I am so sorry your going through this. My situation is a little diffrent because my son is 16 and he was acting out because of what his dad was saying. And I ended up letting him go live with his father. I also have 3 other children and currently 6 months pregant. He left about 2 weeks ago. But your daughter is only 5 so that\'s a whole diffrent story. I would try counsleing if you haven\'t yet. Maybe they would have an idea on how to handle your daughters emotions. She is cought in the middle. That is so wrong that your ex is doing that to her. She can not possibly know how to process all of this. Good luck.

No, don\'t do that....that is what he father wants. He thinks the worse he can get her to be for you the worse your nerves will be and you will send her to him. Although I see the need to protect your baby and husband, don\'t get me wrong. Sit her down and talk on her level and explain maybe that if this is going to be the way she acts then she can go to her dads but let her know she\'s not coming back, she just can\'t flip flop around. That\'s what I would do....don\'t know if it would be for you...hope things work out, keep us updated.

Counseling is not an option as i need his authorization and he refuses to give it. He lives on one side of the country myself and her on another. he wants to have the same rights and privlages that a father that lives in the same city would get including a 50/50 split even though hes been told by a lawyer as well as a judge that will never happen as long as he choses to live as far away as he does. he has tried so much to prove me unfit but i know he cant but with what he is doing to her he is making it next to imposible to live with her.

Why do you say you need his approval for couseling?? this is odd... did you check with an attorney and counselor....also check with social services... if you can\'t afford it...many places have county funding or sliding scale... if you truely can\'t take her .....you go..... its a back door way of getting her in... maybe you need court intervention to get her into couseling..hope you get some answers to help you....

it is in our order that i need his approval and because it is through the govt out here they require that both parents give their approval in cases of joint custody. I have been in counseling for a long time to help me get through the abuse that i have gone through living with him for 8 years and to deal with my depresssion and anxiety but they can not treat her at all even through me unless he gives consent and he wont.

My X turned my 3 kids against me, too. Eventually they grew up and realized that he was lying and I really do love them and that I really am a good person who is not out to get him and who wants only the best for them.

My mother turned me against my father. He gave up and stopped all communication with me. I learned from them how much that hurt, and I got the strength from that experience to never interfere with his communicating with our kids, no matter how much it hurts.

However, I did get a court order that states that he can\'t speak ill of me or let anyone else do so in front of our children. That helped a lot, though it doesn\'t stop him completely. Currently, he is doing it again while we are in a child support battle, and I understand that my daughter is reporting it to her lawyer. I certainly reported it to my lawyer.

In the meantime, I imagined that my kids were talking to me the way they heard him talk. I learned to focus on teaching them how to handle abusive people. When they behaved inappropriately, I told them how I felt about the specific thing they said or did. It took a lot of practice, because every time I heard them talk, it sounded just like him. When they didn\'t stop the behavior, I told them that I would not allow it, and implemented a consequence like walking away to do something else and refusing to do what they wanted me to do.

Honestly, I would take your daughter to s play therapist without your ex\'s consent. If she\'s 5 he need never know about it. I think that\'s nuts that he has to give his consent and I think it\'s nuts that he won\'t agree to have his daughter\'s mental health improved by a professional. If she was diabetic, would you have to get his OK to see a doctor?

Your ex is abusing his daughter by speaking poorly about you in front of her. That is very wrong and she needs help. This is also something you need to gain peace in your own home.

I would also find any books about improving the behavior of your 5 year old who is coping with parental separation.

I am sorry for your pain and hope that you can find a solution. DON\'T give in and let the abusive ex get her daughter. Your daughter deserves to be with the most mentally competent parent and that sounds like you.

