Sign for grandchildren

It is other agencies jobs to ensure that a disabled person is given as much autonomy as possible.
Hence DOLS, etc.

It's been said so many times but it's just not heard.

Grandparents getting access doesn't help children with abusive parents.

Grandparents getting access does allow abusive grandparents round grandchildren.

Parents do not have to accept it for their vulnerable children. Under that thinking outside authorities get to impose their own values about what disability means for a person. Now we have many autistic voices coming out saying they experienced a particular form of intervention as abusive. As a mother to an autistic person, I will fight any authority that would attempt to force that intervention on my child because they think it is best (it still exists). That is their value they are seeking to impose on a child. It is not necessarily the only one or best one.

Fortunately most professionals now will present options and allow consideration of them. It is my job to not just accept things without critical consideration, and it is my job to reject any professional advice that is not in the best interests of my child, from someone who doesn't know them like I do.

As I said at the beginning, you're free not to sign the petition, or to start another, if you feel strongly enough.

I'm surprised you have to ask who, frankly, considering it is a discussion about best interests for children.
I would have thought it pretty obvious that "doesnt cut it" refers to the children.

The fact remains, whether you think it appropriate or not, grandparents were stopped from seeing their grandchildren because they thwarted the parents rights to inflict injury and abuse on their child.
It's a very extreme case, I know, but it's also very extreme to assume that all grandparents just want to cause problems, perhaps sexually abuse, or otherwise act in their grandchildren worst interests.

That's exactly it.
Sometimes the gps are the catalyst for a whole host of family problems.
Sometimes they aren't.
A blanket ban, therefore isnt acceptable.

Just the same as people living with a learning disability.
Parents used to decide how they lived, what they were allowed to do etc.
It's now seen as not a great model for people to abide by, because they have rights, however vulnerable they are.
They need to be properly assessed and addressed, and parents have to accept that.

MissAdventure

I think it because the days are long gone when decisions are made on behalf of the most vulnerable in society without any recognition that they may not be made with best interests at heart.
As I've said,recent events have highlighted that better than I ever could.
My child my rules just doesnt cut it anymore.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to bring those cases into a discussion around grandparent’s rights. As far as I’m aware, those grandparents raised concerns with the appropriate authorities, providing evidence of abuse, and those authorities failed to act. Short of granting automatic residence to grandparents, what alternative action could they have taken?

Those cases are not the vast majority of parents, so when you say that “my child, my rules” doesn’t cut it anymore. Doesn’t cut it for who?

MissAdventure

I dont think its acceptable to wait until it's clear that parents are withholding access for nefarious reasons.

You manage just fine, as did me and my daughter - just the two of us.

Others manage much less fine, and end up much worse for having access denied.

Are GPs the answer to this though? Sometimes the GPs are part of an inter-generational problem. Not always, of course. Connecting families with other families (parenting social connection groups, for example) might be a very effective way of providing more connection and support when necessary.

That would be for cafcass to sort out, wouldn't it?
I have custody of my grandson, who doesn't see his father.
I am not going to air dirty washing on here, but the reasons why were explained, accepted, and taken into account when I explained them.

"Disagreement with the daughter"

As usual, very vague details in the request.

I dont think its acceptable to wait until it's clear that parents are withholding access for nefarious reasons.

You manage just fine, as did me and my daughter - just the two of us.

Others manage much less fine, and end up much worse for having access denied.

Yet there is more oversight of children than ever before. Things people turned a blind eye to in the past are now reported.

Parents should make the rules for their child unless it can be shown that they are harming their children. That does not include differences in values or choices that we just don't agree with.

In most cases, children that grow up without grandparents (and there are many that do so for no other reason than geography rather than estrangement) tend to be just fine. I never knew mine, so that was normal to me.

We're one of those families abroad. Some family members don't even own passports, last I knew. Covid has kept us apart from those who do have the passport to travel, yet we manage just fine as a unit.

I don't have an especially positive view of not having known my grandparents now, as I've got older, but that was the choice my parents made for us, as was their right. I doubt any of us like all the decisions our parents made for our lives.

I think it because the days are long gone when decisions are made on behalf of the most vulnerable in society without any recognition that they may not be made with best interests at heart.
As I've said,recent events have highlighted that better than I ever could.
My child my rules just doesnt cut it anymore.

MissAdventure

It's just a matter of when, rather than if, as far as I'm concerned.

Can I ask why you think this?

If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.

No one is going to give automatic contact with a child to people who are not the child’s parents and in some cases, where grandparents have never ever met the child, strangers.

It’s ludicrous to think the current legislation is going to change. It is far too big an infringement on parental rights.

If we decide that parents are not able to make decisions for their own children, what’s next?

CafeAuLait

Absolutely not. It does not help children to deal with the tension that is created in the family when their parents are forced to facilitate a relationship that they might not think are in the children's best interests. It is a parental decision who is involved in the lives of their children.

I think protecting the relationship when it is compromised by divorce or death of a parent can have a place. Where both parents are united in not seeing a particular family member, it should be unusual that this is challenged. In that last instance, I think it says a lot about why the particular grandparent isn't involved if they are willing to put a young family through the stress and expense of something to enforce their own wishes. Something that will not help their GC through loss of family income and stress.

Any GP willing to bring such a case would have me accepting a job overseas.

I agree completely

My neighbours grown children can't manage to work in this country due to their very many issues,let alone abroad.

Absolutely not. It does not help children to deal with the tension that is created in the family when their parents are forced to facilitate a relationship that they might not think are in the children's best interests. It is a parental decision who is involved in the lives of their children.

I think protecting the relationship when it is compromised by divorce or death of a parent can have a place. Where both parents are united in not seeing a particular family member, it should be unusual that this is challenged. In that last instance, I think it says a lot about why the particular grandparent isn't involved if they are willing to put a young family through the stress and expense of something to enforce their own wishes. Something that will not help their GC through loss of family income and stress.

Any GP willing to bring such a case would have me accepting a job overseas.

It's just a matter of when, rather than if, as far as I'm concerned.

I think signing these types of petitions is pointless.

It is too big an infringement on parental rights. It’s not going to happen.

Agree 100% with you MissA. I've signed.

Nobody has asked you to defend anything, violet.
Not at all.

Other people feel every bit as strongly as you, violet.
My neighbour is unrecognisable as the woman I got to know, before all of her problems (though they never were actually "hers")
Her mental health is shot to bits, she has had 2 strokes, and suffers badly with depression and anxiety.
It has been about 16 or so years of dealing with this, the grandchildren are now grown, and bringing a whole heap of other issues into the mix, due to their utterly chaotic upbringing.

We’re all defending our motivations though aren’t we.

Granniesunite

I understand the emotional abuse thank you and know how hard it is to be heard. It it can be done through the courts . I’d try their first I think if I was in your position .

I have.

I couldn't even get a restraining order as there was not enough proof.

I think that as much as you have this beautiful idea, the bigger picture is not what you think at all.

Anyway. That's all I have to say for now, I shouldn't have to defend my motivations or my thinking against assumptions. That's deeply unkind given the circumstances.