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Hi there, I know there have been a couple of topics of this theme but my situation is slighlty different.
I have a 9 and a half year old boy who lives with his mother and due to her moving away (250miles) i now only see him alternative weekends and holidays. She will not meet me half way and so I always do the pick up and drop off. My son very much wants to live with us and as is the case with most people, my ex is extremely difficult. She will not speak to me on the phone and over the past years her e-mails are neither constructive or pleasant in her replies. My focus is always on my son and his best interests but she tries to make things as difficult as possible. We have been to mediation with no positive effects. I am aware most people are saying 13 is the age at which a child can decide where they want to live. I want to know if there is any process which we can consider to enable my son this choice sooner?
The bitterness my ex-wife has has really affected my son's confidence and I worry this will only worsen over the next years.
Any help very much appreciated.
Many Thanks
Hi there and welcome sd 🙂
I am sorry to hear about your troubles and I wish I could say something constructive, but I don't think that there is much I can suggest to you that will help the situation. You have already tried Mediation and by your own admission this wasnt successful unfortunately.
As you already have contact, unless you wanted to increase this, then going to court wouldn't achieve much...I very much doubt that the court would even consider transferring Residency to you. That only really happens when the child is at risk and there has been a severe breakdown of care by the resident parent. Your son is still too young in the eyes of the court to decide where he wants to live and theres no way round that I'm afraid.
The only thing I can advise is to keep a diary of all communication with your ex, log all calls and dont delete any txts or emails...keep a record of everything involving your son, when he tells you things, write it down. The only consolation is that your son is getting older and in a couple of years time he will be old enough to be listened to. If things worsen in the meantime, you have the diary and a record of all the unpleasantness from your ex to back you up.
If you are concerned about your sons confidence perhaps it might help to talk to his school, I believe they will have someone who can give you son support and someone he can talk to about his worries.
Good luck with everything.
hi sdgood
Nannyjane has just prompted me with something I should have thought of before 🙂 Schools usually have pastoral care worker - they are someone independant and confidential that a child can speak to about anything at all. I would suggest that you ring the school and speak to the head teacher, and ask if they can get the pastoral care worker to introduce themself to your son and have a few informal chats with your son, to reassure him that anything he says will be kept in strict confidence (I think the only exception to this is the worker thinks there is a real danger to your son, in which case their is a legal obligation to report it). My daughter went to the worker years ago at the primary school when my children came to live with me, just as a way of having someone she could talk to about what had lead up to me gaining residence - she continued going once a week for a couple of years as she enjoyed the chats 🙂
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