Advice please.

How sad for all of you. Be assured if the school your Gc are in felt there was a problem they would act upon it and are duty bound through safeguarding. As said above they couldn’t give any info out. Each child has a UPN ( unique pupil number) and this will have been given to a new school and schools share information about new pupils. This number was established so children don’t just disappear from the system or appear with no background.

The CAB will give you accurate advice. I would be very wary about a police welfare check as although names are never given it wouldn’t take a genius for him to think it was you.

All you can do for now is look after yourself and your husband. You don’t say how old the children are but they are together and in time things may change. It may be you could also send copies of the letters you have written via your solicitor to his, to be given to the children if anything changes in their family circumstances, as their Guardian.

Love and prayers ?

debohun You mentioned about being unable to lay your daughter to rest. One possibility that might give a little comfort is to plant something (rose/daffodils whatever resonates for you) somewhere significant/accessible to you, and visit there to remember your daughter over time. Another possibility that might help is a small corner with photo/candle/fresh flowers(or something right for you) in your home. Some people find a special notebook where they regularly write to the person who has died, has helped them to manage their grief when they have been unable to lay them to rest. Everyone is different and there is no right or wrong way to grieve but in your difficult situation finding a gentle alternative to the laying to rest just might help your pain a little bit

Thank you Willow500.

Such a tragic situation for you to be in. Not only grieving for your precious daughter and being unable to lay her ashes to rest but also losing contact with your grandchildren which you obviously had had up to their mother's passing. Coping with work and looking after your ill husband on top of everything else must be unbearable.

I have no advise to offer other than what others have said. Please take care of yourself - one day the children may need you.

Thank you Newmom101. Thank you also MissAdventure.

Unfortunately OP, if a grandparent rang the school I could not even confirm the children attended, even if you knew they did. If you don't have parental responsibility or a court order you can't be told anything.

It's to be to protect children from abusive family members (including their own parents in some situations) who may call to find out information.

You could try a police welfare check if you know the address. They won't say who contacted and won't be able to give you any other information other than they visited the house and whether they have taken any further action. They won't give details but it may give you peace of mind to know someone has made contact.

If the school has any concerns they should (and generally schools are very good at this) report everything. Including things like children coming in unwashed, in dirty clothes, mentioning they haven't been fed etc. With recent cases of children that have been abused most schools are cracking down on reporting everything, then when the situation reaches social services threshold for involvement they get involved.

So sorry..

Thank you everyone for all your love, kind wishes, words and advice I will not now write to the school as I can see it will not do any good and as you say they will probably be obliged to inform him of my correspondence and therefore make matters worse. I have already prepared the letters so I am keeping them and putting them away so that if and when we see the children when they are older and are able to understand they can see we did care about them. I am still loathe to go down the SS route as we have no proof of any harm coming to them and we do not know if that will open a can of worms either. We may still go down the Court route but I cannot do that whilst my husband is so ill. I will start by going to CAB when we eventually do try to sort this mess out. Once again we come to spring when soon the bluebells will be in full bloom and my daughter;s ashes should be scattered in local woods near us as per the instructions in her will. I am not even going to know if he is going to scatter them this year and if he does he will not even inform me about when where or if he is going to do it. We sent him a Solicitors letter last year asking him if he still retains her ashes. He replied via his Solicitor that he did still retain her ashes but was not going to do it 2018 He also whilst we
were hostile towards him. I cannot believe he said that as we have not had any contact with him since September 2017. He knows apart from keeping our GC from us not laying our daughter to rest is also one of the most painful things he can do to us. Its all about hurting us in the most painful way he can. I am thinking of reducing my hours at work I will just have to see if my Manager will agree to it. I am actually named as the children's guardian in my daughters Will but of course I still do not have any rights unless he passes too. Obviously I do not want that to happen despite what a nasty piece of work he is and I know that the children love him unconditionally he is all that they have after all. This is why we have to be careful to not rock the boat. We just want to have contact with them, speak to them have good times with them be involved in their lives and help and comfort them through any difficulties. What support have they had so far. I just dont know. It is the not knowing that is getting to me. Sorry I do tend to go on and on.

Citizens Advice/legal advice seem to be good starting points deb.

