Q: I'm a mother of a 7-year-old daughter whose father only comes around when it's convenient for him. We parted ways when she was 18 months old due to his alcohol and drug abuse. He missed promised visits and made no effort to see her other than once in a while when he was "in the neighborhood."

Earlier this year, he made some attempts at seeing her every Sunday. Slowly but surely, he started to return to some of his old ways. I've allowed the inconsistency because I don't want my daughter to feel that she doesn't have a father, but when she cries and says, "My daddy isn't like a real daddy," it breaks my heart. When he sees her, he tells her, "Daddy loves you." What is that teaching her? Love is inconsistent? I want to do what's right for my daughter and have finally come to a point where I feel that the absence of her father would be best for her. I would like to pursue that legally but want to research this issue further. I am not quite sure where to start.

Thank you so much for your consideration in offering some guidance on this.

A: I did a search on Google for "research on inconsistent father visitation" and found 702,000 entries. Despite the many entries, I doubt if any one of those will give you the exact answer you'd like to find to end visitations with her father. There's plenty of research that supports the importance of good fathering for the development of children, and also much that indicates that father absence is often hard on children. Those two areas of research are prominent in the minds of judges.

From my counseling experience, I can assure you that inconsistent visitation causes children to feel rejected by their fathers, but most children want to see their fathers even when the visitation is inconsistent. My recommendation would be to assure your daughter that her father does love her, but he has (mental) health problems that prevent him from being the reliable, good father he should be and that's the reason you divorced him. Sometimes we just have to accept people's limitations and go on living our own good lives. I'd also suggest that you make no efforts to encourage your ex-husband to visit your daughter, but when he does contact you, you make him feel welcome to come for brief visits. If not encouraged, inconsistent fathers usually visit less frequently and that can, in the long run, be best. With time, your daughter will hopefully get to know other excellent father figures like your father, brothers, cousins and friends who are reliable people.

You could, as you suggest, attempt to end visitation through the courts. That is, however, a very expensive and stressful procedure that is unlikely to result in dismissing visitation. If the court does prohibit visitation, there's the risk that your daughter will someday blame you for not allowing her to see her father.

If your ex-husband is continuing to use alcohol and drugs, it's likely the courts will order visitation to be allowed only with supervision, but it's unlikely that a judge will take visitation away entirely. If you ask the judge to discontinue visitation based on inconsistency, the judge is likely to order counseling for the father, which the father may or may not inconsistently attend. It's most likely that the court will continue to allow some kind of visitation because of the great amount of research indicating that fathers are important to children.

For a free newsletter about parenting after divorce, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the address below. Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or [email protected]. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.