We have in our order the statement that neither shall malign the natural love and affection that any child has for their parent, but it all comes down to the prove it game, and on a whole unless social services steps in they dont take the word of a 5 year old girl into court. Where i live i can not take her to counseling without getting her fathers blessing because we have joint custody.I know that through all of this he is trying to make it look like when she is living here there are so many problems and when she is there she is a perfect angel so that he can try to get her to go live with him

I live in Louisiana and here, even when you have joint custody, there is one parent that is the "primary domicillary parent." This means that this parent has a little more say-so in things. This is usually the parent the child lives with. I am new here and do not know you situation, how often does he see the child? Is he saying the things to her over the phone? If so, get you a recorder to record it. Check with you lawyer on if it can be used in court or not, but our lawyer said that as long as one party knew the conversation was being recorded it could be used. Your lawyer could also use it to impeach his testimony if he denied saying anything to the child and you have it recorded. If he is ugly to you during exchanges, invest in one of those digital recording devices or just use your cell phone. Most cell phones today have the feature that allows you to make a recording. If you are holding your cell phone in your hand at the exchange he may never think that he is being recorded. :)
Have you talked with your lawyer about this? I would definatley try to take her to see a counselor.

I am in canada and things like this are next to unheard of for getting resolved because there is no physical proof. they wont take recording of phone calls into court I am keeping a record of everything all our emails are saved and i print them all out so that i have a hard copy. He has visitaiton with her for 7 weeks in the summer evry 2nd chistmas and every easter break from school. as well as 4 "webcam visits every week. durring web cams if she tells him that she got in trouble for something he will flat out and tell her that i am not being fair or that i am being mean to her. and if by chance ther is something that happens that she tells him about and its major like when she got into a fight at school he just tells her its ok and changes the subjct. zto him she can do nothing wrong and it must be something that i am doing to her to make her this way.

Wow, the court system there is really screwed up. I would still record those webcam conversations, just as a matter of record in case the law ever does change. He is playing good parent/bad parent with you child and doesn\'t care about what it does to her. We deal with some of that with my son\'s mom. She will say and do things that my son just don\'t understand, but we know what she is doing. My son\'s birth mother would step on her own son if it meant hurting me or my husband. I know if it frustrating but please hang in there, your daughter\'s sanity depends on it. She herself is probably very confused. This other child is by your new husband I assume. The ex has probably told her you love that child more than her because he belongs to you and your husband. Probably has been told that he is not her dad so she does not have to listen to him, etc. Stick to you guns on rules, no matter how bad as it gets, she will respect you more for it in the long run. Let her now that rules are rules and the have to be followed, we all have rules even adults. I am lucky that my son does not act like that. His mom has told him many times that I am not his mom and he does not have to mind me. She gets mad because he calls me momma and tell him not to, to call me Stephanie. He calls me this on his own, I have never forced him to call me that. I will keep you in my prayers for this situation because it really seems like you have no backing from the courts in a situation like this.

The father should be ashamed of himself, for playing such mind games with an innocent child!

You said that you are in therapy - what if you discuss your daughter\'s behavior with your therapist and ask his/her advice? Or what if you don\'t have a babysitter and you end up having to take her with you to a couple of sessions? If you are not enrollng her as a patient of the therapist, you don\'t need the consent of the father...

Anyway, my twins\' father tried the same thing with them, on a smaller scale, starting when they were four years old. I stuck to my guns and explained to them that it is really, really hard to be a good mommy and that we have a hard job to do. We love our kids so much, that we would like to let them do whatever they want, but we can\'t because it is our job to make sure that they grow up healthy and happy. It takes somebody very special to be strict just to make sure that the child is raised correctly. Anybody idiot can spoil a kid, but it takes a lot of thought to find the balance between fun and discipline! (no offense to the custodial dads reading this!) So, after almost 3 years, they finally got it. Dad can have fun with them, but they realize that life at his house is full of exceptions and the \'good\' rules are at home with me.

Good luck!

this is a totally screwed up situation we now have my oldest ss moving in with us hes been living in care the last 4 years due to getting into trouble so we will be having a worker help "intergrate" him back into the family and now hes saying that i cant do that that my husbands "troubled" son cant be anywhere near HIS daughter. i emailed him and said if you want it stopped take it to court. i am so sick of this crap

Make sure you establish her baseline behavior before the SS comes around, otherwise the problems your X is causing with your D will be blamed on the SS.
Don\'t give up on her. She is just a little girl and well aware on some level that she is being used on a hostile game between the 2 adults who are supposed to love and take care of her. It\'s hard to understand fathers who have so little empathy for their own children.

Why not file for a change to custody which will allow you to enroll her in therapy? And while you are at it, that 7 weeks in the summer is a killer. Try to reduce it. I know some judges are crazy - try anyway.