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Massive family problems
Debt_PostingID
Posts: 12 Forumite
Hi everyone,
Just posting to see if anyone has any suggestions as to what we can do, regarding some rather large family problems.
If I go back 4 months, that might help. My partner (at the time, she is now my wife) her family have been known to not get on with any of her partners, she did warn me when I got together with her that her parents like to pick arguments. My wife has a 5 year old son from another relationship, not a problem for me. I love the boy like my own, such a lovely lad. Unfortunately he has been dragged into all these problems though. He doesnt see his real dad, unfortunately he is the abusive, violent, non-CSA paying type.
There were arguments and rows here and there, her family just making things difficult. Trying to start fights, rows, anything they could to make things awkward for my wife. She isnt an only child, has brothers and sisters. My wife did say that she didnt have an overly happy childhood, had to look after her younger siblings whilst her parents were working, she never had a childhood of her own.
About 3 months ago, we had my wife's nephew over to stay for the night. All the family live locally, but enjoy sleep-overs so he came to stay the night. He is 3 years old.
The next day, after taking nephew back to his mum, my wife's sister phoned to accuse us of hitting him and causing a large mark on his back. The police turned up shortly afterwards to have a chat with us and get our version of events. The story changed shortly after, and the blame was pointed at me. I had been in the living room all night with my wife, step-son, and had spent a good few hours on the telephone, so had some witnesses to say I hadnt done anything wrong. The police didnt take it any further, lack of evidence, the 3yr old didnt make a statement when given the chance, etc. The only person he had supposedly made this accusation to was his mum.
Social services were called by wife's parents, wifes mum came to the house, pretty much forced her way in, took son and left.
4 weeks later, he was returned to us (after social investigated us) and found we hadnt actually done anything wrong, and this was purely a false allegation from start to finish. However, social wanted to still come on weekly visits, to make sure everything was OK and to ensure that the lad wasnt getting involved in the arguments between the adults.
Since then, they have been visiting weekly. They told us we "had" to agree to let our son have access to his grandparents, every weekend. Not a problem for us, we even offered to drop him off every Saturday, for them to bring him back on Sunday evening. This arrangement lasted 2 weeks, before my wifes mum became verbally abusive, threatening and threw something at me whilst I was in my car. Nothing was said to provoke this, she just stormed out the house and started a row!
Since all this has started, we have had to contact the police several times for various issues, including intimidation, harrassment, etc. Even threatening to come up to our house and "kill" us. Social have advised them several times to behave, for their grandson's sake, but they wont pipe down. We just want a quiet life!
They are now resorting to using the lad to pass on messages to us, telling him to say to us that he doesnt love us, wants to move out, etc. They even felt it necessary to have a sex-aducation talk with him. He is 5 years old for christs sake!
Because the grandparents cant behave, we have to do the weekend changeover at the school. We drop him off Friday morning, they pick him up in the afternoon, then vise versa when it comes to Monday. At the end of every weekend visit, he comes home to us crying his eyes out, every Monday afternoon. This is when he comes out with what he has been told to say. We called off one of the weekend contact sessions a few weeks back, because of our concerns. Our social worker was on holiday, when she returned she agreed she would pop round and speak with grandparents and advise them to behave (again!) - this didnt happen. So we have had the same crying episodes every week since, this week was the 4th time.
Now, we have a "Child in Need" meeting on Thursday. I video-recorded on my phone this afternoon the conversation we have had with our son. He was crying, admitted he was told X, Y and Z by grandparents and was told to pass it on. More crying. I dont think Social believe us completely, and when Social/School ask him whats up, he cant remember or doesnt want to speak about it, so just shrugs his shoulders. I'm hoping they will see, from the recording, exactly how he is feeling about his grandparents using him as a weapon. His teacher, social worker, us, grandparents, even the police are going to be at this meeting. The idea is to get our concerns out in the open and move forward. We have always wanted to just move on from this, but grandparents and rest of the family just want to stir up more and more trouble. I wouldnt mind betting that this meeting ends in abuse, and then they walk out. Its what they are like
I am asking what others would do in this situation?
Social services are saying if we cut off contact with them, they will pass the case onto a case conference, where they can "enforce" us to let son have contact with grandparents. But what if there are concerns? What if things arent going well? He shouldnt be coming home in tears after a weekend visit, telling us how much he hates us etc, and then admitting that he was told to say it by X
What would happen if we just told them all to naff off? I feel this is such a waste of social services time, we arent a risk to anyone (as they found out when they investigated us) - they are only still in contact with us because they want to "mediate" to make sure that our son doesnt become emotionally involved with all these arguments. But if grandparents arent listening, surely we could just cut all contact and tell them to go away?
