Sign for grandchildren

Having worked in Children’s Services, I cannot think of a single instance where a child’s life would be improved by being caught emotionally between two legally “warring” factions.

It’s bad enough when the parents are doing this, let alone with other relatives joining in.

If both sides were reasonable, then it could work, but if both sides were reasonable, it wouldn’t be going to court in the first place.

The Family Courts are already overwhelmed, so where is the funding and resources for this coming from?

For long established grandparents, there is already the mechanism to go to court, and request contact.

I won’t be signing the petition for that reason, although I agree, with others, (excluding any abuse or potential harm reasons), that parents withholding contact just because of their arguments with their own parents, is unreasonable and unfair.

Hi Jasvinder, did you mean that many now adult children have shared how they feel in this space? We were once young children too with a right to safe immediate family relationships and were sadly denied that. We are also still our parents children and our needs often get overlooked in a grandparents quest to have a relationship with a grandchild.

Could you please tell me your thoughts on how it would be ensured that people who are abusive, neglectful, addicted, bigoted or otherwise unsafe to be around children would be prevented should your petition come to pass?

Could you also please tell me your thoughts on how already struggling court systems and organisations like cafacass would be able to cope with the added workload without risk that mistakes would be made.

I would also like to ask your thoughts on how the court process is prevented from being mentally and financially stressful for everyone evolved and how that mental and financial stress can be prevented from harming the children who have no choice but to be dragged into it all.

Thank you

Hi Robina I agree that the children caught up in this issue are paramount as is for me, keeping in focus that this is about "their right to safe immediate family relationships".

I find that that focus is sometimes lost and that the children missing the grand parents, and other immediate family members they know and love are somehow forgotten, and the effect that the sudden unexplained loss of those relationships can have on them.

No, this is most definitely not a new debate and needs to be given the platform it deserves.

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

Iam, how very true.

Iam64 ah, OK, thank you for clarifying

I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear VioletSky. I’ll try to clarify the comment I made in response to Seasidelass.
I’ve often read on estrangement threads, posters refer to abuse they suffered as children, at the hands of their parents.

Seasidelass that's not what I was saying but I'm glad it's not a problem for you

Reading about both sides of estrangement isn't a problem for me VioletSky and I'm not sure why you may think it would be.

Thank you for the welcome Iam. Abuse is a factor but not the only one for parents becoming estranged. I agree with you that children caught up in any conflict is unhealthy and agree with what's already been said here, that it's the responsibility of all the adults concerned, to put the interests of the children first.

Iam64

When and where has that been said?

Hello seaside lass, welcome to gransnet. Estrangement is of course painful for
all involved.

The suggestion that grandparents estranged by their adult children
must have abused their own children is something that’s often repeated on the estrangement threads.
I haven’t signed the petition for reasons I gave earlier. The law as it stands gives children the right to maintain loving existing relationships. Ultimately it couldn’t happen in the face of hostility

Seasidelass this thread is under "Estrangement", I am afraid you are going to get both sides of the issue from those who are estranged and how it may impact them or others like them.

Thank you Hithere it was really odd, I suddenly went hot, sick and dizzy, laid down on the sofa, slept for an hour and feel fine now!

I still say that cases where potentially abusive grandparents, because they abused the grandchild's parent, have been able to establish a relationship with their grandchildren will be few Violetsky.

I am not disputing the relevance and importance of such cases, but as I have already said, the constant reference to abuse when ever this type of discussion takes place, tends to disrupt the conversation and can take the focus away from safe and loving grandparents.

Those being the ones from what I've seen who are posting here.

VS
Feel better

Children

Sorry I have medicated a migraine and the pain is gone but not the auras

Enough Internet for today

Preotceting her bildren that she read

seasidelass I wish I could agree with you but we are talking about people who grew up in abusive households and were conditioned to accept abuse. I did not understand the extent of what had happened to me until my children came to my defense. I will forever regret exposing my children to that small section of my family but I needed professional help to understand and undo the damage.

Please remember all victims conditioned by abusers in every different kind of abuse and understand it is not that simple. From the mother taking beatings thinking she is protecting her hold to the sexual abuse victim who is too frightened to tell even to protect others, all underpinned by the emotional abuse of people who very often get away with it.

I'm new to gransnet and was heartened to see this thread giving those who wish to sign the linked in petition to make access to the courts for grandparents easier.

I, family and friends have all signed, our lives having been blighted by the cruelty and intransigence of our estranged adult child.

Of course parents need to protect their children from abusive grandparents and other abusive family members but my experience of other on line forums where this is discussed, is that this then disrupts the conversation all together with grandparents who are estranged feeling the need to defend themselves from the suggestion or assumption, that they must have been bad/abusive to have been estranged to begin with.

Any and all changes that have been asked for are to make it easier for grandparents to go to court. This would not mean it would be easier for them to be given contact.

It's worth keeping in focus that this is about the continuation of an already established relationship between children and their grandparents. The onus of proof is on the grandparents to show that this was the case before the relationship was denied.

I seriously doubt that there many grandparents who abused their own child(ren), the parent of their grandchild(ren) who would have had the opportunity to build a safe and loving relationship with their grandchildren.

Surely any contact would have been limited and supervised.

I do think it's different CafeAuLait when a family moved away and a grandchild never knew their GP's, as you say in your case, there was no estrangement.

This is about the right for children to continue the already existing relationship they have with their GP's which they lose because their parents estrange the child's GP's.

Absolutely cafe

You put it better CafeAuLait

I agree VioletSky. It is picking and choosing which children have 'rights'. Obviously my parents had the right to choose that I wouldn't know my grandparents because there wasn't an estrangement. Those with an estrangement don't get the same right, or so some would want it. Either the child has the right to know GPs or they don't. So which is it? It's not a crazy argument. It's an argument that follows logically from the assertion that it's about the children and their right to know their GPs. If it only applies in some circumstances, then it's not about the children at all. It's about the GPs asserting what they want and dressing it up as 'only thinking about the children'.

As children with distance don't have the same right to know GPs, there's an easy solution.

Agedp1953

Why would safe loving parents choose not to allow their children to continue their safe loving relationship with their safe loving grandparents Summerlove?

I have no idea. I know it had happened though.

I still feel it’s the parents choice

Yes, that's true Hithere from the point of view of the parents or the grandparents.

Aged

Because what a party calls "safe loving relationship" may not be seen like such from the other side