Pick up the phone and call the man. This ‘I texted him’ is very impersonal. It doesn’t open the doors to more dialogue - in fact it’s very one sided. You get to say all you want to say, and he can’t respond as you’re saying it.
Why won’t you call him? This has been going on for nigh on two weeks. Do you want to fix this or not???
Blackberry, if no visits can be arranged then you should make your daughter call her father once a week. Yes, it’s his responsibility to keep in touch if he wants, and it’s HER responsibility to keep in touch if SHE wants. My mother and aunts kept me from seeing my father for many years, even though he lived here in town. I wanted to call him every so often, but they insisted that it was his job to call me, so I didn’t. I later learned that he called fairly regularly for a long time and my aunts told him that I’d gone to bed, or was at a school function, and eventually he gave up. After that we moved and he didn’t have a phone number to reach me at. I was 18 before we were reunited, and he died this past October when I was 23. We had a scant few years of real contact, and I never truly knew him. Whose fault is that? My family’s. They will not be forgiven for it. I realize that you say you aren’t keeping him from contacting her, and that most people would be of the opinion that it’s his job to keep in touch, but the fact is that there is a point where your child has a personal responsibility to stay in contact with people she cares about. Now is as good a time as any to encourage that. If she feels awkward doing it, call him yourself and then put her on the phone. I would also not recommend lying to her as was described upthread. Nobody is a perfect parent, but there’s no need to make yourself a liar too.
Oh, I did try to call him but he didn’t answer or call back.
I resisted the texting fad for years, so I get the point about it being impersonal, but we really do get along better in writing. This way, I know he read it and understood (as opposed to us talking over each other and not really listening) and he can think about it when he gets a chance, and not have to respond immediately. Sometimes communicating in writing makes it more difficult to understand the person’s intent, but sometimes it makes it easier. For us, it seems to help. For a while we used to email and that worked much better than talking on the phone.
I certainly agree with you that a parent shouldn’t discourage or disallow a child to contact their other parent (assuming there’s no abuse, etc.), but in my mind there’s a big difference between encouraging and REQUIRING a child to call their parent who doesn’t do much to reciprocate. I’m just worried about making my daughter feel like it’s her fault if they still aren’t having a relationship. Kids are so prone to blaming themselves anyway, and I don’t want to make that propensity worse.
I’m sorry to hear about what happened with your dad, that has to be difficult to accept. It sounds like the situation is pretty different from this one though. But I do understand the point about letting children learn for themselves about what their other parent is like (within reason, of course). I don’t want my daughter to one day wonder if I stood in the way of her having a relationship with her dad, nor do I want to try to live with myself without knowing that I did what I could to encourage their relationship.
OK - my last word on the subject - if you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.
Ok, let me be very clear and blunt here, because you obviously missed this part:
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
If your daughter and her dad aren’t having a relationship, it is partly his fault *and partly her fault. * It *will *be her fault if she refuses to call him. If she wants to talk to him, then she needs to make a move. You can’t make him call her, but you can make her call him. If you do, it may be awkward for her but she’ll get over it. If they never make contact again because she didn’t call him, she won’t get over that.
When did it become partially her fault though? I know it wasn’t her fault when she was 5. And 10 is still pretty young. Especially when she hasn’t had that much contact with him SINCE she was 5.
I’m not trying to argue with you, I just really don’t know where to draw the line. It can’t be as simple as them both being equally at fault, because she’s the child and he’s the parent and that means he’s partially responsible for her emotional well-being but she isn’t responsible for his.
And it’s not like she’s saying she wants to talk to him or anything. I know she wants to feel wanted by her dad, and that she DID benefit from their close relationship when they had one, but it’s not like she brings it up except very rarely. The more I make her focus on it, the more pain it causes her, if our efforts aren’t successful. Can’t you see where that would be a concern?
