Sister Wives’ Christine and Janelle Brown ‘Have to’ Hope Their Kids Will Reconcile with Kody (Exclusive)

Christine Brown tells PEOPLE that she believes her six children will “have good relationship with their dad again” as their family rift continues to play out ‘Sister Wives’

Christine and Janelle Brown are hoping their ex Kody can make amends with their children.

The Sister Wives stars exclusively tell PEOPLE that they remain hopeful their kids will reconcile with their ex amid the ongoing family rift.

“I believe it will come around and eventually they’ll have [a] good relationship with their dad again,” Christine, 51, says. “I have to believe that.”

Janelle — who shares six kids with Kody including Logan, 29; Maddie, 27; Hunter, 26; Garrison, 25; Gabriel, 22, and Savanah, 18 — recalls her children telling her that they felt there was “an inequality in the relationship” with Kody as he paid more attention to the other kids in the polygamous family.

“They started to bring up more and more feeling like he had chosen sides,” says Janelle, 54. “So they started to really justify him being apart, because they felt like he was choosing one family over another.”

Christine shares a similar conversation she had with daughters Gwendlyn, 21, and Ysabel, 20, about their father’s behavior. (The former couple are also parents to Aspyn, 28; Mykelti, 27; Paedon, 25, and Truely, 13.)

“There was one conversation where I had with Gwendlyn and Ysabel, and they were like, ‘Well, is dad going to be coming over?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, he’s going to come over. He loves you, he wants to be around you,’” she recalls. “And there was a look in their eyes and I’m like, ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ And from that point on, they just understood that he had chosen to be somewhere else, and that was difficult.”

“It was really difficult to still want them to have a great relationship with their dad,” she continues. “And I still push for them to have a great relationship with their dad. I think it’s super, super, super important. And I always want to back them up with having a good relationship with him. And I do believe it will come around.”

The tensions in the family were on display during Sunday’s night episode of the TLC series.

Garrison discussed how he left his father out of the loop because he “doesn’t care to” know about his life.

“Since I last talked to Dad, I bought a house, I’ve gotten into school and I got the car that I wanted, that he told me I should never get,” he shared.

Kody countered that he has tried to be a part of Garrison and Gabriel’s lives, explaining, “I’ve reached out to Garrison and Gabriel. I reached out to them just before Christmas and I reached out to them after. No, they’re blocking me.”

“They’re not interested in talking to me,” he added.

Janelle also reflected on how the children’s relationship with Kody has changed as they grew older.

“I can observe that Kody seems to have trouble relating to his older children and he seems to dote on the younger children. And when my children were younger, it was very easy for him to be a father, right, because he was still kind of this important [figure],” she explained.

She continued, “He was important to them. His opinion mattered to them, his guidance mattered to them. And now, because they question a little bit, I think it might be harder for Kody to feel like he’s respected.”