Need ideas to help dh be more involved in dsd's day to day life

[tory79]

My dsd is 7 and we live about 4 hours away from her. We have her every 3rd weekend fri - sun.

Dh would really like to be more involved in her regular day to day life but I think he just sees the distance as an impossible boundary. While its true that it does mean we can't really see her more often, have mid week contact etc etc I am sure there are other things he could do apart from just speaking to her regularly.

Has anyone been in the same situation and have any suggestions?

(And before anyone says, moving closer is not an option I'm afraid)

Thanks :-)

[TakingTimeOut]

That's a toughie. How involved is he at present? Does he have phone contact during the weeks/weekends he doesn't see her? There's always Skype or FaceTime for more contact. The good thing with FaceTime or Skype is that they'd have face-to-face contact.

Has he spoken to mum about wanting more involvement with her day-to-day?

Does he have any family living near to his daughter? If so is there a possibility of him staying with them every so often to be near A good example would be if she has important things going on in school and parents evenings?

[Alwayscheerful]

FaceTime is great and whilst I don't generally like Facebook, it's a lovely way of keeping up to date with children's everyday lives. Ask the school to send copies of newsletters and reports and look at the school website so you know what is happening each week and have something to talk about its amazing how children go quiet when you ask what did you do today.

[tory79]

Thanks both. To try and answer some of the questions -

Yes they do speak to each other regularly and sometimes FaceTime.

We have no connection at all to where dsd lives so no option to stay with anyone plus obviously dh works in the week.

Dh and dsd's mum do not get on, and she is making our lives fairly difficult at the moment. Lets just say I can guarantee she would not be willing to help!

Facebook will probably be great when she's older but she's only 7 so a little while yet!

I will suggest he contacts her school directly to see what they can send him.

Sorry if that comes over as a bit negative!

[TakingTimeOut]

I second what Always said about contacting school about reports and newsletters. Going by her age and if dad is on the birth certificate then he should have PR - so he should be fine with contacting the school with regards to his daughter despite mum being difficult.

[Alwayscheerful]

Op - unfortunately your situation is one which most stepparents would call "normal" and when RP are difficult they will go out of their way to discuss or involve you in most things and 5 minutes or 5 hours won't make a bit of difference, in our case, it took a bit of detective work to find out when the school fete was, teacher training days, holidays were booked or how the children were doing at school. It is very sad when good Fathers are devrived of a very basic right to enjoy a realtionship with their own children. I understood how sad it made my husband, I even sent SAE to the school to post out newsletters, eventually they changed to email.

[elliebellys]

How is mum making things more difficult.?

[tory79]

We think she basically wants dh to stop taking her back to our house and for him to stay in their town and see her there and is trying to persuade dsd to say this. i have a good relationship with her, and her half brother is here as well so it would not be a good thing!