Dear Meghan: My 3-year-old screams “no” when her long-distance father calls to talk with her on video chat. It is very difficult to get her to communicate with him. She tells me she doesn’t like him. We have other family that she is happy to FaceTime with.
There’s no prospect for him coming to visit any time soon. He is in another country. What do I do?
— Long Distance
Long Distance: Thank you for writing in; this sounds really tough. I wish I knew more about the circumstances that led to these difficult interactions. For instance, did her father recently leave for this other country, or has he always lived apart? Did something recently happen with the father or in the family that could have been wounding or traumatic? What have the interactions been like with her father up until this point? Is the screaming “no” a new event, or has it been going on for a long time? Have you asked her why she doesn’t like her father?
Your daughter saying, “I don’t like Dad,” could mean many things. She desperately misses him, for instance, but she’s too young to handle those big feelings so she turns away. When a child feels abandoned by a main attachment, it may first make them clingy and then they become disconnected (and they may bounce back and forth). Remember: A young child is seeking emotional and physical safety from their caretakers, and their brain is doing their best to bring that about, even if it looks chaotic from the outside.
That chaos is typical for 3-year-olds, who are delightful and (delightfully) tiring young humans. Unlike the purely emotional 2-year-old, a 3-year-old is beginning to show signs of patience and consideration. They often have empathy in spades but have trouble holding on to good intentions and finding “appropriate” ways to channel their big emotions. I say all of this because your daughter isn’t thinking: “I really should connect with my father. I don’t want to make him sad, nor do I want my other parent to be annoyed.” A 3-year-old is fully responding to their own emotional state, and their ability to be and stay logical is growing and inconsistent. Not to mention, the attention span of a 3-year-old is around six to eight minutes, and they are easily distracted! It could be that your daughter simply cannot have long chats.
We don’t know why she won’t talk to her father on FaceTime, but one thing is for sure: You are going to stop forcing her to try. It isn’t working, firstly, and secondly, she is letting you know how she feels. Forcing her to talk to her father doesn’t respect her autonomy, no matter what others may say.
The good news is there are many ways for the father to connect from abroad. FaceTime is fairly new, so let’s go back to the old-school methods: sending notes and pictures, sending small tokens that 3-year-olds would like, reading her favorite book into a voice memo, creating “art” for her and asking for her favorite art, a picture book or video of his home, a lovey with his cologne on it, his favorite treats from his country (everyone loves cookies), a playlist of his favorite music (that she may like), and so on. As humans, we […]
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