children refusing to visit

[wendl]

In some states the courts will listen to what the children have to say at 12. So your chance to take mom back to court and try to make the kids is a 50/50.

Good luck.


**These are my opinions, they are not legal advice**

[mishelle2]

LAWLESS,
 

 we have same problem, however my dh daughter is on the other side of united states, mother frustrated phone contact, only allows him to talk to her every 2 weeks for 10 min. Refuses visitation unless court ordered.. so  We have all ready been to court once for this, bm says to judge, child doesnt want to go, I think child should stay home with me. Judge says, I feel sorry for you but as important as it is for you to be with your daughter it is equally important for her to see her dad, and we won our visitation, now we are going back again, since mom just cant help but frustrate visitation, attorney is sure we will win again.


just an opinion..

[madinbama]

Press the issue!  My Ex was/is an extreme example of PAS, and at one time she had my then young teenage daughters calling me every name in the book over the phone.  The EX and I live over 2000 miles apart so the relationship was long distance to begin with, and I would have never thought a parent would leave their children talk to another parent the way my EX did, and in the background encouraged it!  I was not allowed to see them from 1997 until 2000 because of the EX, and they said they didn't want to see me either.  I took her back to court, and the girls finally came to visit me in AL...they both have since moved to AL because they see that what was said about me was totally false and fabricated by their mother.  Hang in there!

[backwardsbike]

Would she "force" them to attend school if her "encouragement" failed to convince them that they wanted to go?

I have an X who makes all his whims to be about "what the children want".  He is unable to distinguish his own wants from the children's.  He doesn't realize that they are separate people.

If you have a court order for visitation and she is a "good" parent who realizes that children NEED both parents then I am sure she would "make them" come.

[lawless]

Thanks, your story certainly has a happy ending.  The alienation has taken a new turn in recent weeks and we are going to court as BM has requested a guardian ad litem so that she can completely get herself out of the situation.  BM refuses to force the girls to do anything including going to sports practices, school, etc. if they don't want to.  At this point, the girls are not taking their father's phone calls as well as refusing to see him at all.  All of this is so amazing to watch.  Their reason is because he left their Mom.....It has been 2 years.  No one, including the girls' counselors, are willing to tell them that they are hurting themselves by refusing to have their father in their lives.   The counselors tell the girls not to do anything (including speaking to their father on the phone) until they are "ready".  The girls and BM say it will be "years" before they are "ready".  We are fighting like crazy but are very doubtful that anything will change until the girls grow up.  BM says that this is all between my husband and the girls and she will have nothing to do with it.  Legal advice from Socrateaser is that we will lose in court.  No one will make the girls come on visitation.  We are bitterly disappointed in BM, the girls, the counselors.  We have absolutely no hope that a GAL will make any difference.  Sometimes it just feels like a bad dream.  Thanks for the supportive words by all.
Lawless

[lawless]

No, she doesn't "force" the children to do anything including going to school if they don't want to.  And she will not tell them they must go on visitation.  She is adamant about this.  It is their choice according to her.  Some people don't have "good" parenting skills.  She feels that she is a good parent by allowing them to make all of their own choices.

Thanks for your thoughts, Lawless

[oklahoma]

My SDs are a little younger, and have so far only once actually said themselves that they didn't want to come (in 3 1/2 years of interference by BM.)  Interesting to me how BM says SDs are old enough to decide not to come for visits, but when SDs said they want to live with Dad (just for a few months), BM says they are too young to make such decisions.

I totally empathize with your comments about the counselors.  We believe that the past 3 1/2 years could have been completely different if BM had taken SDs to a different counselor.  To read counselors' notes about SDs sessions is infuriating!  Essentially they have taught the now 11-year old SD to talk back to and/or ignore adults (i.e. what to do when adults "disrespect" you.)  13-year old SD has a rapt audience for the little lies she has been telling since age 9 (and which are growing in seriousness.)  SDs' counselors have this "save the world" attitude, without really knowing who needs to be saved from what.

My husband has received just one letter from each of his daughters (both saying not to write to them again) in the past year.  We go to court this month....  Very anxious....

[MixedBag]

how far are you geographically from the teens?

and how often does the order allow them time with their dad?

[lawless]

My husband has 8 days per month of visitation that he schedules because he travels for work.  This usually means (in theory) every other Thurs-Sun but the girls refuse to come.  Our house is less than 2 miles from the BM's house.  It is a little more complicated than it sounds because we live in a different state most of the time (where my boys are) and maintain a house in BM's city in order to have the girls for visitation.
Lawless

[MixedBag]

Well, I maintain an apartment 750 miles away from me too....so I get that part...(sorta!)

How far are you folks from your second home that's near BM?

I guess where I'm going with this is that dad should/could try to see the girls on "their" time like maybe during lunch hours at school for example?  

Or during their "extracurricular activities"?

I'm all for pursuing missed time through the court system.  An NCP has no choice in the matter and has to stop the denials before they get out of hand.

Haven't read any other the other responses (cept dh's of course).

Also a firm believer in what is written in Divorce Poison.

I'm dealing with an EX too that in his latest letter he clearly said that our son who is 13 next week can make the decisions for himself.  Fortunately, the EX ALSO felt our son needed counselling to deal with all of this and the counselor sees right through EXs motives.