outings

she was never that harsh before she married sil. she has had a upsetting marriage and yes she is still grieving ,sil died last sept of multi organ failure ,due to serious heart probs and pancreatitis.. sil in was hard work for her..i never found out about any problems tll last christmas when she sobbed in my arms that their marriage was failing.sil told me never to interfere in his marriage, so they never told me anything. yes i know my daughter is grieving very much and everything is getting on top of her. she pushes anyone away esp me that tries to help.today we had a meeting with her social worker for other reasons hoarding and children growth. so yes she has had a lot to deal with. i know grief can make you un stable and angry. but she gets angry with me and no one else ,as she knows i wont fight back.if i do say something i get hurt and upset...so i say nothing.

i really value all your comments on here. and if you dont mind will make some notes for the next meeting with her.am taking the gc out on monday to boot fair....i also have agreed with her social worker to have counciling with my d and me in the future,.. i have to get to the root of this. .it upsets me so much that i cant give them treats .but she has said i can give them milk and biscuit in the afternoon about 2pm.so i give them a big cookie and a cup of milk. d says only 2 inches of milk. so i give them more than that. i agree the food she gives them is not enough for growing children...they are not allowed snacks in between meals.i tend to give them a few more items ,like strawberries/cheese/bag of quavers/ a few jelly sweets. gs has learnt to say nothing when questioned by his mum abt what he has had, but gd tells all. so another telling off for me. because they had a little tub of icecream while at seaside they dont get anymore treats for another week.its driving me nuts...

no monica i am not insane.my gc never go anywhere..........in all my gs 6 yrs he never been on holiday. they never been to the beach till this year when d took them to see a friend at the coast. then they were not allowed on the rides or the amusements, they did paddle in the sea for 5 minutes but they had all their clothes on.,and they had roughly the same lunch as they do every day.

thankyou absent. this is what i told my daughter .she lets me have them for the day. she trusts me to look after them ,and i do. so i should be able to take them out for the day. she has given me her permission by letting me have them for the day.

i did communicate with her and she chose to ignore me. what else was i expected to do. she knew we was going out for the day, she trusted me with her children. i have taken gs out everywhere since he was 1 yr old.then gd when she was 2 yrs( she was clingy to mum before that) so when she turned 3 i had both of them all day. now she is 4 we can go out places ,alice does trust me.she told me so today...

yes i can swim. whats that got to do with anything? yes i let the children paddle and make sandcastles and look for crabs in the shallow rock pools.d knows my brother lives at seaside. we never took our eyes off gc the whole time we were there. he carried them over the stones to the water. we had a lovely day. still no communication from mum.she trusts me entirely to look after her children. she knows i will guard them with my life.they held my hands the whole time. they went on roundabouts and trampolines,they had a few cheesy chips as an extra from their small packed lunch.. in all they had a lovely day. yes i know i was in the wrong for not asking permission.before we left home. but after no commincation when i text her ,we got on the train and went to the seaside.

You're telling your GC to HIDE things from their mother?

This is COMPLETELY unacceptable. If you think your GC aren't being looked after properly, you need to report to Social Services. If you're teaching them that it's okay to keep secrets from Mum you're setting them up to be at risk for all kinds of abuse.

You have a very problematic relationship with your daughter - it all seems rather complex and you both need counselling from someone not involved.
The problem of the day was that you deliberately hid the fact that you were going to the seaside from her because you knew she would say no to it. Until you can get out of that sort of dysfunctional relationship things won't improve. That is generally the sort of thing that a teenager does when they know their mother will disapprove and not the sort of thing a mother does with an adult daughter who has children of her own.

moggie57, I really feel for you - with that extra information it's obvious that there are big problems in your daughter's life as she does not feed the children properly (they are not growing) and is also a hoarder which must be pretty severe if social workers are involved with that too. I can see that you were desperate to give the children some joy and pleasure in their lives. I really think I would be the same as you as I feel like crying just reading about their sad little lives. I hope that things improve for them and consequently for you but your daughter would have to change a lot by the sound of it for their lives to be normal - it's a terribly sad situation for all of you. MIL is probably of the same ilk as your SIL was so possibly the controlling behaviour might be continuing in his absence?

Has your daughter had an experience herself as a child that has made her protective of her children...or maybe because we have extensive news coverage she is aware of the terrible things e.g. terrorist attacks that can happen. The world was a different place when our children were young. My son only said a while back that he considers himself lucky to be a child of the 80's, as they seem to be the last generation that played outside.
I don't think going behind her back has helped things. All relationships is about trust, but I think you realise that now.

