Kids

[Pea2020]

My kids still see their dad every week.
Overall I feel they are happy seeing him, however my eldest has been put on the “safeguarding concern” list at school, because my ex (his dad) kept keeping him off school and making him lie about why he was off school and also a few other minor things happened, which amounted to enough things to be of concern to the school.
I got a message from my ex (detail removed by Moderator) (he has had the kids for (detail removed by Moderator) days) saying that my eldest hurt his (detail removed by Moderator) and was screaming so bad that he thought he had broken it. My ex did not take him to hospital. I messaged back saying he needs to go to a&e and he replied that everything was under control, it looked like (detail removed by Moderator) was dislocated, so he popped it back it for him. My ex is not a trained medical professional.
I am concerned that he wouldn’t take him to hospital, even though he thought he might have broken (detail removed by Moderator). Even after it seemed as though it was dislocated, he still didn’t take him to hospital.
What can I do?
I’m so angry and upset and worried.

[Wants To Help]

Hi Pea,

I agree with your concerns as there are a lot of ‘minor things’ that are adding up to ‘too many’ things. You probably can’t say what the other things are that the school is concerned about, but the fact they are concerned is concerning enough! Also, encouraging your son to lie about things is not good at all. Sadly, one of the outcomes of this as that if one day he tells the truth about something serious he may not be believed.

I don’t know how old he is (and you won’t be able to say anyway), but is he old enough to be able to tell you himself how the injury happened? Did your younger son witness it? Are the stories consistent? Can they tell you what happened without looking away, looking at each other, fidgeting etc? Can your son tell you himself how bad it hurt, if Dad hurt him more ‘popping’ it back in or if it made it hurt less? Hearing this for yourself when he comes home may make a difference to your thought process.

One of the reasons your ex may not have wanted to go to A&E on NYE is because he may have been drinking and he’d had too much. Is this likely? If so, was there another responsible adult at the house that could have taken control of the situation if your son HAD needed to go to A&E?

If your son’s (detail removed by Moderator) looks swollen or he is still in pain when he comes home take him to your GP or A&E yourself. Get it documented when the injury occurred and who was in charge of him at the time and what they did/didn’t do. If there is something more serious with (detail removed by Moderator) then the medical professionals will do a safe guarding concern to Children’s Services regarding lack of professional medical care being sought. This will then be a part of the ongoing concerns raised and he may not be deemed suitable for having unsupervised contact.

If your son is not due back for several more days and you have information he is still in pain and no professional help has been sought ring 111 for some advice. If you are unable to go to where he is yourself for your own safety reasons then they may contact the police to go and do a Child Protection check and the police could persuade your ex to take him to the hospital, and if he refuses, take your child in to protective care so that he can get medical attention and you can then go to him.

That all sounds extreme, hopefully it won’t come to that, but if your son is very young and unable to communicate clearly about what happened it may be necessary.

xx

[Author]

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