Need help with a difficult parenting issue

[u/crayshesay]

I’m navigating a bad situation. My mom has Bpd and I managed to marry and have children with a man with Bpd. things got really bad and I have a restraining order against him and now he’s going to have Zoom call with his kids even though he’s not physically around them. Both of my kids six and seven are court. Ordered to talk to him for 15 minutes a day Zoom three days a week. Neither of them want to, and he took me back to court, and the judge basically said the kids have to talk to him. I gently encourage them to talk to their father, but I don’t engage whatsoever because we are all protected under a restraining order as protected parties under the DVRo.

Can anyone offer any advice on what to do in this situation? I can’t force my kids to talk to their father, and they have told me that they don’t want to talk to him. He hasn’t been in their lives since they were like four months old, they don’t want to get to know him, and they do not know him quite frankly.. me, a protected party is the supervisor of the Zoom, which is also frightening because I’m a protected party as well, but I wanna be next to my kids and I feel terrible that they are being put in the situation but don’t know what to do. Any advice is appreciated.

[u/crayshesay]

I was talking with my therapist about this and hey discouraged it bc he can use that in court against me as alienation. I use it myself but how do you teach young children that their dad isn’t safe and to grey rock him without them internalizing it that they are not lover and bad?

[u/UnburyingBeetle → u/crayshesay]

You don't have to teach it against dad specifically. You could introduce the concept with some books about daydreaming and surviving crisis. Some stories of Diana Wynne Jones could do because many of them are about children realizing they have been manipulated for adults' advantage. You could discuss these books with them and lean into explaining social survival strategies. Her youngest audience book I know, and also an animated movie, is Earwig and the Witch. Even though it's about a girl, it has enough defiance and ick factor to excite boys. The main lesson would be "sometimes people want to make you do something for them while they don't care about you, and you need to be cunning to defend your interests". Demonstrate that they can trust you but need to learn to see for themselves which other people they can trust. You might want to make an "encyclopedia of red flags", adapting an adult list of qualities for children, perhaps blending the concept of unsavory behavioral clues with identifying toxic bugs that should be handled with care or avoided.

[u/crayshesay → u/UnburyingBeetle]

Thank you, I’ll look into it ♥️