That’s a tough one Unchien. My stepdaughter’s mom used to do that. She’d tell her that Daddy was going to take her skiing all day on her visit and then would mention right before the visit, “I’d like XH to take SD skiing on Saturday.” Sometimes she wouldn’t even do that and we’d hear from SD that mom said Dad was going to… In the meantime, we were both working full time and had two infants at home so he couldn’t just take off for a day and leave me with everything. Whenever that happened, we would just tell SD that we were sorry that her mom promised her but that she hadn’t spoken to us about her plans and it didn’t fit with our schedule. She may have been a bit disappointed but she also learned to take what her mom said with a grain of salt and not to expect it unless we told her ourselves that it was happening. We also set a boundary with her mom and told her not to plan any events for our time with SD. It took a few times but eventually she gave up when she figured out we weren’t going to play the game. Don’t worry about your D7 being disappointed once in awhile. Disappointment is a part of life and too many kids struggle to cope with it because their parents went to such great lengths to prevent it from happening. Think of it as an opportunity for her to develop some resiliency. This is a tough phase to go through Unchien. I promise you that it doesn’t last forever. Just keep being the best dad you can be. (((HUGS)))
