To want to know where my children have been?

[BaconDouble]

I have a very difficult relationship with my mum (as does my brother) and it has been decided it is best for her just to see my children, Ds 3yrs and DD 1yr.

She asked to have the children for a few hours yesterday and when collecting them i asked what they would be doing, her response was 'seeing friends and going out for lunch'. She lives an hour away but used to live in the area so has friends here but no base as such to take the children to.

She collected the children at 9.30am and returned them at 4pm, no call or text in that time to let me know when they would be home and i have had no details of what they did other than the children were good. AIBU to want to know what they did for 6 1/2 hours?

I wouldn't be happy either letting my children go off with someone I wasn't prepared to have a relationship with myself. Especially if the reason was they're controlling and bullyish. It sends funny messages to the children anyway. (You don't like her enough to spend time with her, but you allow them to be with her). I would work on sorting your own relationship with her out before you let your children go off with her alone.

I have dropped contact withy mother but she's still my dd's grandmother and dd loves her but I have set rules that have to be followed if she wants to see dd. She needs to ASK to see dd x day at x time. A brief itinerary and a set drop off time. Any badmouthing of me or bringing dd into our differences or telling dd to keep a secret from me means contact is revoked until she apologises but with the knowledge that if it happens again she won't see dd again.

It helps I suppose that dd is 7 so can tell me what they got up to although mostly its watching tv and eating sweets.

She is telling your child not to tell you things - essential things, such as where he's been.

Far from you having a break when she's got them, you actually can't do anything because you don't know when they'll be back.

I wouldn't let my children go out with anyone who tells them to keep their whereabouts a secret. I think she sounds dangerously into mind games. This will only get worse as your children get bigger. You don't know - she could be persuading them they want to live with her if she has access them for a few years.

Completely depends, if it was my mum I couldn't give a monkeys what they'd been doing. If it was a person I was a little less trusting of then I'd want to know.

Agree with those saying not to let her have unsupervised access to the children.

Either let her see them, for short periods of time, while you (or your partner?) are there, or if you can't handle that, she'll have to not see them until things have improved between you.

Am I reading this wrong. Your 3 year old said he wasn't talking anymore, it doesn't mean your mother told him to say this right? My 4 year old says this all the time because he'd rather be playing than answering my questions.

I also disagree that if you cannot have a relationship with your mother your children can't, I think it depends on the reasons why. Sometimes couples split, or people don't get on with parents in law, but it doesn't mean the people aren't still good to the children.

I only ever saw one set of GPs with a parent present. The GPs were always nice to us, but had been toxic, abusive parents and am glad my parents limited contact. Had we spent time with them alone , even if they'd been nice, this would've later made us feel disloyal to the parent who had suffered, iyswim?

Always think it's sad and wrong when GPs are keen to see GCs lots but not their own child.

Bacon - she might be all lovely with the DC now, but she turned on you in your teens and there's every reason to predict she will do the same to your DC so why put them in the position where they can be built up by her only to be knocked down? There's a certain type of bullying controlling, it's all about me, person who loves to get admiration from young children and cannot bear it when they get their own minds. If her behaviour is so bad that your DB has decided that neither he nor his DC will ever see her and you cannot see her, you really are setting up your DC for a fall when she turns her difficult behaviour onto them, don't feel guilty about saving them from future strife.

I agree with Eurostar. At the moment, the grandchildren are easy to control and they clearly like their grandmother. What's going to happen when they question what she says?

I absolutely agree with Eurostar and ImperialBlether. The more of a relationship they have with her now, the more hurt they will be when it falls to pieces. And I do mean "when" - it's not an "if", it's a "when".