It goes on and on...

Thank you guys so much for your input and support , it is really helping me way more than you know!!!

The school do not seem to want to get involved with the legal side unfortunately , they just report how my Grandson is doing in general ( but I know they support me in him staying with me , it is just always said 'off the record' for some reason but perhaps they are not allowed to be 'biased' or give their opinion on what they feel about the 'case' but little man is FINE at school with no issues thankfully )

I think one or two family members would write statements but definitely not stand up in court lol

I am just hoping that everything comes to light in the end as you can only ''keep a lid on things'' and PRETEND you are okay for so long and the truth usually outs in the end which it is beginning to do at least now after 10 months of pretence but it's about time the cracks began to show at least as it must be EXHAUSTING pretending for so long

It's exhausting enough for me pretending everything is fine between us at our contact sessions together but I am getting some support in place and phoned my doctor today who was wonderful and yet for the counselling with no FEE you have to fight good and proper for it as resources are extremely limited!

I may see if there is a low cost or charitable organisation option who give some support on a regular ongoing basis etc but I feel they do need to be properly trained as it is a range of complex emotions I am going through tbh and a HUGE amount of stress and my daughter texts me every few days complaining about SOMETHING to do with my Grandson and I can just about breathe without it being an 'error' she is going to or has reported me for ... and so it begins ...

She is going to dish any grain of dirt on me she can find which should be fun as I do have a past which she is already raking up to try and prove me unfit when she KNOWS she has had no concerns about the care of her son and yet has implied all along that she can do a better job and yet has been critical of me for the smallest of things all along in order to feel better about things yet has upped it now of course lol ( Great! Will just ignore her tbh I aint got time to get into tittle tattle and she seems to be in a FOUL mood recently and so takes pleasure n having a dig at my capabilities or rather 'what I am doing wrong or have done wrong in the past' in order to feel better but I can't be arsked with all that tbh and will just be HONEST about EVERYTHING!! Always the best way in the end anyway lol )

If she was more honest and asked for help she would stand a better chance but because she knows there is an 'easier' way by using deceit and dirty tactics she is full blown going for it and yet is still a hot mess right now that she would never willingly reveal but it is showing itself now with eg the pet abuse and I think it has got her rattled that her REAL mental health etc could possibly be 'exposed'

nanynoo I wish I could offer some advice but I can't, you seem to be doing all you can already.

Just one thing, parents don't have any 'rights' they have 'responsibilities' the main one apparently to give a child a proper family life. Therein lies the problem, who interprets what a proper family life is?

I am very aware that social workers sometimes choose to go for the quiet life and simply believe all the mother says, even when there is evidence it is not correct. Please collect all the evidence you can and compile it for the courts and social workers, not sure you can do anything else. Witnesses may be willing to write statements but less willing to stand up in the family court.

Does the school have someone whose job it is to look out for children in such circumstances? I know some do.

Best of luck

That's brilliant, nannynoo, that you are taking steps to get some support.
Please try not to worry too much while waiting for things to progress re your daughter.

Little man has been SO good at going to bed recently after playing up at bedtime over the school holidays lol I think he knows and feels his body is tired and I let him have a settle down and chill time before sleep which he ENJOYS and so does not kick up a fuss about now

He even calls it his ''settle down'' ( time ) bless him but on holiday and during the school holidays he never wanted the day to end lol

As with anything in life and with the ups and downs we ''will get there'' bit by bit!!

The only thing which worries me is that she has the advantage of being his birth Mum which carries a lot of whack and she knows it , hence she feels she doesn't actually have to 'do much' to get him back , just being his natural Mother is enough in itself ie he is MINE and I want him back and have every right to have him back as his natural Mother ( but I assume it takes a fair bit more than that! HOPEFULLY anyway!! lol )

I have already submitted an application online over the weekend for local weekly counselling which s free of charge :-)

Plus have found a brilliant support charity who assign you a worker to help both you and the child with a tailored plan

They offer different strands of support ie mental health support , family support and Autism support and I am going to ring them and say I need ALL THREE! Lol

It is good to get the future support I will need in place already [happy] [happy] and I am quite proud of myself in all this tbh as none of it is easy and yet am taking steps and trusting my gut and knowing myself to ensure they are the right steps so I hope it all pays off in the end!!

