Pleasure to join this community. I hope we can all help each other.

Hello all,

I am a 48 year old dad to my 3 year old daughter. She has delayed speech and some minor behavioural problems in the UAE but has yet to be diagnosed as autistic. I am mentioning for context. My wife and I suffered a toxic marriage and I left 1 year ago to live 15 minutes away. She is Syrian whilst I am British. We are going through the usual difficulties that come with separation but that is not the reason for my first post. I need your thoughts on a situation. Apologies for the long post.

My daughter is undergoing sensory & behavioural (S&B) plus speech therapy sessions by the same provider. S&B sessions are conducted in English by a very pleasant Arab lady and whilst my daughter shows no signs of looking forward to the sessions, when we arrive and she sees the lady she smiles, hugs her and is ready to go to the room. Speech Therapy is conducted by an Arab male who is generally pleasant albeit a little strict in session. I have always taken my daughter to the S&B sessions but I noticed on several occasions, my daughter recoil when seeing the speech therapist outside, in the lift, or if he comes into reception just to say hi. Then there was an appointment switch and I was taking my daughter to a speech therapy session. Cue pandemonium! My daughter was on the sofa pushing him away and crying. She did eventually get up from the sofa only to sit at the door and refuse to get up, and the crying got worse. Eventually she was shuffled into the session room and began to scream. It went on for 5 full minutes and was only getting worse. The other staff joined to no avail with the screaming continuing. At no point did my daughter look for me or say "daddy" to take her away but I decided to withdraw my daughter from that session. I was criticised from all quarters for doing so but I have no doubt that it was the right thing to do on the day.

I thought back to previous interactions and believed my daughter simply did not like the speech therapist, either because he was a little strict at times or it's a personality thing. Therefore, I suggested we find another speech therapist but of course there's no guarantees. My ex says she only noticed some mild rejection of the speech therapist from our daughter but nothing more. Of course, she intimated I was the problem.

Anyway, I agreed to continue lessons but I wanted video evidence that my daughter was happy in the sessions and lo and behold I received videos yesterday confirming she was ok. He employs a reward system and my daughter is clearly ok in his presence. There was no crying, no red cheeks or puffy eyes. That's the good news. But why the difference?

Tantrum? I don't think so, not with the earlier interactions. Separation anxiety? My daughter does cry when I leave from visitations. Sometimes I only have to go to the bathroom and she cries thinking I have gone. In fact, I always wait until she falls asleep before I go home. I believe this stems from long periods of absence for up to 8 weeks when searching for a home in the UAE when leaving Spain, and then an enforced one courtesy of her mother wishing to hurt me by preventing access. However, separation anxiety on its own makes little sense because my daughter is happy to go off to the S&B session. Maybe it's a complex matter where my daughter thinks I am handing her over to another "father" and she's not too keen on that arrangement.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, or perhaps I have missed something. I really don't know and cannot find any useful resources for help, so I leave it to the floor for your inputs.

Much appreciated!

Lee