We changed the lads surname a few weeks ago by deed poll (we gave him the choice of what he wanted to do) - now the grandparents are telling him he HAS to change his name back or he will be disowned. How can you say that to a 5 year old?
Just posting to see if anyone has any suggestions as to what we can do, regarding some rather large family problems.
If I go back 4 months, that might help. My partner (at the time, she is now my wife) her family have been known to not get on with any of her partners, she did warn me when I got together with her that her parents like to pick arguments. My wife has a 5 year old son from another relationship, not a problem for me. I love the boy like my own, such a lovely lad. Unfortunately he has been dragged into all these problems though. He doesnt see his real dad, unfortunately he is the abusive, violent, non-CSA paying type.
There were arguments and rows here and there, her family just making things difficult. Trying to start fights, rows, anything they could to make things awkward for my wife. She isnt an only child, has brothers and sisters. My wife did say that she didnt have an overly happy childhood, had to look after her younger siblings whilst her parents were working, she never had a childhood of her own.
About 3 months ago, we had my wife's nephew over to stay for the night. All the family live locally, but enjoy sleep-overs so he came to stay the night. He is 3 years old.
The next day, after taking nephew back to his mum, my wife's sister phoned to accuse us of hitting him and causing a large mark on his back. The police turned up shortly afterwards to have a chat with us and get our version of events. The story changed shortly after, and the blame was pointed at me. I had been in the living room all night with my wife, step-son, and had spent a good few hours on the telephone, so had some witnesses to say I hadnt done anything wrong. The police didnt take it any further, lack of evidence, the 3yr old didnt make a statement when given the chance, etc. The only person he had supposedly made this accusation to was his mum.
Social services were called by wife's parents, wifes mum came to the house, pretty much forced her way in, took son and left.
4 weeks later, he was returned to us (after social investigated us) and found we hadnt actually done anything wrong, and this was purely a false allegation from start to finish. However, social wanted to still come on weekly visits, to make sure everything was OK and to ensure that the lad wasnt getting involved in the arguments between the adults.
Since then, they have been visiting weekly. They told us we "had" to agree to let our son have access to his grandparents, every weekend. Not a problem for us, we even offered to drop him off every Saturday, for them to bring him back on Sunday evening. This arrangement lasted 2 weeks, before my wifes mum became verbally abusive, threatening and threw something at me whilst I was in my car. Nothing was said to provoke this, she just stormed out the house and started a row!
Since all this has started, we have had to contact the police several times for various issues, including intimidation, harrassment, etc. Even threatening to come up to our house and "kill" us. Social have advised them several times to behave, for their grandson's sake, but they wont pipe down. We just want a quiet life!
They are now resorting to using the lad to pass on messages to us, telling him to say to us that he doesnt love us, wants to move out, etc. They even felt it necessary to have a sex-aducation talk with him. He is 5 years old for christs sake!
Because the grandparents cant behave, we have to do the weekend changeover at the school. We drop him off Friday morning, they pick him up in the afternoon, then vise versa when it comes to Monday. At the end of every weekend visit, he comes home to us crying his eyes out, every Monday afternoon. This is when he comes out with what he has been told to say. We called off one of the weekend contact sessions a few weeks back, because of our concerns. Our social worker was on holiday, when she returned she agreed she would pop round and speak with grandparents and advise them to behave (again!) - this didnt happen. So we have had the same crying episodes every week since, this week was the 4th time.
Now, we have a "Child in Need" meeting on Thursday. I video-recorded on my phone this afternoon the conversation we have had with our son. He was crying, admitted he was told X, Y and Z by grandparents and was told to pass it on. More crying. I dont think Social believe us completely, and when Social/School ask him whats up, he cant remember or doesnt want to speak about it, so just shrugs his shoulders. I'm hoping they will see, from the recording, exactly how he is feeling about his grandparents using him as a weapon. His teacher, social worker, us, grandparents, even the police are going to be at this meeting. The idea is to get our concerns out in the open and move forward. We have always wanted to just move on from this, but grandparents and rest of the family just want to stir up more and more trouble. I wouldnt mind betting that this meeting ends in abuse, and then they walk out. Its what they are like
I am asking what others would do in this situation?
Social services are saying if we cut off contact with them, they will pass the case onto a case conference, where they can "enforce" us to let son have contact with grandparents. But what if there are concerns? What if things arent going well? He shouldnt be coming home in tears after a weekend visit, telling us how much he hates us etc, and then admitting that he was told to say it by X
What would happen if we just told them all to naff off? I feel this is such a waste of social services time, we arent a risk to anyone (as they found out when they investigated us) - they are only still in contact with us because they want to "mediate" to make sure that our son doesnt become emotionally involved with all these arguments. But if grandparents arent listening, surely we could just cut all contact and tell them to go away?
