What to do when your ex belittles your child's interests
When a co-parent undermines your child's activities or exposes them to toxic environments like yelling and drinking, you lose control over what happens during the other parent's care. This leaves you dealing with your child's behavioral fallout at home while feeling completely exhausted by the lack of influence over who is around them.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1remaining neutral when the child talks about the other parent
- 2reassuring the child and talking through negative comments
- 3handling all transportation and logistics for the child's activities alone
- 4talking to the ex-partner directly to set boundaries
- 5documenting incidents and threatening legal action or involving a lawyer
- 6asking the ex to agree that only the biological parent should discipline the children
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“For divorced parents (and anyone else who can give an opinion); what would you do if you found out that your ex husband’s girlfriend was shouting in your children’s face as a form of discipline?”source ↗
“this week, my son came back home with an attitude. A lot of back talking and getting angry over stupid things. Usually when this happens, it means his father said something that upset him”source ↗
“Yesterday, I found out what it really was; his father told him that karate was just a scam. Among other things, he said that any of the skills that he's learning won't be useful in a real fight... and the whole thing is just a scam to get money.”source ↗
“This is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm so exhausted.”source ↗
“I had an issue with my Ex’s partner getting drunk and cursing at my son.”source ↗
“It's one of the hardest parts of co parenting. If your kids are in danger, it's one thing. But you lose control over who is around your children while they're in their dad's care”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 15How to deal with judgmental parents who criticize everything
- 11Why does my partner undermine my rules with the kids?
- 2How to deal with emotionally cold and unsupportive parents
- 6Why did my admin make me meet an angry parent alone?
- 10Why does my child say they hate everything they love?
- 2Why are online career communities so negative?