The fact that the children’s father and his family drink heavily means that the children may not be safe all the time, that’s why I mentioned SSs or NSPCC before. It’s worth taking legal advice as to the advisability of this route.

You made a promise to your daughter to look out for the children, and you are clearly trying to do that. The children’s mother obviously knew the situation and wanted her own parents to be there to support her children.
Please try not to despair, there are some good and well meant suggestions on this thread. Please keep trying via these routes to establish contact with your grandchildren. I know that when children have had very regular contact and support from grandparents and they suddenly have it withdrawn, the law and SSs view is normally that the children benefit from continuing that contact.

I wish you good luck, and I send you love.

I think I would try taking legal advice first, from someone specialising in family law.
Then I would decide from there whether to pursue things.

This is a terrible situation to be in. The only advice I can offer is that you re visit your GP and ask for some counselling service. There is always hope that one day your GC will knock on your door and you do need to be around. The school would not be able to give you any confidential infomation regarding your GC. It is very difficult to see what can be done apart from taking legal advice. You do mention the problems but really this is the only way forward in this instance if you want to get some sort of contact before the GC reach maturity.In the meantime get some help for yourself so that you can cope with this extremely difficult situation.

debohunXL5 l know others are saying you should leave this alone but in your situation, I don't think I'd be able to do nothing.
I would try citizen's advice first of all. They can give you access to legal advice and also counselling.
It sounds as if keeping you away from those children, when your daughter specifically begged you to care for them, amounts to cruelty.

That is all so hard debohun I can't begin to understand how you must be feeling.
You are in danger of being overwhelmed by all your problems, try taking one step at a time, could you reduce your working hours so you can be with your husband more ?
I would invest in some legal advice from a specialist in this area and see where you stand.
Grammaretto had some good advice, could you talk to anyone in your son in law's family. Keep contact with your grandchildren in whatever way you can. Don't give up, you never know when things may change and you will need to be there for the children

Another sympathetic response from agnurse I see.

If you do nothing else deb, try to get some help and support for yourself. Maybe you would find bereavement councelling helpful, or a group for estranged grandparents.

for you deb.

I'm sorry, I didn't say how sad this is, or how much I feel for you. I just wanted to get some information to you. I hope all this resolves itself soon. Love to you.

I'm sorry about the loss of your daughter. As for your SIL, no, you can't ask the school for details. That's confidential. It's also unreasonable to ask SIL's family to be a go-between. If you have no information that the children are being abused, I wouldn't go to SS either. The most you can do is wait and attempt to contact the children when they are of age.

This is one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. I feel so much for you deb. You have lost your beloved daughter and now you’re losing your beloved grandchildren. To be honest, it’s not an easy route, but I think I would contact either, or both, NSPCC and Social Services. Social Services could visit the family, given that their mother has recently died, to see if the family need any ‘help’ or ‘support’ but I’m not sure they’d give you any feedback on how the children are even if they did visit. The regular drinking should concern SS though.
I cannot express how sad I feel for you, your husband, and your poor grandchildren who have lost both their mother and grandparents. I’m so sorry to be so little help.

BlueBelle, thank you. Yes he has moved near them. He moved in with them until he found a place to rent. He pulled the children out of school in my area two weeks before end of summer term. GD missed her first sports day. I go to Compassionate friends and draw strength from them but they also have such sad stories to tell. It can be heartbreaking to here them. I haven't as yet found anyone with the same story as me though. We have looked into how much it would cost and the complexity of it all and have sought advice from others and most people have said to not go down the court route. Seeing as my husband is in such ill health at the moment I just dont think either of us are in the right place or have the strength to fight him. I do not want to say what he does for a living but he is in a good position to make things very difficult for us and he has my daughter's insurance money to do it. If he has anything left of course. He was never good with money and was in debt up to his eyeballs when my daughter passed.

Grammaretto I sent GC easter cards to SIL's family address as they now live in same area and would be seeing them, with some money inside. They wrote back to me to tell me not to send any correspondence to their address for SIL and GC. They obviously condone his decision to not letting us have access. Why are they not thinking of the children. SIL was happy for us to have them one day a week every week, have them for sleepovers and take them on holiday with us. We are good loving GPs and have helped them enormously with child care. I took time off work when my daughter was near the end so that he could have precious time with her and I looked after the GC. It was a very difficult time and with hindsight I wish I had spent more time with my dying daughter. Sorry to keep on I am just so frustrated.