It didn’t *become *partially her fault, it has been since she was old enough to carry on a conversation. If he doesn’t call her, that’s his fault, sure. And you’re right, he has more responsibility in the situation than she does. But if she won’t pick up the phone either, then she is at fault as well. If she wants to be wanted by her dad, then she should also make it known to him that she wants him back. Yeah, I can see where pain would be a concern, but the fact is that you can’t live a life without pain. She might only bring it up rarely, but she probably thinks about it often. I wondered about my dad every week, every day. She isn’t as fragile as you think, and if you don’t make her call him then you are as much at fault as he is. You are pussyfooting around a situation where you need to make a definitive decision about your daughter’s future and her father’s role in it. Maybe you hope that if you leave it alone long enough it will just go away, but that’s the worst thing you can do. If the relationship is viable, it needs to be saved and one of them has to pick up the phone. You only have control over her, so there’s your answer. If the relationship is gone then your child needs closure, not for it to just be forgotten by the wayside like an old worn teddy bear. Grow some balls and do something. Right now.
Blackberry, you keep trying to assign fault and draw lines. Stop doing that. It tells me you won’t let go of the past, that you’re keeping some sort of score here. Don’t do that.
Teach your daughter to call her father. Heck I grew up with my father, we’ve always had a strong relationship, yet for the last thirty years, ever since I left home, I’ve probably done 3/4 of the phone calling. That’s normal, for the child to call more often than the parent, especially a girl child and her father (it’s also normal for the reverse to be true, but obviously that is not what we’re dealing with here). C’mon - if I have to pick up the phone most of the time your daughter can do it, too. She needs to learn it’s at least 50% up to her to maintain ANY relationship with anyone. Now is the time to start.
The calling isn’t the issue in itself. If he showed SOME kind of sign of wanting to be involved, then it would be okay that he doesn’t use that particular method. But he’s not using ANY method. At this point I don’t even know if he’d return her call, since he’s not responding to me (which is not usually the case). Okay, I could strongly encourage her to call him once, but then if he doesn’t answer or return her call, then what? Keep calling? Or is she off the hook until he calls back?
I would just feel so bad if I psyched her all up to call him and told her that she needs to do her part too, blah blah blah…and then he didn’t even respond to her at all. I don’t see how that wouldn’t increase her feeling of being rejected.
After thinking about it though, I think you’re right that if he at least talks to her and seems interested when she calls, I should try (I still don’t agree with the forcing) to get her to keep calling him even if she’s the only one doing it. Maybe I should have done that before.
Also, I’m thinking I should call my own dad. He rarely calls me so I don’t call him either, but I know he would like to talk to me.
:::headdesk:::
YOU KEEP CALLING! No, she is not off the hook! I am trying to make this point, that if your daughter wants a relationship with her father she has to keep calling.
And perhaps you should explain it to her that way - mummy and daddy don’t get along well, that’s why we live apart, but he’s your daddy. If you want your daddy in your life you need to call and talk to him even when he doesn’t call you. Because that’s the way it’s done.
You don’t keep scorecards, you don’t wait until the other party reciprocates. Does he have voice mail or an answering machine? Then when she calls if he’s not there she should say “Hi, daddy!” and give a BRIEF summary of recent events as a message. Or she should text/e-mail him with a brief update of what’s going on with her.
It will take TIME to heal this rift. So she needs to reach out on a regular basis for awhile to see results.
WHY are you getting her “all psyched up” in the first place?
Explain to her that daddy has a lot on his mind right now (I’m sure he does) so it can be hard for him to get back to her, but tell her that daddy wants to hear from her regularly. Because he almost certainly DOES want to hear from her. 10 is old enough to start grasping such concepts.
Look, just don’t let her get false expectations. Let her know that daddy probably won’t get back to her immediately, but he still wants a message from her. The payoff will come at the next call - birthday, holiday, whatever - when he daddy makes reference to something she told him earlier.
Why don’t you try calling your own father at least once a month for a year, see what that might do for the two of you. If he’s not there, leave a message with the high points of the month. Seriously, once a month wether he calls you back or not, for a year. You can make twelve phone calls, right?
Hello? This is for you: :smack:
I am speechless. I’ll leave you to figure it out.