A counselor to hear that they're scared after the fact, and instructions to call 9-1-1 if they're actively scared at this moment... those are the solutions.

I have a friend who took that solution after lots of talk with her therapist. The ex had not taken visitation in a year. I think I've talked to you about her before, because of the issue of being realistically worried about what's happening when the kids are in the other's custody, and the court is not supportive of keeping the kids away. In her situation, her ex had refused to take visitation for the first year of the separation, saying he wanted a court order (some paranoid belief that if he spent time with them, somehow she'd be able to hold it against him?)... anyways, in the final hearing, the judge convinced her to give him every other weekend, and she agreed, thinking it was all about teh child support calculation. THEN the judge started making a schedule of WHEN they should transfer the kids that weekend. She was terrified and ran to her therapist. This man hadn't seen them in a year! He saw them and they called her at noon the next day to pick them up. She did. He filed for contempt.

The judge was about to hold her in contempt and gave her a warning, she was to give immediate visitation temporarily. She was going to go to jail if she didn't let him pick up the kids and keep them through the weekend. She had to. He picked them up on Sat morning and was to keep them till Monday after work. She let him pick them up. They called her at 4pm. He had left them alone in the house, a scary house that he'd shut off things in their half of the house for the past year, so the wing with their bedroom had been un-air-conditioned, allowed to get dusty, allowed to get cob-webby. He was at a wedding. They wanted her to pick them up. She refused, told them to watch TV, and if they got really scared to call 9-1-1.

She next heard from police. As it happened, he came home between the wedding & the reception, or in the middle of the reception or something. He was going to check on them and return to the party. He had been drinking. They begged him to stay becasue they were scared. He got angry for tehm being scared and acting like babies. He chased them around the house. They locked themselves in the bathroom and called 9-1-1 from a cellphone. POlice arrived and removed them from the house. Mom was called to pick them up, which she did.

Next court date, the judge was about to get angry over teh police removing the children without having made a criminal complaint, and said the police did not have the power to overrule her ruling as a judge. My friend asked for a guardian ad litem to interview the kids. IT was the best thing in the world. The GAL talked to the kids, got a counselor appointed, explained the situation to the judge, who said the only way this guy was ever going to get anothe rvisit was if he did a series of supervised visits first and then re=applied for visitation. He never did.

Oh, and she ordered the house sold if case he didn't pay his back child support immediately (which in just that year had turned to about $25,000 back support becasue he simply refused to pay a dime). My friend went from a situation where it looked like she was intentionally alienating the kids from their father, to a situation where it was clear that the father was abusive and a drunkard, BECAUSE she learned to not listen to the kids and just pick them up when they didn't wnat to visit their Dad... BECAUSE she told them not to talk to her but rather to call police if they got scared.

And these girls know that they can't talk to thier mother about their father (her ex). They will never be allowed to tell her nasty stuff. It's a good thing. They have a counselor for that. SHE is simply not in a position to help them with thier concerns... certainly not a credible person to be called in to MEDIATE thier concerns with him or help them try to increase their relationship with him.

Neither are you. As an ex, you just aren't the right person to make suggestions to the kids on how to handle thier Dad and his new girlfriend (the woman who was the cause of the divorce). Someone else needs to do that. I'd suggest getting the kids into counseling and when they talk to you about how they are upset about something that's going on at their Dad's house, have them write it down on a list of things to bring up to their counselor. And then you won't have to hear it any more (at least not as much).