A few months after my daughter and I left her fathers and our home, with an intervention order in place to help protect us, I instigated supervised access with a service in our nearest regional city.  This lasted until he applied to the Family Court for a better deal for him and bit by bit he got it - mostly.  The main reason it took me so long to leave was the dilemma over how they would continue to have a relationship and it be safe and sane. The fact that I wouldn't be present freaked her out.  She wanted her own solicitor.  She wanted to go to Court.  She felt so angry and scared and upset that no one would listen to her (except me) and that she would have to spend time alone with her father, increasingly, every time she asked for less.  At the Final Hearing, I realized, feeling broken and defeated and outraged, that I had no option but to agree with the father’s requests, to keep us out of court, and have my one condition he was willing to agree with - that a court appointed counsellor be the one to determine when our daughter was ready for overnight stays.
She still isn't.  The first enforced two, almost a year ago, were disastrous for her and the counselor finally saw it was in the child’s best interests for her father to let the idea go for awhile, until she was a bit older.  And he did.  At last, she felt somewhat empowered.

The most heartbreaking thing for me in the whole court process was that no one was interested in the wishes or concerns of my child.  So many nights she cried herself to sleep.  She drew, she wrote - even to her father who used her letter and drawings in Court as an example of my "manipulation"!  I felt sick at the constant onslaught of false accusations.  On Planet Family Law, the normal use of the word "caring" was replaced with "controlling" to describe me as a mother.  It was like, "How dare you speak up for your child!  Who do you think you are?"  And I thought, "I am the mother. You know, the one who knows what's best?"

I went to court for her, not for me.  People had encouraged me to leave, concluding with the police.  That's what they thought was best for us.
Her father was difficult enough for me to cope with, as an adult.  And yet the court system decided it was best to give him what he wanted, and ignore the child.  After all, she doesn't pay.  She doesn't even vote.

My daughter looks forward to being twelve years old, because she believes she'll be able to go to Court then and tell them what she wants.  The sad side to this is that by then her childhood will be over.

My solicitor laughed at me when I said I wanted my daughter to be happy (and safe and well).  I changed my solicitor - I didn't want to be abused by him as well (I'd had enough of his put downs) - only to get a new barrister who told me outside the final hearing, that if my daughter was that upset about her father while with me, then maybe the judge would award the father custody and the child would be much happier! 

I reckon we should be advocating for a lie detector machine to be introduced into the Family Court as an absolute necessity.  Maybe then a little more respect will be afforded to mothers and children, and a lot more understanding about why these cases are before a court at all.
"No amount of positive enforcement from me is going to change her fears and anxiety's, but I have to keep trying."  
Positive enforcement from you isn't going to change the child's fears and anxieties.  Any more than convincing them to go to a music or sports lesson they detest, or any relative they feel uncomfortable with.  A child’s own experience is his/her own truth. I am there for my daughter, just as I would be there for a friend, to support them.  And we usually are all our children have to turn to.

Mostly, these days, I have to deal with the tension in her back and neck and stomach after she's been with him.  I have to listen to all the things about him that she is trying to understand.  I have to throw away my plans when she is sick (in her words "homesick") and refuses to see him on these grounds.  I try to help her maintain a positive outlook about herself especially in regards to her relationship with her father, and the older she gets the more she feels in control of her situation.  At night when she cannot sleep I say to her, (and she repeats after me), "I allow my thoughts to be free.  I am safe.  I am strong.  I am loveable.  All is well."