me that his father gives my house the finger when they drive past it and for some reason seems it neccasery to talk about the money (or lack there of he thinks) my husband makes. I asked my son if he wanted a hair cut and he told me that his Daddy says that I am not allowed to get his hair cut and that his father tells him he has sh*t brown eyes like his mommy. I know the obvious is to file in family court for supervised visitations/pyshciatric evualation. Does anyone know if the court will order his father have supervised visits or have any suggestions to prove that he is actually doing/saying these things to our son? This surely is'nt good for my sons mental health or our relationship.
Answers:
Lived with an almost exact situation and now when my sons are in college they express to their confusion over the differences they have been told and the way they were raised. Try to stay out of court as much as possible as it isn't good for your son. Call your attorney and see if it is possible that you can get family counseling to work the situation out together so your son can see you are trying to accommodate his father. It'll cause less confusion later on. If that doesn't work talk with your attorney about more viable options. I wish I would have stopped my ex from slandering me before it affected our kids. Don't wait until it is too late. Listen to your attorney, they have dealt with situations like this before. Good Luck.
This is not something the family court wants to deal with unless it becomes so pervasive that it begins to affect the child. At that age, it causes confusion and nothing more.
Simply document your conversations with him, the dates and times and attempt to speak with your ex regarding his feelings and expressing them to the child.
While it is alright to have such feelings it is not alright to project them to the child.
If it continues for six months or more, THEN consult a local attorney and file a family action petition and have language added to the custody order which stipulates such behavior will be a contempt of the order for visitation.
I don't know if there is much you can do. Whatever you do -- keep it legal and don't stoop to his level.
Contact family services and report it. Likely they will need to talk to the boy. Whether or not you get supervised visitation, they have to record the complaint.
Also, ask your son's father if he would like to discontinue visitation. Telling your kid bad things almost sounds like he is not happy with seeing the kid. The father may just go ahead and give up his time without even going to court. Be sure to get this change in writing though.
slander is verbal abuse, this will or can give your child some mental health issues as he grows and apparently your ex will not stop any time soon.
I would call your attorney and explain that he has been bashing you to his son and is insulting your son if not more.
You can stop visitation or have a court appointed liason (at his expense) during his visits.
You, being the custodila parent have that right.
Family court can order that you and the father attend co-parenting classes/sessions. The goal is to cooperate and make the best of the situation for your son. The clinical term for what your husband is doing is "parental alienation". It's bad, the court knows it, and a therapist will identify it and explain the consequences to your ex.
I think the most important things are to 1) not play into it, and 2) not do the same thing. Your son is like a little sponge at this age, and obviously is bothered and confused by the mean things your ex says and does. You can find ways to discuss this with your son and still keep a positive (or at least not outright negative, like he seems to be doing) way. I'm no child psychology expert, but I think it would be a good idea to take him to a counselor and talk to the counselor yourself about ways you can talk to your son about his dad's negativity without making the situation worse.
You could probably later, as the other answerer said, get some kind of court order, but it would be very difficult to enforce what he says to the child unless he's fully supervised 24/7, not to mention the fact that any more court intervention would make a crappy situation even worse.
tape recorder on your son a small one/ or my brother set up survelaince in his house bc they thought the nanny was beating the kids and they were right
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