Your daughter is still grieving. Start supporting her and stop undermining her! She needs to feel supported right now and you are doing the opposite by challenging her on everything. If my mother did that to me after I had lost my husband (regardless of any problems in the marriage) I wouldn't even want to see her.

You see your grandchildren every Sunday and for a day in the holidays, that's more than most. I remember your previous thread and if I recall correctly a lot of posters pointed out that yes she was spending a lot of time with her MIL but they've both lost a person very close to them, you weren't as close to him, that is something they share.

Also, you cannot demand your daughter spends more time with you than her MIL, if they get on well and enjoy spending time together then that's a good thing, your daughter has family support.

I wonder who is going to arrange and pay for the mother - daughter counselling the social worker is suggesting? Preventive/supportive services are pretty much non existent unless the children's situation is raising very serious concerns.
The drip drip of information about the lives these children, culminating in a reference to the meeting between the OP, her daughter and the social worker confirms there's much more to this than a grandmother taking her grandchildren on a banned trip to the seaside.

Eating problems, bereavement, gran feeding the children all manner of things she knows her daughter doesn't allow, taking them on a day trip to somewhere she's been explicitly told not to do. Expecting that the children will keep secrets about what they do, what they eat when at grandmothers house, from their mother.
OP please don't see the relationship with the 'other' grandparents as some kind of competition. Try and be honest with your daughter, in a non confrontational way. Grandparents are very important in the lives of children and its clear your daughter needs love and support from her mother. I hope some kind of talking therapy is made available for the two of you and that it's helpful.

I wouldn't have my grandchildren go hungry, they would be given enough food to sustain them.

I agree MissA, the idea of children not being fed properly is distressing and no one who is 'o.k.' would do this. I'm assuming that's one of the reasons social workers are involved. My point was about the very difficult relationship between the OP and her daughter.

I agree, iam.
It was just a general comment about going behind mums back.
I couldn't stick to a rule which meant they weren't eating enough.

Ok glad we cleared that up Miss A. What a difficult situation for the children in the middle of this as well as for the adults.

Agreed. Hope the OP's daughter can get the right sort of support; it sounds pretty complex.

I wonder if the OPs DD has had issues with her weight? Or perhaps feels like she was over fed as a child? It could be where the food issues stem from. I think rather than going behind her back it would be better to sit down with her and look at healthy portion sizes, maybe it is somewhere in the middle of what you and your daughter think.

I've just had a look at DDs cup, a couple of incessant of milk would be a few ounces, along with a large cookie would be plenty of milk for a snack. You don't need to give more than that.

Also, you don't need to give children treats that often, I only let DD have two treats a week, of the cake/chocolate/ice cream variety, other than that I give her fruits like orange or strawberries, healthier and still sweet enough to feel like a treat.

Don't teach the children to hide things from their mom, it's not good. And creates the impression to the children that their mom is doing something wrong.

But that so-called lunch....

two small tomatoes/2 pieces cucumber /6 grapes each ./2 crackers.. thats it and water to drink..

To me, that’s not a meal. I’d be seriously worried about this. I hope the children are of school age or go to a nursery where they are fed.

The children aren't being given large enough meals.
Its that simple.
No way on this earth would I go along with keeping them hungry.

I hope you can take them out again and buy them a good lunch moggie (wherever you go)
and icecream

sorry, I should have read all the posts before commenting - there is a lot that needs to be resolved in this case.

But in the meantime, the children are under-nourished and their well-being is critical.

As Newmom101 says, a cup of milk and a biscuit is fine for a snack. But that only applies if the children are having three decent meals a day. And they are obviously not.

Oh I totally agree that lunch is too small for children (dependent on child's age obviously, that's fine for a child up to age 3 ish) that's why i wonder if the OP has a tendency (or her DD thinks she does) on over doing portion sizes or treats. Is that what they would eat on a normal day or has she given less because she knows the OP will give extras, and then the children may end up eating too much and being sick.

They could do with sitting down together with a health visitor and covering healthy portion sizes.

Given the information about social work involvement, social work need to be informed about the food issue. The children are being deliberately deprived of food.

This is a potential child protection issue. They already have documented growth issues and the condition of the home (hoarding) is also a recorded issue.

I’m afraid granny slipping a few treats is not going to fix this problem. The scale and details of what is happening to the children need to come to social work’s attention.

It sounds eminently possible that DD is struggling with her mental health and this is adversely affecting her ability to care for the children. SW need to know everything that is going on.