We changed the lads surname a few weeks ago by deed poll (we gave him the choice of what he wanted to do) - now the grandparents are telling him he HAS to change his name back or he will be disowned. How can you say that to a 5 year old?
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Comments
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My gut instinct would be to move away to a different area and try to have a normal life. Too far away to make it easy for the grandparents to visit!
I expect this would be seen as 'running away' and possibly make you look guilty as well as causing other problems such as changing jobs etc. So maybe not.
I find it strange that contact with the grandparents is a must, is this a legal thing? would contacting a solicitor help at all? Or asking for all contact with the grandparents to be supervised?
I can imagine how helpless you and your wife are feeling and how confused and distraught the little boy is. Have you asked at his school if anything has been said by him about how he is feeling?0 -
The one thing you don't say in all this long story is what your wife thinks and what action she proposes to take to put a stop to all these farcical goings on?0
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I couldnt reada and run, this is such a sad situation and if this really is as one sided as you say totally disgusting behaviour from the grandparents.
I cannot understand how they are happy to mess with a childs life, and how social services are happy for this to happen? Is there anyway if the lad is coming home crying he can record what they are saying with a hidden voice recorder where he just has to press a button? I know that is extreme, but atleast then it would show what they are doing.
Where is mum in all this? How does she feel? I am just very suprised if things are that bad social services havent said to halt the weekend visits. i think mum should really put her foot down with them and say no more.0 -
Grandparents have no legal right to grandchildren.. say no.. then it is up to SS to say they GP's ARE suitable to look after the boy..
I think your wife and SS need to remember whose child this is..
We had dealings with SS with DS1 his gf and son.. hey have beenseverely put in their place several times.. speaking to managers is always fun.. the SW then has to justify their actions to their manager..
I'd be ringing SS about the GP's abusing the child emotionally which is often much worse and has deeper mental health issues than physical abuse.. bruises on your body fade.. bruises on your heart and mind don't!LB moment 10/06 Debt Free date 6/6/14Hope to be debt free until the day I dieMortgage-free Wannabee (05/08/30)6/6/14 £72,454.65 (5.65% int.)08/12/2023 £33602.00 (4.81% int.)0 -
busiscoming2 wrote: »My gut instinct would be to move away to a different area and try to have a normal life. Too far away to make it easy for the grandparents to visit!
I expect this would be seen as 'running away' and possibly make you look guilty as well as causing other problems such as changing jobs etc. So maybe not.
I find it strange that contact with the grandparents is a must, is this a legal thing? would contacting a solicitor help at all? Or asking for all contact with the grandparents to be supervised?
I can imagine how helpless you and your wife are feeling and how confused and distraught the little boy is. Have you asked at his school if anything has been said by him about how he is feeling?
We are told we "HAVE" to let him have weekend contact with the grandparents. We were told that this could be enforced by way of "case conference" where a formal agreement would be made. If we broke that agreement then, they could ask for residential orders from the court, meaning he wouldnt live with us anymore. This all came from our social worker. I did question it, saying that the grandparents dont have parental responsibility, etc, but my questions fell on deaf ears. I did ask why they would want a residential order, because this is surely only required should there be an actual risk to a child. We have been told we are NOT a risk, and when our son was living with grandparents temporarily (whilst we were being investigated) - grandparents were told they had to return him, because Social found there to be no risk. We love the boy, provide everything he needs, etc, all of this was set in motion by false allegations.
The supervised contact is something that we havent thought of though, great suggestion. Something we may think about, should this meeting not throw up any suggestions.
We are on the council list to move away, but its a long list! We are quite tempted just to tell the grandparents that they blew their chances. They have been told previously that they need to behave, and they have failed to comply, so surely we could just say that we are no longer willing to co-operate with them?paddy's_mum wrote: »The one thing you don't say in all this long story is what your wife thinks and what action she proposes to take to put a stop to all these farcical goings on?
Shes understandably upset by all the names she has been called by her family, all the abuse, harrassment, etc. She was also very upset today about being told by her son that he doesnt want to live here anymore. It wasnt until we probed a little further that he opened up to us and reeled off a whole load of stuff that he had been told to say, all in an attempt to split this family up - previous attempts have failed, so they are now using Social to try and get their own way0 -
Littlemadam83 wrote: »I couldnt reada and run, this is such a sad situation and if this really is as one sided as you say totally disgusting behaviour from the grandparents.
