Question

Hi Anne, I sent you a question a while ago, which you replied with some telephone numbers, thank you. I wish to ask, when a child is seeing the other parent under supervised visits and an "indecent" occures twice and after asking the parent not to "play" in that manner, the parent continues, what do I do? I was only told of this incident which happned 2 months ago, just 2 weeks ago. This is totally unacceptable, and the lady is a respected social worker, she mentioned that she contacted the SAPS and the people involved, but I should just wait until she has done her statement, numerous occasions the child said that he/she does not want to see the other parent, but was basically forced, which I was totaly upset about, this is hard enough for the child, I got the impression that she is scared of this parent!

I am lost and this is a big big obstacle in our lives, as I also mentioned to her that the child does not want to see the parent, but I was always told by her that she can not just say to the parent that the child does not want to see the parent as the parent might get upset. Can you recomend someone that I can contact to get more information on this. Thanks

Answer

PARENTING

This is very upsetting. You do not give details of exactly what occurred. I would trust that a qualified social worker would be very vigilant during supervised visits and would be capable of preventing such incidents. You do not say where you live, but it sounds as if the child should be carefully assessed by a competent forensic social worker or psychologist - to ascertain what is actually going on in this access-time. One must be careful that the child is not playing one parent against the other - not I am saying that this is happening - just to stress that a very good, objective professional needs to be asked to evaluate before this gets really out of hand.

You also do not mention how old the child is - of course, as they get older, they need to be empowered to be assertive - and to immediately report any unacceptable adult behaviour. I do hope that you find solutions as soon as possible. Best of luck.

Regards

- Anne Cawood