Details for legal framework for counseling?

[kells76]

See "crisis" thread for background.

Mom sent DH email the other night, after the weekend, with all kinds of nasty. How hard mom was working to try to convince sd10 to come over, how sd10 hasn't wanted a relationship with DH for the past 5 years, how mom would never physically make sd10 do anything/go anywhere, how DH could try to use the courts but it would hurt sd10... .Yup. The usual, but more threatening. We were pretty upset. DH is depressed and feeling like he's lost sd10.

Meeting with L tomorrow. Plan is to try to get "reintegration" counseling. Would appreciate feedback from y'all on best frameworks to ensure counseling is genuinely helpful and not just another way for mom to manipulate. Ideas:

DH lists 3 counselors, mom picks 1 by (deadline)?

Who has final say on continuing/ending counseling?

Ways to protect sd10 if she continues to spend majority time with mom while getting counseling with DH?

Who pays? Consequences for not paying?

Any way to build ideas from Childress/Warshak into legal framework?

Metrics for "success" = ? No refused parenting time over x time period? Behavior metrics?

Ideas for making sure this doesn't turn into "SD10 is the problem" (as we all know that she isn't)?

Ways to build accountability for mom into legal framework for counseling?

I know this is a lot. But it seems like if we don't start getting proactive now, we'll just be on the defensive forever.

[kells76]

Oh, and:

How (or if, or when) to incorporate psych evals &/or MMPI-2? Feasible to tie adults' completion of those in to a "reintegration" counseling plan?

Childress (& Warshak, too, I think) recommend a solid 4 days of kids with targeted parent for any kind of "reintegration". Mom will never go for that -- oh, oops, I mean "Mom totally supports it and will try to convince the kids they should, but they're adamant they don't want to"    How to build that in?

Thoughts on "protective separation" as advocated by Childress for reintegration?

[livednlearned]

One thing my L made very clear is that if you want the T to be truly therapeutic, it's important for the parents to stay out of the sessions. If mom wants to talk to T, she can make an appointment and talk to the T by herself. If H wants to talk to T, he makes an appointment and talks to the T by himself. They both see the T the same number of times.

When SD10 sees the T, she goes alone. What she talks about is kept confidential.

This way, it is more likely to be therapeutic, although to be honest, I think it can take close to a year or longer before our kids (with BPD parents) will trust that a therapist can hold their confidence.

In this kind of arrangement, the T has you sign a waiver that says neither parent will take the other one to court.

And then, I would look at the materials on Dr. Craig Childress's site and when your DH meets (alone) with the T, he can talk about the theoretical links underpinning some of the behaviors he is seeing. Just give the T the information and then move on to discuss issues with SD10.

One thing I found out after the fact that helped me a lot -- I gave S14's T permission to talk to my T, and she also had permission to talk to the parenting coordinator involved in our case. So the T had a lot of people speaking openly on my behalf.

Ex did not allow S14's T to talk to his T (and he stopped going), and after he realized the sessions were confidential, and the T could not be used in court, he started to back off and eventually dropped the T issue. I do think this tends to be a BPD dad thing -- to keep focusing on the partner and dropping focus on the child. Whereas BPD moms tend to keep the focus on the child.

[kells76]

Thanks LnL -- it sounds like our L is coming from a similar place as yours, that it's critical to think about what the T is for and that SD10 may need an individual T in addition to the family T.

So L proposed to Mom's L that we all get a PC & a family T. DH had expressed his concern that this whole process to help the kids, & sd10 in particular, might take months if not a year or more (based on your observation LnL about kids trusting Ts). L said he saw no reason why counseling couldn't start in 2-3 weeks; that was 1 week ago. Proposal was made to other L and then our L heard back that apparently Mom, who had suggested counseling, was digging in her heels. "Surprise!"

DH's take is that mom is all about counseling for sd10 & DH to work on their horrible dysfunctional relationship   but Mom doesn't want to be part of counseling because either (a) she doesn't want to look like she has any problems, or (b) she's subconsciously terrified that counseling would out her. So now mom is resisting getting a family T on board.

Ok, so am I crazy, or does it seem like a poor move to be a parent who essentially communicates that she doesn't want/need family counseling with her child? Is that going to "read" a certain way or is it a neutral thing?

