National Grandparents Register

'their grandchildren' s/b 'your grandchildren'

GrannyRose, thankyou for this information. I, thankfully, do not have this problem in my life, but my heart aches for estranged grandparents who are in torment.
Its such a wonderful idea, especially as sometimes it feels the bonds between grandchildren and grandparents are cruelly ripped apart, leaving the grandchildren with nowhere to ask or no one to reason with. Good luck to all estranged grandparents out there, you all have my sympathy.

Thank you for sharing this Granny3Rose I've not heard of it before.

In principle it's a good idea . Those who have been estranged by our adult children don't know what they have told our grandchildren and as far as we know they could have told them we are dead.

Where I live I will never move from so if my grandson's in the future want to find me they can . My telephone numbers or email will stay the same but as they are 7,5and 3 this year will have a long wait if they want to find me. I won't be registering.

I agree with BridgetPark and think that this sounds like an excellent idea for those grandparents who would like to register. Thankfully I'm not in need of using this Register, but I think I would, if I was estranged from my beloved DGC.

This is priceless information. We supported DS to go to the family court to ensure he had shared residency - for our 5 year old DGS -between DS and DGS's DM following a failure of CAFCAS - Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service - to ensure either DGS's safety or his (half) DB's... Thirteen years on DGS has moved 900 miles to live with his dad (who moved here in 2020 because of a serious illness and no support in his local area) and 5 miles from us..... I was a practising social worker at the time and my son is currently a Social Worker, otherwise I am not sure what might have happened to DGS. childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/residence/

Greetings from across the pond. The whole reason why I follow this is because of a post a while ago about going "no contact". I'm afraid I'm in this position. I haven't seen my grandsons in over 2 years and they are teens now so I have no idea what they look like or sound like! My 50 year old AD has taken up with the teens on tik tok saying it's not selfish to disown parents for disciplining you when they were little. It sure would be swell to have this site here. Thanks for the heads-up. Will check to see if there's an equivalent here

It's a pain like no other

I’ve never heard of this before. Grandparents don’t usually have any hope.
My son is currently going through family court, which by the way, is farcical. His ex has been vicious and vindictive and has prevented him from seeing his children with her lies and accusations.
The family court and CAFCASS are supposed to act for the children’s best interests. They don’t. It’s a long story. But I will add my name to this.
They will grow and they will know.

How is this list going to work? Publicly available?

I have concerns on privacy and safety- the last thing you want is for your name to be out there and be the target of scams, for example

Sunbar I have someone USA whose family all live there too. Son died dramatically leaving wife and son. The wife refused to allow husband's family to have any contact following death. My friend and DH, who are GPs paid for mediation hoping to have some resolution. The wife just sat and lied, woukd not accept the emails, texts she had sent, so no resolution. Cost friend $10,000. Horrible situation, do feel for you.

LisaP I am so sorry to learn about your bad experience of CAFCASS. I felt the organisation totally let down my DGCs and my daughter is suffering the consequences.

Please be very careful before you rush to do this. You could be vulnerable to a young person fired up possibly wih drugs and wanting to take revenge for the things his parent has said you did. It is a strange world we live in. It must be heart breaking to be cut off from children and grandchildren and often because we may have some romantic dream of all being together again we convince ourselves that we would do or give anything to make it happen. That makes you very vulnerable.

We've been estranged for 10.5 years and have never known our only GC and I've always said I wouldn't want to be contacted by either of them.

If they were to get in touch I'd be very wary if only because I know what their parents are like and are capable of. For those who hope and pray that one day they will be contacted, the existence of this register is something to give them hope.

I remember when they set up the register for adopted children to find birth parents. Unfortunately it opened up a can of worms and many adopted children found their birth parents didn't want anything to do with them as they had new families and never told their partners they had other children .

Like I said we don't know what our estranged children have or will tell our grandchildren about us. Estrangement is a living bereavement. I grieve for the loving caring son I knew not who he is now. Been just over 3 years for me . I gave him a chance few months ago now but after a vile text back I am done. The only person hurting was me . But no more .

I grieve for my husband everyday he died he didn't want to die and leave me my son choose to. The grief for my husband gets worse as years go by been 19 now. But I am lucky to have a loving and caring daughter and family. I will not waste anymore time wishing for my son and 3 grandson's. I am not the mom he knew . This mom will not put up with any crap from him or my daughter in-law if he did contact me but I know he won't. Life is to short for what ifs my husband taught me that when he died at 47.

Moving to where I live now have me a new and better life. I live my life to the full no longer exist as I did before. I lost my son moving his choice but gained far more.

Grandparents' rights in Ireland:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/birth-family-relationships/older-people/grandparents-rights/#:~:text=As%20a%20grandparent%2C%20or%20other,in%20respect%20of%20the%20child

Appreciate everyone's words of care and caution.
I probably should have had more kids....

Please be careful, just incase unscrupulous people are able to contact you pretending to be a grandchild.

sunbar

It should be easy enough to find out if they're genuine by asking them questions only your GC would know the answers too.

I had exactly that Whiff, I located my birth Mother when I was about 20, the whole experience was awful as she had another husband and another daughter. I found her hard and unloving and my half Sister seemed to resent my presence. We met a few times but the relationship never worked out. I found out via Facebook 2 years ago that she had died aged 83.
The funeral director allowed me to view her cremation video and I was completely written out of existence in her eulogy.
Moving on history has repeated itself and I am estranged from my adult children and their children
I live with the heaviest heart and sadness.

I am sorry Oasthouse for that experience with your birth mother and especially for your estrangement from your AC and GC.

There's a support thread on this forum which you might like to take a look at. Even if you don't want to post, reading about how others try to cope and their experiences may be helpful.

You're not alone and there can be comfort in knowing that .

Oasthouse sorry that happened to you. That's exactly why I mentioned it. Sorry your are suffering the pain of estrangement from adult children and grandchildren. As Smiles says there is a support thread. Hope if you read it you will see you are not alone . None of us thought it would happen but for me it's been 3 years but others it's been far longer. 🌹