What are you ment to do when your 5 year old constantly comes home asking to live with Dad?

Anonymous

What are you ment to do when your 5 year old constantly comes home asking to live with Dad?

Lord help me.
My son is 5 and I have sole parental responsibility of him.
What on earth do you do when your child comes home saying Dad says that I can move in with him when I'm 12. I want to live with Dad.
Backstory, my ex buys our sons love. He can never just be with our boy, rather he has to spend enormous amounts of money and takes a lot of time off of work to shower our son in things and events, such as drag races, monster trucks and the movies. My little guy thinks that this means daddy REALLY loves him.
My ex won't even let our son walk. He is carried everywhere!!! No joke!
I don't really know what I'm asking, all I know is my son believes things equals love and is under the impression that if he lives with his father every day he will be taken to new amazing places. When in reality I left his father because he was more interested in what's on his computer screen than his family.

****EDIT****

I know my sons father loves him, I don’t ever doubt that, it’s great, I never want to take that from either of them, we don’t have a good relationship and I know that makes things harder. He recently took my son to his home town nearly 5 hours away from me WITHOUT CONSENT. He breeched court orders. But What really bothers me is when my son comes home and says things like he wants to move to Canberra (he has no idea where this is and has never been) because it’s 10 hours away from you. THOSE WERE HIS EXACT WORDS, and what’s worse is Canberra is 10 hours from where I live, or
My son loves life with me, he’s treated as a human being, someone capable of making his own choices, where he does swimming and can help cook dinner (which is what he loves most) he can be himself. He comes home so exhausted because he hasn’t had a chance to stop, when he is with his dad he only eats his favourite meals (maccas and lollies) he is pandered to with no consequences he gets what he wants when he wants even when this affects his fathers step daughters. I have been to court 8 times in 3.5 years, each and every time he took me, to the point the judge gave me the sole PR because she saw he is just trying to gain control again and again.

Posted in:  Life Lessons, Relationships & Marriage, Kids, FAQ

8 Replies

Anonymous

How often does he have him? I don't understand how you have sole parental responsibility but he spends time with him?
You can definitely explain that everyday life through the week is the same for everybody, work and school and being busy and tired.
Speak to dad directly and tell him not to say that as it's involving the child inappropriately and negatively affecting the child, really he has a cheek promising the future and should focus on the present.

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Anonymous

I take it he's a once a fortnight dad or has at least some visitation.

OP, it's a phase. Try not to take it personally! You're the constant parent, the disciplinarian, you're the one who makes him clean up his mess, eat his veggies, go to bed at a certain time. You're the one who gets him to school on time, the one who makes him do his homework and every other thing you do for him.

He's to young to understand you're the parent he needs and too young to understand that dad's over compensating because he doesn't have any real connection to his son.

One day he'll understand that love doesn't equal new toys and fun trips to here, there and everywhere and when that day comes he'll appreciate everything you have done for him and what love really means.

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Anonymous

Sole parental responsibility is different to sole custody. It means the parent with SPR makes all the decions for the child without the fathers input and it means they do t have to co parent. But in some cases that doesnt mean the child doesn't get to spend time with the other parent.

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Anonymous

Go to mediation and get it written into a parenting agreement that you can't tell him he has a choice of where he lives, then get it cemented into a court order. Courts look down on it because it causes the child a lot of confusion and makes them feel like they have to choose between parents. It might not be worth much getting it on paper but at least it will make him realise what he is saying is not helpful to his son and could be causing him damage. Especially since 12 is 7 years away, that's a very dragged out promise.

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Anonymous

My eleven year old was tired and grumpy last night (did the ANZAC day March), wasn’t happy with what he was told to do so he pulled this one, I’ll go and live with dad. I think they all do it at some point. I just chuckled and said, well if that’s what you want. Don’t react to it, just say something like, well we can look into that in the future. If he keeps persisting, maybe let him live there for a while, let him see the reality. My guy later apologised for saying it, your boy is still young, he will see where the loves is when he’s older.

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Anonymous

That’s still a long time away. Whenever your son mentions that when he is 12 he is moving, just respond with “okay, we can talk about that once you turn 12 and work out if it works for the three of us”
You’re validating his feelings, but you’re also not saying it’s definitely happening.

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Anonymous

He's brain washing the child. Take him back to court and talk to the judge about the manipulation that's happening and court order it to cease.

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Anonymous

Or dad is made to do some child first parenting courses.

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