This could be long but here goes.
My sister had a daughter, her and her ex split up, he was in and out of prison and my sister fell into drug abuse. She really wasn't a good parent to her little girl and would often go on benders, sometime taking her daughter with her to a friend's house and her and the friend would get wasted and the kids would send for themselves.
The daughter did not have a good life. We tried to step in, contact the school, social services etc but no one was interested.
One weekend when the dad was out of prison my sister took her little girl round, dropped her off and went out on a bender. When she returned a week or possibly weeks later the dad said she couldn't have her back and he kept her at his mum's with him. Rightly so at the time.
Fast forward a couple of years with very sporadic contact, my niece still lives with her dad and his new partner. They have issues of their own and social services involvement but niece is looked after.
My sister got off drugs. Went to court hot access and was allowed to see her daughter supervised my either me or our other sister. She became pregnant again and social services immediately became involved.
Then she started dealing drugs, of course for caught and and when the dad found put he stopped contact again.
It has now been 18 months, she received a suspended sentence, had her baby who social services are supporting her with but they are happy with her care.
She went back to court for access to her first daughter and was allowed to write to her, building up to phone calls and eventually supervised contact.
However she is pregnant again. When she told her first daughter this in a letter she has got upset and said she doesn't want to write any more.
My sister is going crazy, pestering the social worker, trying to get our other sister to talk to her on her behalf, talking of going to court again.
I think it's time she accepts that her daughter doesn't want contact for now and leave communication open for when/if she does change her mind but I don't know what to suggest to her.
Our other sister had regular contact with our niece but I am not allowed because I was supervising contact at the time my sister got raided for drug dealing and nieces dad thinks I knew about it an lied to him. (I didn't know and wasn't involved but he doesn't believe it).
So how can my sister let go, what should she do next?
I think counselling would be a start?
My niece is 10 now.
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When to stop fighting for a child.
49 replies
DextroDependant · 22/02/2018 11:40
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