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AIBU?

I'm sure I'll be told this isn't bad enough for SS report but...

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HomeJames · 16/11/2015 17:17

What would you do?

Family member has a somewhat chaotic lifestyle that is impacting on her children. I and other family members have offered help/support but all has been rebuffed as attempts to 'get at her' 'make her feel bad' and 'interfere'. Her usual lines are 'I just don't have the same standards as you/ don't need to be held to your impossibly high standards' or 'I have a different lifestyle but the kids are happy enough'.

She split with the children's dad 2 years ago. Since then, she has had three boyfriends with overlap or a very short gap between relationships starting/ending. The children are introduced to the men straight away and two of them have been moved in to the family home after a month or so. The first one was nice enough. The second was a drug user and we suspected domestic violence. There was definitely a lot of screaming and rowing because neighbours kept telling us about it. We asked them to call the police if they heard anything but they never did, so no opportunities for authorities to get involved that way.

The latest one might be OK, we won't be introduced to him until he moves in probably. She picks the children up every afternoon from after-school club then takes them to his for tea and they sometimes stay the night there. Both children are behind at school and the older one is supposed to attend an early 'catch-up' class most mornings. Because they are out with the boyfriend or at other friends house most nights they have late bedtimes and little time to do any homework. They are also late for school quite often, so none of this helps with their learning. Between us, we're taking it in turns to do the odd pick-up/ breakfast at ours to offer some stability and a decent bedtime, but it's confusing for the children and not always possible with other caring and work responsibilities. We are also starting to worry that we are enabling the behaviour.

Finally, I suspect she may be using drugs herself. When the last boyfriend was living there, I popped over one night (kids all in bed) and they were both stoned and offered me drugs. I don't know if she is still doing this with the new boyfriend, but it might explain some of her mystery 'illnesses' where she cannot get home or get the kids to school and calls on help, and she has lost lots of weight.

House is filthy and smells, but probably not bad enough to be on social services radar. The children don't seem unhappy but they do seem confused about who all these men are, and don't seem to know whether they're coming or going with no routine. I think they're missing out a bit on their education, but perhaps neither of them is behind enough or has SN idenitified, so they're under the radar.

Like I say, we have all offered help, but think the time has come to stop enabling the behaviour because it hurts to watch it. I see a lot of threads on here where SS is suggested but there is a backlash of 'you clearly don't live in the real world, SS have real problems to deal with'. What other options do we have now? School, NSPCC. Kids are too old to be on health visitor radar.

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HomeJames · 16/11/2015 19:42

Thank you. I will call NSPCC. If they recommend talking to school, I will mention that to another family member who has done more school drop offs than me and might be better placed.

By the way, I don't think the children would or should be removed at all. I just think that she isn't accepting help from us and having someone with more authority point out that this isn't good and offer her some help (counselling maybe) is what she needs.

I appreciate that smoking weed is not a big deal in the scheme of things, but it does tend to make habitual users less motivated to say clean up or adhere to a routine. I know it takes me all the will in the world sometimes to gett supper on/ tidy up/ do the never ending stream of pickups, tea times and bathtimes. THat is with being a very boring person who is in most nights and therefore easily able to offer a stable routine.

Also for the record, she did not have an unstable childhood where this sort of thing was the norm. But I guess that means that she possibly has no insight into how detrimental it could be. I think she views herself as 'fun' and the rest of us as 'square and boring'. She thinks I have changed and become boring and 'turned into my mum' because I outgrew my wild early 20s, stopped drinking and partying and got married/had kids. I suppose my ideas of how to bring up children with stability etc is closer to my parents idea than to hers. I just don't think what she is doing can be passed off as a valid 'lifestyle choice'.

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