Child arrangement court order

Hithere I think in "normal" families it waxes and wains:

Small kids ADORE the adults in their life
Then not so much, and its all about friends/siblings/cousins and adults are less interesting
Then the adults in the extended family become important again some time in the teens when often its easier to open up to other close adults than to parents.

That person can be a much loved GP, but it doesnt have to be. If they have close extended adults who live them around then there is nothing to miss. It can be family friends/"honorary aunts/uncles", good neighbours, other relatives, older cousins or siblings. You just need a "tribe" / village but it can take many forms.

Its not like missing a parent. Nobody can fill a parent sized hole IYKWIM

"Hithere Sat 07-Sep-19 13:34:04 I totally disagree. Are you suggesting that if a child loses a parent or grandparent they will forget about them? I'm sure you are wrong unless they are very young. Children are far more sensitive and caring than you seem to think. "I see a lot of projection' from parents who have cut out GPs."
No, the gc might not forget them, I never said that.

What I meant is that gc do not give as much importance to gp as gp would like.

I cannot imagine how bad a situation must have been for a court to make an order for a child to spend Christmas away from home. The parent must have done something pretty terrible for a court to make that decision.

Contact orders do not assess the parents fitness to parent. That is an entirely different process.

However the order may say something like:
"The first week of each school holidays"
Or
"The last weekend if every month"
And if that HAPPENS to fall on Christmas, or the parents milestone birthday, or a step siblings birthday etc.... the child still HAS to go!

If a GC does trace the GPs in adulthood, and instead of getting to know the GC in the present tense the GP uses the opportunity to "prove" how much they faught the childs parent by going to court, or to present the AGC with a box of kids cards and gifts that they would have given then had the parents let them, or to go through memory boxes of their fantacy grandparenting that they never got to do....

....
Then they are not really interested in the AGC who reached out are they?They are just using the AGC to validate their past grievances about the situation!

And that'll go one of two ways:
The ACG will agree
The AGC will disagree
Either way, the focus of the interaction will be on the AC, not on the AGC & GP getting to know each other!

Its not sewing the seed for a fresh relationship with the AGC moving forward..

I cannot imagine how bad a situation must have been for a court to make an order for a child to spend Christmas away from home. The parent must have done something pretty terrible for a court to make that decision.

Oh yes there is nothing stressful about a year spent in and out of court unless you're a "baddy"

notanan2 Sat 07-Sep-19 12:49:05 I agree so think the onus is on the parents to do all they can to keep the relationships going.

Smileless2012 Sat 07-Sep-19 12:57:37 - good point

Hithere Sat 07-Sep-19 13:34:04 I totally disagree. Are you suggesting that if a child loses a parent or grandparent they will forget about them? I'm sure you are wrong unless they are very young. Children are far more sensitive and caring than you seem to think. "I see a lot of projection' from parents who have cut out GPs.

LostChild Sat 07-Sep-19 14:48:54 I think you may be wrong because of the upsurge of people tracing their family and all the TV programmes about tracing people. No personal experience but I do have a couple of friends who research family all the time and also people who have had DNA tests to trace their backgrounds.

I suppose that the parent must be responsible for their own stress if they refuse to mediate. I would assume that any such refusal is based upon the knowledge that they are in the wrong and hoping the GPs will give up. If a parent has good reasons for stopping their child from seeing the GPs then they will be so sure of their case that they won't be so stressed.

It seems to me that some of the most outspoken on this subject know so much about how the courts decide that the child must see the GPs so presumably have been through the system and failed to stop the GPs. This may not be the case but it seems that way to me

Yes I agree that the GP's need to bare some responsibility as do the parents in some cases. I don't think that GP's would open up court proceedings only to prove they did all that they could, just in case one day in the future their GC find them. They would do that to try and maintain their relationship with their GC.

If at a later date when their GC are old enough to find them and do so, it may or may not be of significance to them that their GP's went to court.

Mediation or at least an attempt at mediation is insisted on by the courts. I say an attempt because it isn't always possible if one party refuses.

Divorce can be fraught and stressful and upsetting to children but it doesn't have to be if the adults concerned put their own grievances second to their children's welfare. The same can be said here.

Some GP's are cut out of their GC's lives due to their parents' grievances so not always because it is in the best interests of the children to be denied their GP's.

Meh, I agree I shouldn't be making assumptions based on my own experience and neither should anyone else really. They may look for wider family, they may not. Whether opening up court proceedings to prove to a grandchild you did everything possible will be benificial or not in the future pales into comparison against the stress and upset it may cause now. It's an unknowable risk. Mediation and counselling, well even the courts would ask you to try at least mediation first. If you do mediation and counselling and both fail, then the assumption is that the court process will be fraught and stressful and will upset the children in some way. So the Grandparent bares some responsibility for that both now and in the future. Regardless of why they were CO surely?

Well we don't know whether or not it's general for some to trace family or whether it only happens because they "feel unloved and unwanted by the family they are already in contact with".

It happens. An old friend of our friends was contacted by her GD a few years ago and they now have regular meet ups. I'm not aware of any problems the GD has with her family, just that she wanted to get to know the GM she never knew.

