My five year old son.

[barbara1984]

My son's father and I divorced a year and a half ago.  My son and I recently (6 months ago) moved to a new city and I got remarried.  In this time frame my son's father began working nights and his girlfriend had a baby.  Lately when my son comes back from his dads he is very emotional and cries a lot.  He says he is upset because he misses his daddy because his dad works night and sleeps during the day.  We leave and hour and a half apart so he only sees him every other weekend but speaks to him every day on the phone.  But a lot of times he doesn't want to talk to him on the phone and gets upset when he has to talk to him.  He usually only gets upset when he doesn't get his way or gets his feelings hurt and then he blows it way out of proportion.  For example: His stepsister got tired of playing a game with him and went to play in her room and he bawled for five minutes.  Is this normal? What can I do to help my baby not get upset?

[jacob5000]

Ohh i dono what to do i just want to say im sorry for you because it probably effects you and poor dude he misses hes kid :( im sorry.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

He is unsettled by the loss (relatively speaking) of his father, and this in itself is normal. Thatis, he is responding in an understandable manner to a difficult situation. Hopefully you and his father can establish a more frequent plan for contact. After all, you are not living that far apart. The focus should be on the priority of parent/child contact, not on the distance.