Please help - about to tell my daughter about her father

Diane1961_2

Well done Rockfan, my youngest knew that her Dad wasn't her biological Dad but we kept a lot of details away from her until she was mature enough to make her own decisions (about 14). He became mentally unwell, went to prison, etc. Even then I only told her a sanitised version - no blame, no shame. I gave her all the photos at about 16. At 17-18 she'd get upset about why he didn't want to be in touch (normally when she'd been out on the town!) now nearly 19 he's trying to get in touch and we're just there to support her choices and love her. If it's new information, I would agree that the younger the better with very simple, matter of fact details. Answer any question but don't volunteer more than they need. It's a bit like telling your children the facts of life, they don't need graphic details.
Best of luck, sounds like your family will do just fine.
x

emsywoo123

CG77 wrote: »

I agree with this emsy, although I might change the phrase 'he was unkind to you' as this will almost certainly attract the question 'What did he do to me?' which could in turn force you to give more info than you'd want to at this stage. I'm in a similarish situation, in that when my little one gets older we'll have to tell him some things which are going to be very difficult for him to hear and having done lots of research and work on it, I'd say a phrase like 'He didn't know how to be a good Daddy to you' is quite a good one. Maybe talk about people being good at certain things (sport, drawing, singing etc) and others not being good at those things and tell her that he was not good at being a Daddy?

HTH and all the best. It's hard, I know.

CG. x

Thank you, and to Paddy's mum as well.
She does not even know that anyone was involved in making her at the moment, and I just have no idea when to do it, tempted to get professional advice, but no idea where to turn

CG77

emsywoo123 wrote: »

Thank you, and to Paddy's mum as well.
She does not even know that anyone was involved in making her at the moment, and I just have no idea when to do it, tempted to get professional advice, but no idea where to turn

I know how hard it is, but the best way to do it is the 'drip, drip' approach-just introducing tiny bits of information by dropping them into the conversation from time to time.

I don't want to go into detail on an open forum about my own situation, but if you did want to chat about it via PM, I'd be happy to help if I can.

CG. x