CAFCASS meeting tomorrow. DD refuses contact.

This is my first post on here. My DD is 6 and refuses to see her Father.
Just to give some background to this. I divorced 5 years ago when she was just 1yr old. I made it a priorty to engineer and encourage a relationship between her and her Father. It has been rocky over the last 5 years with him prety much controlling when and where he will see her. I have involved him in everything. School decisions, invitions to parents' evening and concerts etc. His behaviour has always been rather odd and sometimes concerning. About a year ago she began to become anxious about seeing him and would be 'odd' and fidgety when she came home from a contact visit. Usually with tummy ache. She began to say she didn't want to go to his house and it came out there has been several incidents (I don't want to give details as he would recognise this if he read the post) that were displays by him of obsessive behaviour. Not violent though, just emotionally and bullying. I suggested that we all three sit down and talk. I thought that by being open and displaying that we could discuss things would be a good thing. He sat and denied everything and accused her of lying which devestated her. I can assure you that no child would pluck things like this from the air and that my Daughter is not the type of child to fabricate stories.
I continued to encourage contact despite this and dispite my own gnawing doubts and suggested I drop her at soft play for their contact and he would bring her home to me after giving her tea there. It was not until she mentioned to my Mother that she was only going because 'Mummy wants me to see Daddy' that I agreed that she did not have to see him. I suggested to him that we both go to mediation to discuss these issues. He refused and soon after I received a court order for a contact hearing.
We both spoke seperately to CAFCASS at the hearing and they decided to make an order for non direct contact (letter every 2 weeks) until they had made a report. This was back in March.
We have since had one meeting with the CAFCASS officer who spent half an hour with my DD. She stated to him that she did not want to see her Father and explained the reasons why. Although she is only 6yrs old she is very astute for her age. She finished by saying that she did not want to talk about it any more as it made her feel upset.
We are back there again tomorrow and this time her Father will be there. Although the Cafcass officer said that when we arrive if she refuses to go in to see him that he won't force her, I am so worried that she will become quite upset. She is aware that we are going tomorrow and she is aware that he will be waiting in the family room to say hello. I have explained that it could be a chance for her to tell him how she feels and allow him to say sorry but she is adamant she won't go in there.
What can I do? He has put in his statement that I have fed her these ideas through anger and bitterness. Our divorce was 5 years ago. Yes I was angry. Yes I was bitter. No I did not involve our child in these feelings. If I were to have done that I would have done it 5 years ago and not all these years down the line. It's not what I would do in any case. I am only concerned for the welfare of my DD.
Will the Cafcass officer keep to his word and be sensitive enough to not force her to see him tomorrow? Will he realise that I have done what I can?
Any advice or shared experieces please.
Sorry it is all so long winded!

Yes the cafcass officer will keep to his word. What he wants to see is your daughters behaviour whilst there and that it is your daughters decision and that you have done everything you can and brought her there.

When I went to the cafcass office (and at the time I almost didn't go as I cannot abide my ex) it became clear that our cafcass officer wanted to see how the children interacted with me. As it happens I'm glad I went as they all crawled all over me in the waiting room with hugs and kisses. If cafcass had just listened to my ex I would never have seen them again as they were all terrified of me etc etc.

At the age of 6, no matter how astute, you have to remember that you are the adult and she is the child. Children don't always want to do things and will put up no amount of excuses and illnesses as to why they shouldn't do them but you have to remember you are the boss and not her. If you start letting her get into the habit of dictating things will get worse as she gets older.

I didn't want to go to school and was always poorly on the way there but my mother twigged which were real and which weren't and it had more to do with me being shy than anything else. By facing it I got over it.

T

Thank you so much for such a quick response. There is no doubt about taking her. I am keen to have this resolved either way and am hoping that it can be done at the right pace for my DD.

I do see your point about being dictated to. This is certainly not the case here though. As I put in the OP I continued contact regardless of her not wanting to go. The alarm bells started to tinkle slowly and my main concern is that she is safe and happy. It was not a case of her saying she didn't want to go and for me to say 'OK honey no problem'. I am not one of these women who I have read of in other posts who do anything to hurt thier exes regardless of how it effects the children. Quite the opposite. She is first and foremost in all this. There has to be a cut off though and when a child is so visablly distressed about seeing someone you have to take action.
He refused mediation with me to try to work out the issues she has.
Not sure how else I could have played this. I just want to limit the damage to my DD.

