Contact session with Alienating Parent

T is going to see his dad in a couple of days, it will be the first contact that he’s had that is not part of the contact order, or rather it is the ‘to be agreed’ part.  After the first contact session following court, T was so excited and wanted to spend more time with his dad straight away.  I talked him into sticking with the court order and take things slowly and T was (surprisingly) very agreeable. I did feel a bit worried about how he would take this news but with the Guardian in the back ground to bring in as back up if needed, I suggested that we stick to the scheduled visits as the court had ordered as we still have plenty of time to have more contact. T amazed me at how well he took this direction and understood the reasoning, I sighed one big sigh or relief.  It leads me to wonder (again) about the nature of the hold his dad had over T whilst he was living with him.

The next contact session, T was completely the opposite and T came back saying he wanted to stick to the 4 hours a month and didn’t want overnight stays yet (we are on a wait until after September when school starts back, a direction from the Judge as he felt it may be less helpful for T to go back to school and worry about over night visits – amazing that the Judge was so sensitive).  I don’t know what happened during that contact and did not want to push him but I suspect that it may have been that he spent more time with his little brother than with his dad, I guess more will be revealed one of these days.

This weeks ‘off schedule’ visit is from 10 till 4 and they will be going to the zoo. I was not sure about it but I looked inside me and I honestly can’t find a reason why not apart from the fact that I will never trust T’s dad.  T seems happy about it and is keen to go as he hopes he will be spending some quality time with his dad.  It will be the longest time T has spent with his dad for over a year and obviously this means there is more time to pump T for information but I think T will hold his own, I have seen him be assertive now and trust that T knows how his dad uses the information now.  It is such a difficult area to discuss, I don’t want to censure anything (not that I could) but I tell T that dad can ‘make mischief’ with almost anything that comes his way with respect to our lives.

I can’t help but wonder what sort of contact T really wants.  He seems to change his mind quite regularly about what sort of contact he wants and I am not sure what this change of mind is based on but perhaps he is just not sure himself and maybe I just need to be reasonable and consider carefully how T is after these visits.  It is still amazing to me that T having been so close to his dad does not, at the moment, want more time with his dad and I think part of the reason is because, although we are boring, you know regular life, work, bedtime, staying in one place and school, T knows where he is, he is comfortable and has confessed to being a home bunny.

I try to be relaxed about these visits outwardly but inside I am all over the place, I know it is the right thing to do, I believe T needs to have his father in his life and I think that he is now drawing inevitably maybe, comparisons between his dad and my partner as both men and fathers and maybe for that reason I relax because S is such a good role model and T is learning through osmosis.  I guess once you have experienced something so unpleasant as alienation, it is very difficult to trust that it won’t happen anymore.  I guess that the work is in what me and T do in strengthening up our relationship and re-bonding, which we are still doing (which parent and child isn’t?).  It is sometimes very hard and I have often had to face myself and my failings as a mum with what T says to me but that will hopefully teach T that he to can reflect upon self and this is one of the most useful self help tools.