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I have been open with my children’s schools about our situation and requested support for them, both emotionally and educationally as required. However the schools state they have a responsibility to keep their dad informed of any meetings held, give him the opportunity to input etc. which I guess is true. Plus there is a presumption generally that if their dad is upsetting them then all it takes is someone to point out the error of his ways and everything will be fine. My kids have even had this response from childline. Don’t they realise that his behaviour is abusive? That he deliberately attempts to undermine and sabotage their success at any opportunity? If I tried to get them to see this I would end up looking like the parent without the children’s best interests at heart. For a while this attitude had me too afraid to ask for any help for them, but I dragged myself back up and told myself I wouldn’t let anyone stop me doing the right thing for my children. Now I’m feeling utter dread at the thought of him being invited to be involved. I have insisted that he must not know when I will be there and meetings must be separate but he always subverts the process knowing it will upset and frustrated me. I feel like saying forget it, as this will be worse than doing nothing. I don’t trust anyone to prevent further risk because I’ve learned it from painful experience. Professionals are so often naive and careless. Any ideas or advice gratefully received! Xx
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I fully sympathise. If he has PR and theres no child protection worries/court ruling I think they have to keep him posted.
It’s really difficult – drove me batty! Just keep track of what’s being said and how children are and keep teachers up to speed. If you really feel the children are being affected emotionally by his responses to school you can might want to NSPCC for some advice you don’t have give any names.
He might do what many dads do and be all for involvement in school but then lose interest.
Main thing is keep conversation going with school especially the children’s class teacher/tutor.
And remember to keep the conversations factual that way youre not seen to “manipulate things” by blaming him even though he’ll try to do that himself x*x -
Thank you all. I suspected I have little choice. It does need to be a multidisciplinary meeting unfortunately so I need to be there in person. It scares me because he has had such an impact on my ability to get support needed for one child’s additional needs, in fact he has completely prevented access to treatment for one condition and now it is too late age-wise. It’s something that is likely to have a significant impact on their ability to work and lead an independent adult life. He attempted to get the court order to state I had to keep him updated with everything but I fought to stop that so he has to take responsibility for finding out anything he wants to know directly from source. Fortunately he hasn’t really bothered lately and so I’ve made some progress but I don’t relish the thought of them prodding him into sabotaging it all again. Hopefully he’ll be so out of touch now that he’ll show himself up for who he really is. As you say, I just have to keep very neutral and factual. As anyone who has children with disabilities knows, it’s a constant battle to get the support they need, especially with budget cuts, so this added obstacle really doesn’t help. It’s infuriating x
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He has a right to know what’s going on generally but I wouldn’t expect to see the school proactively taking steps to keep him informed, don’t they have better things to do?
The responsibility should be wholly on him to make the necessary calls to ensure he’s kept up to date on progress.
Can someone from Women’s Aid come with you to the meeting?
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