I am and have always done the hard work needed but my daughter is shirking it which will not have the GOOD results she expects as it doesn't just fall into your lap from nowhere

I had to do the hard work to get him here and do the hard work to keep him here and I hope that will evidence itself in the end

I need all the help I can get! Lol

And that is what I tell everyone as my daughter is saying ''I don't need any help'' to everyone ( when she clearly does ) and I said to her ''well I NEED HELP!'' ( and I am not the one with the poor mental health or drug and alcohol use but it AFFECTS me as does on top of that EVERY CARER NEEDS HELP!! ) x

That is exactly how I feel LisaLou and I looked into that poor little dogs eyes and promised her I would stop it from happening again so hopefully the RSPCA will be enough to shake them into action re how they treat their pet but I would RATHER THEY GIVE THE DOG AWAY to someone who will care for her properly as obviously they are not coping with her , same way I feel they will NOT cope with my Grandson but who suffers? The vulnerable little one

Thing is that although my daughters 'stuff' is her OWN stuff , not MINE it does AFFECT me and that is why I need the extra support especially if social services insist I have to continue to supervise contact , what they say is if I get guardianship I will have to do it even with great hostility between us which there would be , so this is like my 'test' of how I can manage or handle it BUT doing it twice a ruddy week is a lot and after guardianship it is reduced a lot so the child can fully settle

My life will never be stress free ( as long as my daughter is ill anyway ) but I have to manage how her illness AFFECTS ME and try not to let it which is easier said than done if you witness something like a darling dog stuffed in a drawer , shaking

Plus the results of the hair strand test , if clear I will worry MORE because it will be more likely lo is returned and it is her mental health I worry about as well as any substance use

If NOT clear I will still worry as children have been returned even AFTER the birth parent failed a drugs test so it would be even more worrying in one way and yet glad there is some EVIDENCE in another and on the whole I want to see if my gut feeling is true ( it def is about her mental health as I have seen! ) but I feel there is something dodgy going on still re her substance intake and use tbh so anyway , we just have to see and all of this is a 'wait and see' till the final hearing but a DIFFICULT time which is why I am going to get some help ASAP!!

If my daughter did the same a long time ago we would not be in this situation!

It takes guts and honesty with yourself to know you are struggling and so take the appropriate steps for your own self care and reach out for help , it also takes self love tbh which she sadly lacks ie to know you are WORTH IT but to also be vulnerable an unproud ( if that's a word ) to ask for and seek help!! xx

I can only say one thing. Steal the dog. Poor little mite. If they will treat a dog like that, what will they not do to a child? Especially if he has a meltdown - what will they do? Lock him in the bedroom? God, there is potential for real danger for your GS in this. I feel for you and hope you get guardianship

Nannynoo, some people have to carry such difficult burdens, I admire the way you are fighting to give your grandson the best possible support. Your daughter is clearly far from well with a boyfriend who is a bad influence. I agree with the poster above that you should not have to oversee the contact sessions they are causing you so much distress. I do hope the RSPCA follows up on the dog, what an awful way to treat it.
I hope you can access some talking therapy, you are the rock for your grandson and hopefully the court hearing will settle things to your satisfaction and you and your grandson can have some stability in your lives.

I think it is a great mistake that the contact visits cannot be supervised by a professional. Your daughter and your grandson will behave differently if you are not there, so it is an artificial situation. Is it totally out of the question for someone else to be there instead of you?
I do hope that you can get some help with counselling or mindfulness - the latter trains you to be in the moment and not worry about the past or future which you cannot control. Take the dog situation - you dealt with it at the time. You reported it to the RSPCA who will try to prevent it happening again, perhaps by education and a warning. You can now put it out of your head. If you should come across that or other situation next time, you will have the courage to deal with it again, but between now and then, worrying will achive nothing. I do so admire your strength and committment, but am concerned that you will wear yourself out by what is going on in your head when you need to be calm and strong for yourself and the littke boy. Much easier said than done, I know only too well.

I'm so sorry you have all this to deal with, nannynoo.

It's very unfair that you have to supervise contact. Surely it should be an unbiased person, as you have asked for.

I hope you can find a counsellor to help you very soon. You really need someone to understand what you are going through in trying to make a good home and life for your DGS.

Try not to think about your D's antagonism to you. Put up a mental wall against it.
Her attitude to you is her own responsibility, not yours.

I hope there is a good outcome to all this, for your grandson.
{{{hugs}}}

If that's they way they treat a dog then they don't have what it takes to deal with a child especially one with your GS's extra needs. You've done the right thing reporting the animal cruelty. It's yet more evidence of their mentality.

It's *** disgusting!

Plus I had to stop her from doing it AGAIN on Saturday so I had no choice in calling the RSPCA as it seems it is a 'normal' occurrance in her house and her live in boyfriend is in full collaboration with it as well

I DO NOT WANT EITHER OF THEM AROUND MY GRANDSON WITHOUT SUPERVISION!!!!!