To be honest, I doubt they generally do go on to trace family unless they have reason to feel unloved and unwanted by the family they are already in contact with. My brother has no interest in his own half brother because they were not in contact most of their lives. My poor stepbrother does not know this. I have an older adopted sister I haven't tried to contact because, my mum discarded her and I feel it is up to her if she wants contact or not.

My mistake, I was referring to Hithere.

I can't see a response from Summerlove

My post says "when the GC are older" Summerlove. GC grow up, they become independent adults who may decide to trace their GP's, either because they do have memories of them from childhood or because they never knew them and are curious.

There will come a time when they make decisions for themselves and when and if they do, if their GP's attempted to maintain their relationship through the courts, even though they failed, they can show that they did all the could.

Your post does not relate to mine, you are talking about children, I am not.

I think from the perspective of the children, offering to go to mediation or counselling and stating that they chose not to go to court for fear of it having a negative impact on the children would be enough. In the case of parents going to court, usually that happens because one of the parents is abusive in one way, shape or form. Having an affair is in itself abusive, due to lying etc. As we know from discussion, that's not always the case for alienated GPs. There are a huge myriad of reasons why they may lose contact.

Aligns, not align

Notanan,

Great post about multigenerational household.

Smileless,

Your last example would apply to a parent fighting for custody of the child.

A child naturally align with his/her parents.
If the child sees the parents stressed due to taken to court, the child will not associate the idea of stress = yayyy my grandma is fighting for me
Some kids might not even know the court procedure is happening, they sense the stress and tension in the house

I see a lot of projection from gp
Unless you were the primary caregiver 24/7 for years, your gc will not wonder how grandma is doing and how much gc misses you, how gc wishes to visit you more or stay for overnights
Gp is transferring his/her feelings to the child.
They are kids! They want to play, have fun, eat candy and be naughty.

Children are self centered by nature and they will not be thinking about what gm wants.
Hell, I wish kids would think what parents want (no reminders to brush teeth, take showers, do homework, etc) instead of having to fight with kids on basic hygiene and other basic responsibilities

Even if GP's request for contact through the court is refused, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was for nothing.

Those GP's will know that they did everything they could to maintain their relationship with their GC, and when the GC are older, especially for those who up to the time of the estrangement had enjoyed the GP/GC relationship, they will know how important they were to their GP's and the lengths they went too to try and maintain that relationship.

I personally feel that a lot of the "value" of grandparents for children comes from the multigenerational aspect!

My kids dont just go to their GPs house to see their GPs: they go to be with cousins, to see their parents with their parents. To be part of a larger whole. To witness the love between the adults in the family. To see their parents deal with the ups and downs of having aging relatives. Dealing with sicknessss and even deaths together

This is something that court ordered contact with individual GPs in isolation from the parents could never recreate

Much of the value of extended family relationships are lost when translated to being just about the GC and GP.

Lost your Dad sounds lovely, shame about your Mum and I think this could be a reason why some GPs do take the last step.

From the perspective of someone who joined the discussion late, it looks as though the emphasis has been placed on children. It must be difficult as a GP to decide if the overall effect of going to court on the child will be positive or not. Especially when it's very seldom access is awarded and it may be a lot of upset for everyone involved for nothing.

My dad had court awarded visitation and thank goodness for me he did. I have seen all the court papers and seen all the awful things mum said about him, I would guess the court saw through her though. As they say, the truth will out. She also tried to turn me against him, not just as a child, but as an adult too. Conversely as an adult she also told me she wished her marriage had worked with him on a few occasions. I think I was used as a weapon against him and he was used as a weapon against me. My dad, to his credit, never said a bad word about her until we became estranged. He didn't know how bad things were at home and he hadn't wanted to risk damaging my relationship with my mum with their problems. Their problems should not have been my problem. Shame my mum didn't agree.

Agreed Nonnie of course we miss them, we miss what it would have been like to be GP's. They don't miss us but when they're older they might feel they missed out on what they didn't have the opportunity to experience.

Smile not that it is easy but it can't be quite so hard for you knowing that the GC doesn't miss you. You are so right that GC may wonder where GPs are or even have been told GPs don't want to see them. Whatever they have been told it must be very hard for the GC.

Fortunately, and I do mean that Nonnie we never built a relationship with our GC prior to being cut out. He was only 8 months old at the time and we hadn't had much contact.

When I read how other GP's have developed a relationship with their GC, many helping with child care, baby sitting etc sometimes for a number of years, I realize how lucky we were not have that to lose. That our GC are lucky, having never known us we'll not be missed, but there are GC missing GP's and wondering why they don't see them anymore.

I am not sure we are placing enough emphasis on the children here, perhaps too much on the Ps and GPs? For a child to lose anyone they love for whatever reason has to be traumatic and even worse if they are cut off from one whole side of their family. As Smile says, she was told they would never cut her out and then they did, what did that do to any children concerned?

Thanks Star for reading and understanding my posts, there has been far too much not understanding others on this thread.