I cannot understand how they are happy to mess with a childs life, and how social services are happy for this to happen? Is there anyway if the lad is coming home crying he can record what they are saying with a hidden voice recorder where he just has to press a button? I know that is extreme, but atleast then it would show what they are doing.
Where is mum in all this? How does she feel? I am just very suprised if things are that bad social services havent said to halt the weekend visits. i think mum should really put her foot down with them and say no more.
We have to remember his age though. A doubt a 5 year old would remember to press a button on a recorder. Good idea, but doubt it would work - or even if Social would approve.
With regards to how my wife feels, see above, posted it just before you posted this.Grandparents have no legal right to grandchildren.. say no.. then it is up to SS to say they GP's ARE suitable to look after the boy..
I think your wife and SS need to remember whose child this is..
We had dealings with SS with DS1 his gf and son.. hey have beenseverely put in their place several times.. speaking to managers is always fun.. the SW then has to justify their actions to their manager..
I'd be ringing SS about the GP's abusing the child emotionally which is often much worse and has deeper mental health issues than physical abuse.. bruises on your body fade.. bruises on your heart and mind don't!
If I could show you the recording from my phone, I would. Its heartbreaking to see a young lad crying because his grandad has said he will get disowned if he doesnt do as he is told, i.e change his surname back to what it was and tell his mum he is moving out, etc.
I notice you said you had dealings with social before? May I ask for a few more details, an outline of what you did and what Social said/did in response?
We dont want to start refusing to help Social, if we then end up getting ourselves in trouble or son taken away, or anything like that.
We all know that the grandparents have no rights, but Social are saying they still want him to have weekend contact and are very strict with regards to it, a "you miss it, your in trouble" attitude was very much the case from the social worker.
Does anyone know what we can do with regards to Social? I'm sure some of what they are saying cant be enforced by law, seeing as there is no risk to the child. It may be worth mentioning that one of our social workers (we have two on our case) has treated us like criminals throughout the whole process, she even told my wife to split up with me and even recommended contacting her sons real father, the sexually abusive one. What sort of advice is that!0 -
If all that you have said is true then the GPs are clearly controlling and manipulative types who will never change their behaviour, and the only way you are going to be able to move on with your lives is to make a clean break from them. Is your wife prepared/ emotionally strong enough to do this?
The law on harassment is difficult to get enforced but there are strong laws against it. Look up the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 to see what patterns of behaviour constitute harassment under the legislation but then accept that in practice you will have to have far more evidence to back up your case. The important thing is not to react when they behave badly, to stay calm and to keep evidence of what goes on - a diary, photos, independent witnesses etc. This matters a lot, and you need to stay strong and calm.
See if there is a local law centre or something where you can get some free advice on this, and your situation generally. Unfortunately these nasty types do exist, and they just don't change. Stay strong and united, otherwise the stress could split you up - don't let that happen. Good luck.Hope is not a strategy.0 -
If all that you have said is true then the GPs are clearly controlling and manipulative types who will never change their behaviour, and the only way you are going to be able to move on with your lives is to make a clean break from them. Is your wife prepared/ emotionally strong enough to do this?
The law on harassment is difficult to get enforced but there are strong laws against it. Look up the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 to see what patterns of behaviour constitute harassment under the legislation but then accept that in practice you will have to have far more evidence to back up your case. The important thing is not to react when they behave badly, to stay calm and to keep evidence of what goes on - a diary, photos, independent witnesses etc. This matters a lot, and you need to stay strong and calm.
See if there is a local law centre or something where you can get some free advice on this, and your situation generally. Unfortunately these nasty types do exist, and they just don't change. Stay strong and united, otherwise the stress could split you up - don't let that happen. Good luck.
Thanks for the advice. I hope I didnt give the wrong impression in my initial post. I dont want to go down the whole police route, would rather use that as a last resort.
We did report the harrassment issues to the police, they visited and took a copy of the diary we have been keeping, and told us to continue making that diary. They went round and gave them a stage 1 warning, basically a slap on the wrist. If I make another call now, they will get an harrassment order (I think they call them injunctions now) prohibiting them to contact us. However, I havent done this, because I thought it may make things more difficult, with regards to our son?0 -
I think that your little family is in desperate need of legal advice from a solicitor who is a specialist, and vastly experienced, in this field.0
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paddy's_mum wrote: »I think that your little family is in desperate need of legal advice from a solicitor who is a specialist, and vastly experienced, in this field.
We did have a solicitor to "negotiate" the return of our son from grandparents when they took him. If Social didnt return him, the solicitor was going to progress it to court.
More advice will just cost us a fortune now, was wondering if anyone had any advice/resources that could help?0
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