Parenting Advice: Dealing With The Other Difficult Parent   by Dr. Noel Swanson

Q. My stepdaughter is 4, and her real mother is constantly in and out of jail and has 86 felonies. She gets visitation every other weekend, (If she shows up). Every time our daughter comes back from her visitation she is a completely different child. When she gets home she just sits there for hours on end and won't say anything.

A. Having the mom in jail is a bit unusual, but this situation is very common with separated parents. Usually, of course, the child is living with mom and goes to Dad for the weekend. But the story is often the same: when she comes back from the visits she is either more disruptive and badly behaved, or strangely morose and silent.

Since you cannot do much about this difficult situation, you have to manage it properly so that it does not leave such an impact on your child.

First of all, give up the idea of any kind of therapy; it is not going to help. You, as an adult and parent can do much better.

There are essentially two different scenarios. The first is similar to our reader's, in which the 'other' parent is, in some way 'poisonous'. The second is when there is simply a difference of parenting styles between one home and the other. In this article I will just deal with the former.

There are several features suggestive of such 'poison'. One is that of being unreliable for visits - promising to call or show up, but then failing to do so. Often children desperately hope that, this time, dad will phone, or come, or send a present, and yet, time after time, they are let down again.

Then, when they do go for a visit, they are often ignored, or merely have to fit in with the adult's own (often inappropriate) plans. In other words, despite their protestations of how much they care, the child is clearly very low on their list of priorities.

An unreliable parent does not only disappoint the child but many times you have to change your plans because the other parent had promised to come and take the child but didn't turn up.

Some parents are so caught up in their emotions that they, intentionally or inadvertently, start using the child as a messenger for conveying unpleasant remarks about each other. This is damaging for the child. It gives him wrong ideas and he may develop an attitude to play one parent against the other for personal gains.

All children want to be loved and cared for. They can sense love and respond to it whole heartedly. But if one parent keeps saying nice things but behaves uncaringly then the child loses all sense of worth and belonging.

The saddest part is that such slippery parents often win legal battles because they are manipulative. And, the courts have no way of finding the truth for lack of factual evidence to support the complaint of the other parent.

My advice is: don't let the situation continue and worsen. If you find yourself in a similar situation, act fast, even though it can be quite difficult.