How do I tell someone 'You Are Being A Bad Mother??Long story

make_me_wise

Firstly I think the little boy is incredibly lucky to have yourself and your husband to take care of him. Social services have placed him in your care because they trust you to meet his needs. Something they obviously dont feel the mother or gp are capable of. Going by what you describe in your post they were completely right to do this.

I would respect the mothers point of view and wishes to a point. However just showering a child with love is not enough to raise them well and meet all their needs physical and emotional. As you are well aware. So when she makes a suggestion about avoiding things that to you seems detrimental to the boys welfare I would ignore it and follow your instincts.

Personally telling her she is a bad mother would cause nothing but harm. You have every right to think that and after reading your first post I agree with you. I must admit that whilst reading through I did wonder how the boys mum was raised herself. She seems to have extremely low expectations of what is a suitable environment to bring a child up in, the type of food they should have, personal hygiene and health care. She may well be being the best mum she knows how to be and mirroring the kind of parenting she had herself.

To be a good mum to her son she needs help, advice and guidance. Either she will agree to try all this or she wont. I wish you lots of luck OP and really respect what you are doing for this little boy. It is you who will make a huge difference to his life and give him a future.

gizmo111

What orders are in place? I'm assuming there is an Interim care Order - in which case SS will share PR with the mother and the child will have a LAC medical. You are not working with your SIL you are working with the SS - contact should be arranged through Ss and you do not need to contact her at all.

artichoke

freejunkie wrote: »

We have explained to her that nursery and schools do not take children without injections to protect themselves. but it doesnt seem to be getting through. .

but this is not true.....many children do not have vaccinations and use non-flouride toothpaste......

I have never heard of schools not taking children who are unvacinated....

art

naomi123

What a difficult situation.

He must be able to go to a preschool or something for a few hours- they definatly dont need to be vaccinated.

rachbc

My son had no vacs and went to both school and nursery.

Nicki

Does OP live in the UK? I know that US schools require a child to be vaccinated before starting school, and also that some people in the US do not have running water or services to their home. Don't know anyone in the UK who doesn't have basic amenities though assuming they are housed not homeless

DevilsAdvocate1

freejunkie wrote: »

We have explained to her that nursery and schools do not take children without injections to protect themselves.

This is not true. One of my children has had no vaccinations and he attended nursery and is just about to go into year 2 at school. The school nurse rang once when he was in reception to try to get me to vaccinate him. However, I explained my reasons why and no one has been in touch again.

So he can go to nursery (and then school) when he is old enough.

He doesn't need to go to nursery to socialize though. You could take him to toddler groups or any of the huge number of classes which have sprung up for the 0-5s in recent years.

JoJoB

I would recommend looking up kinship foster carers groups on facebook, you will get a lot of good information from them about ways to best proceed with your situation. It sounds like applying for a residency order would receive social services backing, and maybe a medical power of attorney would also be granted - you obviously need legal advice on how to proceed with this.

Does his mother receive child benefit for him? You need to get this transferred into your name (probably post residency order being granted). Then you can claim tax credits etc. Have social services informed you about kinship foster payments? Probably not - they keep this possibility quiet by and large and you may find you have to fight tooth and nail to get even a small payment. But you should - after all you are saving the local authority hundreds of pounds a week by taking him in. It is a discretionary payment and is something of a postcode lottery, some LA's are better about supporting kinship carers than others. But do look into it - you shouldn't end up in financial hardship by doing what is right by the child.

freejunkie

[QUOTE=make me wise;4601031
Personally telling her she is a bad mother would cause nothing but harm. You have every right to think that and after reading your first post I agree with you. I must admit that whilst reading through I did wonder how the boys mum was raised herself. She seems to have extremely low expectations of what is a suitable environment to bring a child up in, the type of food they should have, personal hygiene and health care. She may well be being the best mum she knows how to be and mirroring the kind of parenting she had herself.[/QUOTE]

I think this is the crux of it, I think she is mirroring how she was raised, and she hasnt got a real clue how to raise her son, this is why although I dont have to and alot of the time dont want to, I feel I need to work with her , to make her understand the choices she is making are not good ones.
(BTW my OH his brother and sister were taken by social services because of the GM mental issues)

As for the injections well unfortunatly for me the area I live in does not accept children without them I checked.

Thanks JOJOB never knew about that, thanks for the info x

SpikyHedgehog

Nicki wrote: »

Does OP live in the UK? I know that US schools require a child to be vaccinated before starting school, and also that some people in the US do not have running water or services to their home. Don't know anyone in the UK who doesn't have basic amenities though assuming they are housed not homeless

Would have thought so as OP referred to Social Services' practices being affected by the Baby P case.

Freejunkie, can Social Services not insist that a nursery take him without his vaccinations? I work in a preschool and we get phone calls from SocServ/Children's Centres/Women's Refuge asking us to take emergency cases, some of these children do not have thier vacciantions.