Your Child's Diary and BP Parent

[scraps66]

I was given a directive from my ex yesterday that one of S10s teachers had recommended he start keeping a journal.  I don't remember this, but ex claims it happened so she's given me the assignment to, "make sure S10 writes two pages about his first day at camp."

My paranoid side again, fueled with the knowledge that ex does nothing without motive.  I could just see why she wants him to write a journal, so she can review it and use the information in it to further program the kid.

[Nope]

This sounds like a control thing. She may want the power of knowing you are making him sit and write two pages every day (which would be my SS10's worst nightmare) and she may want to know everything that's going on at your place and this is one way to find out.

If you feel having S10 write in a journal would be helpful, then you can have him do that. But depending on the size of the paper, two pages could be a lot for him. You can then tell your ex that the journal will be staying at your house and he can have a separate one for when he's with her. Also, journals are meant to be private unless shared. It might be good for him to see his journal at your place is safe.

My SD12's mom told her to write in a journal whenever she is "angry at dad" or whenever Nope says "anything bad" about mom. SD12 always tells her mom that she's keeping up with her journaling when they are on the phone. I don't think SD12 even knows where her journal actually is.

[Thunderstruck]

Our uBPDbm used to claim that SD10 was writing these journal entries about hating DH and hating me (before I even met her). On the surface it sounds like a valid thing, but behind the scenes she was manipulating SD10 to write them.

I could see our uBPDbm trying to use something like this in court. The judge wouldn't admit it (heresay) but it could be something that a T or a CE would look at (And if the T or the CE didn't pick up on the alienation then it could go badly).