Daughter's Dad Not On Board

[GwenO]

So my daughter is twelve.  Diagnosed by biopsy close to a year ago.  Was hospitalized, failure to thrive, she stopped eating, very scary.  Her dad, who I am no longer with, was unsupportive through it all - surprised me - he was always a pretty good father.  Said we were overreacting, didn't want biopsy, etc.  Now that she's firmly diagnosed he doesn't believe me on the separate toaster etc. thing.  Looks at me like I'm crazy, and says it can't possibly make a difference.  We do have gluten in our home for two other family members, but she has all of her own things and she's great about it - has fully accepted this and she and I both eat gluten free.

 

Long story short, my daughter and his relationship is damaged - she no longer wants to go to his place because it's stressful for her - at most she'll go bowling or something with him for an hour or two.  On the one hand I'm annoyed because it's entirely his own fault, on the other I feel badly for my daughter.  His girlfriend has called me a couple times and seems more receptive, but it takes two.  Anyone else encounter this kind of thing?

[shadowicewolf]

Perhaps it would be a good idea for her to tell him how she feels about it. It does not have to be in person, an email or letter will work as well.

[Adalaide]

He is responsible for being the grown up here, not her, but she is the one left suffering. (He may be as well, but he brought it on himself so frankly, who gives a crap?) Because of her age, and depending on her maturing level, this may be an opportunity for her to learn how to talk to someone she cares about about a difficult topic. This shouldn't be her responsibility, but her health with be in her hands for the rest of her life and this could be a good chance for her to learn. The possibility though is that it could backfire and leave her emotionally fragile if he hurts her further. Fortunately she has an obviously caring mother who can help her through that.

 

It seems like either there isn't a custody order in place ordering regular visitation, or he isn't interested in having in having it enforced. Either way, this is a good thing, since being forced into his house seems as though it would be detrimental to her health. If he does try to push this issue, make sure you have proper medical documentation ready and be ready to fight in court to keep her out of his house for any length of time at all costs. At least until he gets his head out of his butt.

Having come from home with divorced parents, and having had a strained relationship with my father, I can say from experience that I wish my mother would have fostered some sort of environment for a better relationship with him. Was it her job? Not really. But she didn't make it easier either, but did make it easy to pull away. I missed out on a lot by missing out with my dad. My favorite memories are all of times before things became difficult between us. I hope you will encourage her to work things out with him. I am 35 now and it still grieves me to think of what I lost because my parents fought about what was right for their kids.

[kareng]

Maybe he would talk with the doctor or read something like this? You could send him a few things to read from an actual medical center?

Open Original Shared Link

If he won't follow her diet, you will have to consult a lawyer. Maybe you will have to report him to social services for medical negligence? At least she is 12 and will know what is OK and can say " no! I won't eat that!" In some states, 12 year olds are old enough to tell the courts she doesn't want unsupervised visits with a parent and why.

[alscat]

So my daughter is twelve.  Diagnosed by biopsy close to a year ago.  Was hospitalized, failure to thrive, she stopped eating, very scary.  Her dad, who I am no longer with, was unsupportive through it all - surprised me - he was always a pretty good father.  Said we were overreacting, didn't want biopsy, etc.  Now that she's firmly diagnosed he doesn't believe me on the separate toaster etc. thing.  Looks at me like I'm crazy, and says it can't possibly make a difference.  We do have gluten in our home for two other family members, but she has all of her own things and she's great about it - has fully accepted this and she and I both eat gluten free.

 

Long story short, my daughter and his relationship is damaged - she no longer wants to go to his place because it's stressful for her - at most she'll go bowling or something with him for an hour or two.  On the one hand I'm annoyed because it's entirely his own fault, on the other I feel badly for my daughter.  His girlfriend has called me a couple times and seems more receptive, but it takes two.  Anyone else encounter this kind of thing?

A little - i have a thread about being gluten-free for 1 year and my 8 year old is still testing possitive for Gluten & the GI says she is getting it someplace. We did not go crazy with the house. We would use 2 seperate racks on our toaster oven, one gluten, one not, if anyone did not know - they were to wash one. Stuff like that. Everyone questioned my decision for the seperate racks stating that she could not be that sensative. For winter vacation we found a toaster oven on sale and took it with us. I just set it up yesterday - we are also going to get new cutting boards and see how this plays out. There is a link on my thread about a new study on sensativity. Easy solution - please do not take this any way but helpful, buy her a toaster and send it with her. My older 12 yeard old that is gluten-free will tell people no - i can't have that - sorry I don't care if you do not understand - I am not risking my stomach hurting for you not believing. He has only had to say it once, and I think he stated that if he ate whatever it was - they person might as well kick him in the stomach as hard as they could b/c it would feel the same way.

[Takala]

He may be in denial because he realizes he contributed to her genetic makeup.  He may even have symptoms of gluten intolerance or celiac, and he is also in denial about that.  Gluten is addictive, after all. 

Some relatives are just weird about this.  We've had plenty of people on the boards here saying that their parents are not exactly cooperative or fully believing of the gluten free diet for celiac disease, and they really don't "get" the cross contamination issue and they don't feel like trying real hard. 

[GwenO]

Thanks everyone.  No, there's no visitation agreement, except "generous access" as his job takes him out of town so we cannot have a set schedule.  And no, he doesn't force her to go there if she chooses not to, which is a very good thing, and I do have full control of all medical issues, so things could be worse!  I've spoken to her about speaking to him, because he's less likely to listen to me, but in her mind he doesn't care that she is a celiac.  So I guess I'll just plod along - he's damaging the relationship - I just feel badly for her.  On the plus, the man I'm with is extremely good with her, and very careful and respectful of the whole no gluten thing.