Also, is there anything good about that resistance? Ie can DH just do some jiu-jitsu and say Fine, you don't have to, but I pick the T, I take sd10, and I bring her back from appts? I wonder if Mom's need for control would win over and she'd eventually go just to try to win the T to her side -- so maybe there would be professional eyes on Mom after all?

And, a sort of bright side before a big storm -- I think DH is finally seeing that court, while awful, wouldn't be the worst next move. He's more open to it now that he just saw Mom obstruct the option she proposed herself. And in our counseling appt he also talked about how he's realizing that if Mom won't listen to a professional tell her to stop her hurtful behaviors, he would next work on getting the kids out of her house. So I think a lot is sinking in for him, about how as disruptive as court would be, there are worse things.

And one more question -- so courts/judges like seeing parents try to work stuff out outside of court, yes? Given that DH has tried, over the last 4 years, mediation (informal, then formal), being flexible with schedule, coming up with pp & signing out of court, suggesting out of court PC & family T... .Are there any more "moves" that'd be good for him to make to show that he is really trying to work with Mom (if that makes sense)?

Thanks in advance. Pray for us if you don't mind; we're very close to deciding to go to court.

[ForeverDad]

A ten year old child is not old enough to decide parenting issues.  A child shouldn't be stuck in the middle making such decisions.  The order should be followed.  The only exception is child abuse, neglect or endangerment.  So there is a risk of the child feeling forced to make an allegation to justify not seeing the other parent.

My son, since separation when he was a little over 3.5 years old, had always said he wanted "more time" with me, always came running happy to me and always left me reluctantly, even when I moved up from alternate weekends to equal time.  Then immediately after I won Change of Circumstances and a GAL was to be assigned... .

In my case, my son always wanted to spend more time with me ever since we parents separated in late 2005 when he was 3 years old - and still does.  But when my ex found out the summer 2010 recommendation was for me to get custody, she immediately started working on him.  After the very next exchange, coming back to me he said out of the blue, "I want equal time with you and my mom."  No surprise where that came from.  The reality is that though my ex is messed up, she has directed her rages and ire at me and not directly at our son.  He is our only child and he is her Golden Child.  So when he met with the GAL, he was 8 at the time, he said he wanted equal time to stay as is.  Despite me saying she had primed him for it, that's what happened, I got custody, parenting time stayed equal and she gets child support.

There is something about the stages of childhood.  When my son was younger she wasn't able to get him to parrot her.  But when he was a little older and he was beginning to understood the concept of "fairness" she used that against me.  Even when he was 11 year old and had an in camera interview with just the magistrate and the GAL, he tried to keep quiet.  From the decision, "Son tried to avoid making statements clearly adverse to either parent, although it is still clear that the ongoing conflict and Mother's disparagement of Father in his presence causes him stress.  While Son may have been cautious with his words, his demeanor during the interview spoke volumes.  He was far more tense, and tended to avoid eye-contact more when answering questions regarding his mother.  His relaxation was visibly noticeable when he discussed Father, usually making eye contact with the interviewer."

I recall that Richard Warshak's Divorce Poison has a chapter on his Family Bridges program and his website describes more on whether his retreat/reunification, virtually in a vacation setting, is good for the alienated parent and the children.  One requirement the site emphasized was that any court order not require the alienating parent to pay for the program.

[Thunderstruck]

A ten year old child is not old enough to decide parenting issues.  A child shouldn't be stuck in the middle making such decisions.  The order should be followed.  The only exception is child abuse, neglect or endangerment.  So there is a risk of the child feeling forced to make an allegation to justify not seeing the other parent.

Bring this up when you go to court!

You should alternate who takes SD to T too. Our CE said that when uBPDbm would take SD11 to the visits she would say one thing and when DH would take her she would say another. The CE even mentioned filing a report on CPS as mental abuse for being coached.

Our uBPDbm often alleges that SD11 doesn't want to talk to DH or come over to our house because of "how we treat her" and tells DH to work on his relationship with her. Then DH will say Ok then let me take her to counseling and her response is "She doesn't need counseling!". 

If BPDmom says the issue is between SD and your DH then I see no reason why she should even get involved. It should be SD and DH in T together to work on their relationship. Right?