When kids resist visiting the other parent, here’s the first thing I want you to hear: that resistance is information. It’s telling you something. The question is whether you’re willing to get curious about what it’s actually saying, rather than just managing the logistics of the problem.
I can’t tell which side of this you’re on. Are you the parent the kids don’t want to leave? Or are you the parent they’re reluctant to visit? Because those are two very different conversations.
What I’ve seen in my practice, and what the research backs up, is that children are exquisitely sensitive to the emotional temperature between their parents. They don’t have words for it, but they feel it in their bodies. If there’s tension, unspoken conflict, or one parent subtly pulling them in a direction, kids will show you that tension through behavior.
The “I don’t want to go” might not actually be about the other parent at all. It might be about the anxiety of moving between two worlds that don’t feel safe together.
Think of it like this: imagine you’re a kid trying to walk across a rope bridge between two cliffs. If the bridge is shaking because the people on either side are pulling it in different directions, you’re going to be terrified to cross. Even if both sides are perfectly lovely places to be.
Sometimes resistance is protective. Kids might refuse to visit a parent who’s genuinely struggling with addiction, mental health issues, or who creates an unsafe environment. That resistance needs to be heard and addressed directly.
But more often, I see kids caught in loyalty binds. They feel like loving or enjoying time with one parent somehow betrays the other. Or they’re picking up on a parent’s anxiety about the visit and trying to protect them by not going.
The hardest thing I ask co-parents to do is this: can you and your former partner find even one small moment of being on the same team? Not for each other. For the kids. Because what children need more than almost anything is to feel like both their parents can coexist, even metaphorically, without it costing the child something emotionally.
Start by looking at your own part. Are you inadvertently communicating anxiety about the visits? Are you asking probing questions when they return? Are you making subtle faces when the other parent’s name comes up?
Kids are like emotional sponges. They absorb everything and then wring it out through their behavior. If you want different behavior from your child, you might need to change the emotional water they’re soaking in.
This isn’t about being perfect parents. It’s about being willing to do the uncomfortable work of examining what’s really driving the resistance underneath.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