[Juliebove]

So my daughter is twelve.  Diagnosed by biopsy close to a year ago.  Was hospitalized, failure to thrive, she stopped eating, very scary.  Her dad, who I am no longer with, was unsupportive through it all - surprised me - he was always a pretty good father.  Said we were overreacting, didn't want biopsy, etc.  Now that she's firmly diagnosed he doesn't believe me on the separate toaster etc. thing.  Looks at me like I'm crazy, and says it can't possibly make a difference.  We do have gluten in our home for two other family members, but she has all of her own things and she's great about it - has fully accepted this and she and I both eat gluten free.

 

Long story short, my daughter and his relationship is damaged - she no longer wants to go to his place because it's stressful for her - at most she'll go bowling or something with him for an hour or two.  On the one hand I'm annoyed because it's entirely his own fault, on the other I feel badly for my daughter.  His girlfriend has called me a couple times and seems more receptive, but it takes two.  Anyone else encounter this kind of thing?

 

I can relate!  In our case it is food intolerances.  But her dad said that we went to a witch Dr. and we had made it all up.  He kept saying he would take her away from me and stuff her full of all the foods that I wouldn't let her eat.  This was when she was 6.  She is 14 now.  She was afraid to go anywhere with him.  But sometimes she would.  And he would take her friend.  He would then buy food for himself and her friend and buy her nothing because he didn't know what she could eat.  She would come home hungry and angry.  Sometimes he would get her a meal out but he would have to call me and ask me what was safe for her.  And then he would contaminate her food by eating a burger or sandwich on a wheat bun or bread and then put his hands on her food, glutening it.  His theory?  A little bit won't hurt.  Sadly the rest of my family was the same way.

 

Once, we had gone to my mom's house and there was an issue with my van's tire.  Daughter wasn't feeling well.  Was very sick to her stomach.  I had to leave her there and go see about the tire.  I was only gone for an hour but came home to a furious kid!  I think she was 12 at the time.  My mom had been trying to force feed her Saltine crackers to "settle her stomach".  She and I both tried to tell my mom that the crackers would only make her stomach worse!  But my mom kept persisting, saying that we were wrong.  To top this all off, my mom herself has food intolerances but won't keep those foods out of her diet.  I think this is partly due to old age and an addled brain.  She will tell me that she doesn't remember.  Or that maybe some Dr. told  her not to eat something but that doesn't mean that she can't.

 

Worse still, she doesn't want to hear about our food issues!  She only wants to go out to eat.  Doesn't like to eat at home and doesn't want me to cook or bring food over.  So one day she was suggesting all these places that she likes to eat.  But when I told her that we could not eat there, she asked me why?  I told her that they had no safe food for us.  She got very angry and said that she didn't want to HEAR that!  So then she suggested another place.  Again, we couldn't eat there.  "Why not!?", she snapped, "And DON'T tell me it's because of your food issues!"  I then wanted to make a very smart remark.  Like that I didn't like the waitstaff's uniforms, or the tables were wrong color or...  Grrrr!

 

I also get this stuff online!  I had posted something to the food newsgroup that I thought might be of interest to some.  I had tried a new egg substitute that actually worked.  I can't have eggs.  Some guy made nasty comments to me that his family didn't worry about what they ate and they were all just fine.  Well, bully.  That kind of stuff just makes me mad.  Sometimes I will think back to the days when I could eat whatever I wanted.  But...  I was also sick all the time back then.  I can remember thinking...  Why are those people smiling?  How can they smile when their stomachs hurt so bad!   I had been this way all of my life so just assumed that everyone felt bad like I did!  And I didn't realize how bad I felt until all of a sudden I didn't feel bad and I wasn't feeling sick all the time.

 

All you can do is toughen up, stand your ground and try to ignore the people who would hurt you do to their ignorance.  Or more to the point, your daughter needs to learn to do this.  I got to the point where if my daughter was going somewhere, I would just pack a meal and some snacks for her.  I'd tell whoever...  Don't worry about food for her.  She brought her own!

[Brandiwine]

So my daughter is twelve. Diagnosed by biopsy close to a year ago. Was hospitalized, failure to thrive, she stopped eating, very scary. Her dad, who I am no longer with, was unsupportive through it all - surprised me - he was always a pretty good father. Said we were overreacting, didn't want biopsy, etc. Now that she's firmly diagnosed he doesn't believe me on the separate toaster etc. thing. Looks at me like I'm crazy, and says it can't possibly make a difference. We do have gluten in our home for two other family members, but she has all of her own things and she's great about it - has fully accepted this and she and I both eat gluten free.

Long story short, my daughter and his relationship is damaged - she no longer wants to go to his place because it's stressful for her - at most she'll go bowling or something with him for an hour or two. On the one hand I'm annoyed because it's entirely his own fault, on the other I feel badly for my daughter. His girlfriend has called me a couple times and seems more receptive, but it takes two. Anyone else encounter this kind of thing?

I had a similar issue, getting my sons father to provide food for him while at his house. His idea was to have me make his meals (I'm also gluten-free) for him on the nights he stayed over, which I'm fine with doing but he is his parent too and should know what he can and can't eat. I took my son by his house to get his backpack he'd forgotten and he was hungry so went to his fathers kitchen and got upset when he couldn't find anything to eat. This did bother him that his son was hungry and he had nothing for him. We went shopping together this week to help him learn to read labels and give him ideas. My next hurdle is CC, like everyone else said here he doesn't see how it matters, we don't know how sensitive my son is yet but if we want his symptoms to get better we have to be safe. My plan is to keep sending him info, that has helped the whole time, he then feels he is making a decision based on research instead of my say so. Hope things get better with your daughter and her father's relationship...