Oh dear this gets worse the more you write I don’t have any positive advice for you but can you connect with a support group for this kind of thing it may be you get support and help from others In a similar situation
I think I would find the money to see a solicitor even if it’s only to log the details you have given and to give letters and or money for the children if anything were to happen to either of you
It sounds an awful situations and so worrying if the other grandparents aren’t nice people has he moved near them ?

I think why this is playing on my mind is that when DD was first diagnosed she pleaded with me to look after her children and said this on many occasions. She had no faith that SIL would look after them properly as he had little to do with them and would ignore them most of the time. I cannot sleep and things go over and over in my head. Like one other GN I have contemplated suicide to end this turmoil and be with my DD. The only thing stopping me is that my husband needs me and so do my other C and GC. Doctors wont give me any sleeping tablets. I am still working full time and am torn between working and staying at home to look after my husband as his health has taken a dive recently.

Thanks Gonegirl I will look at these sites.Newmom101 Surely if I am only asking for their wellbeing it would be ok. I am not asking for an address or phone number. Supposing they are concerned about their welfare will they take action? I know in an deal world they would but there are hundreds of children at school they may miss something. There have been other cases where things have been missed. SIL's family are all drinkers. My daughter used to worry so much when he took them to see them. When they visited they never played with the children and on one occasion ignored GS when he fell off park apparatus and was crying. They just walked by. I am just so worried for them. He has written via Solicitor to tell us not to contact him direct. How can we do that anyway when we do not know where he lives. What is also heartbreaking is that he still has my daughter;s ashes in his possession. She would hate to be there and before any one says she would want to be with her children she wouldn't want them to be there either.

Thanks for sharing this difficult background story.
The children probably are all right. I would hope that as they are at a good school ( your words) who know the circumstances, anything untoward would be picked up. Unless I am very naiive.
Does SiL have any family? Would it be possible to approach him via his parents or siblings after all, we on here understand your suffering so presumably others will too.

Debohun again, I'm so sorry, but have no advice.
Such a sad time you've had and are still having..

Thank you everyone. Jusnoneed Yes I do know, or I suspect the reason. In January 2017 when my daughter was desperately ill and dying I confronted him about his behaviour and treatment of her. When she was first diagnosed with C in September 2016 we were told it was terminal and chemo would have little chance of success. My daughter gave SIL the option to leave if he could not cope with the situation. He decided to stay. On one of the Oncology appointments we had such bad news and I said to my son-in-law please look after my daughter and he assured me he would. I know living with someone with cancer can be awful and with two young children doubly so. I had expected my daughter to say that he was being so good, looking after the children so that she could rest etc., Instead she was crying about his behaviour towards her, How he was leaving the children with her and she couldn't cope. How he was being awkward at every turn. Not passing on messages from the CCU that she had infections and what to do about it. I work full time but tried to help out as much as I could. DH is disabled so could offer little help other than driving DD to hospital on numerous occasions when Temp was high. One day he dropped her off at our house for me to accompany her for her chemo session and she sobbed her heart out for the whole journey to hospital and could only tell me the problem once at CCU. It was his nasty behaviour yet again. To be honest we had tried to keep out of their problems but enough was enough I told my daughter that if an opportunity arose I would try to discuss things with him to see how else we could help. This came in january after I had taken GS to get some new school shoes and we were alone in the kitchen. He just stood and shook his head and then started shouting at me barged into the lounge and told the GC to get their shoes on. Both started crying. We did make up for my daughter's sake but he obviously did not like me challenging him. After my daughter passed a couple of months later which she spent mostly in hospital he then would not communicate with me at all. Wrote me nasty letters which I did not respond to and only let me see the children on those two afternoons with the proviso that I didn't speak to him. We thought about the Court route and mediation but the costs are too great and besides this my husband is in ill health and to deal with all this and with SIL would probably finish him off and I cannot lose him. He is my rock. SIL would make things as difficult and as awkward as possible. Plus because of his mental state I dont want to push him over the edge because he is sole carer for my grandchildren and I am sure in later years they wouldn't thank me. DD wouldn't leave him because she was scared of what he might do to himself and maybe Children. We just want to know they are ok.