Come here to me.
That one lands hard, doesn’t it? When a child says, or you sense, or someone tells you, that your kid would rather be with the other parent. That hits a place that is just… ancient. Like something underneath your ribs just drops.
I’ve sat with dozens of parents through this exact moment. The phone call where your eight-year-old asks if they can stay at Dad’s an extra night. The casual mention that Mom’s house is “more fun.” The mediator telling you your teenager wants to switch primary custody. Every single one of these parents thought it meant they had failed.
Here’s what I want you to hear: your nervous system is going to want to make that preference mean something about your worth as a parent. And I need you to be really careful there. Because that’s not what it means.
Kids are not relationship therapists. They’re not making a verdict on you as a human being. They’re telling you something about comfort, about ease, about where things feel less complicated right now. That’s developmental information. It’s not a court ruling on your value.
But here’s the real thing I want you to sit with. The shame that gets activated when you hear that your child prefers somewhere else? That shame has roots. And if you go digging, a lot of what you’ll find isn’t actually about your kid at all. It’s about an older story you carry about whether you’re enough. Whether you’re worthy of love and belonging. And what your child’s preference does is walk right into that room and knock everything off the shelves.
What I know about shame is that it sends us spinning in predictable directions. You can attack yourself (“I’m a terrible parent”). You can attack the other parent (“They’re buying the kids’ affection”). You can deny the whole thing is a problem (“Kids don’t know what they want anyway”). Or you can collapse (“I guess I should just give up”).
Notice which one you’re being pulled toward right now. Because none of those four will actually help your kid. Or you.
The way through is to be willing to feel the vulnerability of it, name it honestly, and not make your child responsible for carrying your pain about it. That last part is crucial. Your kid should never feel like they hurt you by having feelings about where they want to be.
And I’ll tell you something else. The repair that’s available to you here, showing up consistently, staying warm, not making your child pay for the preference, not weaponizing guilt – that’s the real proof of work of love. That’s where trust gets built. Not in the moments when everything is easy and your kid is choosing you. In the moments when it’s hard and you choose them anyway.
So come here. Take a breath. You’re not failing. You’re in one of the harder chapters of parenting. And what you do next matters enormously.
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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.
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