Re: Is this Damaging to My Daughter- Or am I Overreacting??? tara: Do you have joint legal custody? If so, both of you can decide on your child's religious upbringing, if you can both be reasonable about it. (If not, the court usually picks one parent.)
Atheism isn't harmful to kids, per se (plenty of perfectly adjusted non-religious kids out there), and I think agreement is possible where both parents want different religions but are reasonable (kind of the "some people believe X" thing you're doing). But this seems like an unreasonable disagreement -- your ex seems to actually want to sabotage your religious influence on your kids.
Maybe you could try to get the sole legal right to determine the kids' religion?
However, there's a different issue here -- the OW has NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to mock your children, regardless of the topic. Calling a child "evil" certainly qualifies. Teasing can cross into verbal abuse -- and for that, you have every right to try to keep her away from your kids.
In any case, I agree with the other posters who advise counseling.
Re: Is this Damaging to My Daughter- Or am I Overreacting??? (GLC): Well!!! I took action already!!!
I meet with a children's services social worker just a half an hour ago.
He advised me against having my child see a counselor..... he thought my input would be enough to keep my daughter's heart and mind in the right place. He told me kids as young as 6 can often find meeting with a counselor to be an uncomfortable situation and she already has so much to deal with already.
His advice was to arrange to speak to OW directly and tell her what I will and will not tolerate when it comes to the treatment of my kids.
Yikes!
I don't know if I can do this without getting too emotional (meaning ANGRY! I mean, this girl wears giant glued on fake eyelashes....I am just dying to pull one of these off!!!)
.....and yes, we do have joint legal custody..... but I am going to look into the religious rights of my kids.....
Re: Is this Damaging to My Daughter- Or am I Overreacting??? alonewith2: If you really want to prevent your kids from going there, bring up the fact that your son and daughter share a room. Children of opposite sex shouldn't be sharing a room after a certain age. I don't remember where I heard that from or if it's a legal thing in your state, but it might give you more ground to stand on in a legal battle should you feel the need to go that way. ;)