There are potentially many reasons why a child may not wish to see a parent and Cafcass will observe the behaviour to try to understand the root of the problem and recommend a way forward.

Children who are insecure about their parentage have low self esteem and weakened attachments which results in emotional problems and relationship difficulties in later life so it is important the relationship with both parents is supported.

It is rare for no direct contact to be ordered and usually the long term aim would be to reunite a child with a parent. This might involve family assistance, indirect contact, supervised contact, parenting classes and/or life story work (encouraging children to think about families through play and art materials) etc

Mamma wrote:

Thank you so much for such a quick response. There is no doubt about taking her. I am keen to have this resolved either way and am hoping that it can be done at the right pace for my DD.

I do see your point about being dictated to. This is certainly not the case here though. As I put in the OP I continued contact regardless of her not wanting to go. The alarm bells started to tinkle slowly and my main concern is that she is safe and happy. It was not a case of her saying she didn't want to go and for me to say 'OK honey no problem'. I am not one of these women who I have read of in other posts who do anything to hurt thier exes regardless of how it effects the children. Quite the opposite. She is first and foremost in all this. There has to be a cut off though and when a child is so visablly distressed about seeing someone you have to take action.
He refused mediation with me to try to work out the issues she has.
Not sure how else I could have played this. I just want to limit the damage to my DD.

Which is great. If you've visibly shown to the court and cafcass that you've done everything you possibly can then no -one can expect more.

Same as in 10 - 15 years time, when your child asks her father and you why he didn't make every effort he could to see her or were you denying contact then you'll have everything you need to show you did everything you could to keep some form of communication in place and quite simply he won't.

Children will conveniently 'forget' that they didn't want to go, or refused only that they didn't see and the other party wasn't there.

Our son conveniently forgets that he's said the week before that he never wants to see his mother again and that he hates her etc etc for the latest thing she's done or said so I have to forget it all on a regular basis and just keep encouraging him to keep in contact with her, to go for tea and not to speak ill of her because she is his mother.

T

Fiona wrote:

There are potentially many reasons why a child may not wish to see a parent and Cafcass will observe the behaviour to try to understand the root of the problem and recommend a way forward.

Children who are insecure about their parentage have low self esteem and weakened attachments which results in emotional problems and relationship difficulties in later life so it is important the relationship with both parents is supported.

It is rare for no direct contact to be ordered and usually the long term aim would be to reunite a child with a parent. This might involve family assistance, indirect contact, supervised contact, parenting classes and/or life story work (encouraging children to think about families through play and art materials) etc

Fiona, thank you. I fully agree that a child should have a relationship with both parents. I spent the last 5 years making certain that she spend as much time as possible with him, when he was available to see her that is....it can work both ways.

I hope the conclusion tomorrow will be to find the right way to move forward with this. I think that all the above could apply and would help both her and her Father re build a relationship with independent help. I think it would be hugely helpful for him to take some parenting classes and realise the impact he can have on her in both a positive and negative way.

I will let you know the outcome of the meeting tomorrow morning.

nbm1708 wrote:

Mamma wrote:

Thank you so much for such a quick response. There is no doubt about taking her. I am keen to have this resolved either way and am hoping that it can be done at the right pace for my DD.

I do see your point about being dictated to. This is certainly not the case here though. As I put in the OP I continued contact regardless of her not wanting to go. The alarm bells started to tinkle slowly and my main concern is that she is safe and happy. It was not a case of her saying she didn't want to go and for me to say 'OK honey no problem'. I am not one of these women who I have read of in other posts who do anything to hurt thier exes regardless of how it effects the children. Quite the opposite. She is first and foremost in all this. There has to be a cut off though and when a child is so visablly distressed about seeing someone you have to take action.
He refused mediation with me to try to work out the issues she has.
Not sure how else I could have played this. I just want to limit the damage to my DD.

Which is great. If you've visibly shown to the court and cafcass that you've done everything you possibly can then no -one can expect more.

Same as in 10 - 15 years time, when your child asks her father and you why he didn't make every effort he could to see her or were you denying contact then you'll have everything you need to show you did everything you could to keep some form of communication in place and quite simply he won't.

Children will conveniently 'forget' that they didn't want to go, or refused only that they didn't see and the other party wasn't there.

Our son conveniently forgets that he's said the week before that he never wants to see his mother again and that he hates her etc etc for the latest thing she's done or said so I have to forget it all on a regular basis and just keep encouraging him to keep in contact with her, to go for tea and not to speak ill of her because she is his mother.

T