I could not find my daughter's dog when I was at her house on Wednesday but could faintly hear her whining , so after I looked everywhere I shouted downstairs to my daughter ''where is P?'' and she said ''in the drawer'' ... I could not believe my ears so asked again and she said ''in the drawer'' in what supposed to be my Grandsons room so I COULD NOT BELIEVE I WAS LOOKING FOR A DOG IN A DRAWER , was in shock and felt like it was not REAL but I still could not find her after looking in all the big drawers in the room!

I asked her ''WHICH drawer?'' and she said ''the plastic ones'' so I looked in the big plastic ones and she was not there and then my heart SANK and I was in shock as I opened the TINY narrow drawer and she was IN THERE squashed flat so she could not move with her paws sprawled out beside her , there was no room to move at all and when I took her out she was SHAKING and I had to calm her and I asked my daughter why the hell she would put her dog in a drawer ( let alone the SMALLEST ONE ) and she just said matter of factly ''because if I lock her in the room she poo's in there'' and she said she ''forgot she was there'' but had ''only been there for 5 minutes before I got there'' no remorse , no shame and unfortunately I had not noticed her dog was missing as soon as I got there as I was too tense about how hostile my daughter may be with me after court... So I did not discover her till 20 minutes in so she had been in there for at least 25 minutes if my daughter was not lying about the 5 minutes

Plus she / they would have had to use FORCE to get her into that drawer!

I know it is unusual to share something so traumatic on here but I need to share it as it is not doing me any good to keep it inside

If you are upset by the mistreatment of pets please do not scroll down!!

I need to share this for my own mental health though!

I did not realise how deeply I would be affected , shocked and traumatised by witnessing what I saw re the poor little dog

It is what I am mainly struggling with now , on top of being anxious about the fallout

I think it what has triggered me feeling a bit low and depressed as it was the last straw for me when already dealing with the stress of this situation so no wonder I have been feeling low and I still feel angry and shocked and confused about it as I do not understand why someone ie my own daughter would do something like this!!!

THANK YOU EVERYONE , finding the little dog where I found her and the fact that she was shaking and traumatised REALLY shook me up to the point I think I was actually traumatised by it and it is what has caused my low mood on top of managing very 'difficult' contact

They look to me to manage it and expect me to manage it so will do so as long as I CAN but I know there is going to be a backlash for reporting her to the RSPCA

When I think about some of the things my grandson does I know it is the type of thing which would enrage her

I can't let him be in that environment!

Nannynoo stay strong. Get that help and collect the evidence as someone just suggested. We are all wishing you well through this terrible time.

nannynoo Firstly how lucky is your grandson to have you!

There are soo many, too many, children being neglected in this way.

You are doing the right thing protecting your grandson from that world, totally the right thing. But you must gather evidence, as much as you possibly can, tape conversations on your phone, take pics if you can especially get evidence of how she treated her pet.

EVIDENCE is the key it will save the day.

I wish you the strength you need to save this little boy from the horrors of living the life his Mum wants him to have.

nannynoo I hope that precious little boy continues to benefit most from your care and that he grows up knowing the value of selfless love that you are exampling to him.

So sorry that you are having to fight so many battles for his well-being. You have clearly had to be so very strong for him and you also need your support systems. I hope you do feel you have people close by who can hear you and restore you when you have the inevitable times of feeling drained by it all.

Keep fighting - keep a stout heart - that little boy needs you. I hope justice - and common sense - for his needs prevail.

Oh dear, If they're guilty of pet abuse, that can't be a good environment for gs. Dd may have destroyed her own case.

I agree Silverlining am going to be looking into some weekly counselling for myself from next week

It is at the 'difficult' stage of things even though it has always been difficult it is pretty intense now! Lol

Worse thing is to top it all I had to report her for pet abuse today as she will not listen to me or see it is wrong what she is doing to her poor little dog and today I saw it wasn't a one off but a regular thing so I HAD to put a stop to it for the poor little dogs sake!

Her boyfriend is in co-agreement with the pet abuse as well which is worrying and on top of what I have reported he ''gives her a tap'' but when angry with her for having accidents indoors so am not sure how hard that 'tap' would be , a big mans hand on a tiny chihuahua!!

So I have the backlash of THAT to look forward to now as they will know it was me but I tried telling her it was WRONG but she did not seem to recognise or accept it was wrong ( let alone against the law!! )

So I could do without the pet abuse stuff on top of everything else but the reality is IT HAPPENED and nearly happened again today till I stopped it but I feel she / they will not listen to me so I had no other option but to report her / them to the RSPCA who are taking it seriously!

supervised contact would allow the supervisor to observe relationship between the mother and son which would be very helpful in deciding where and with whom he lives.
Try and get some support fir yourself nannie. If you make yourself ill it wont help and could affect your application for residency.

Given all the background about your DD, I hope that you are successful and keep him with you nannynoo you sound to be doing a wonderful job with him under really difficult circumstances.?