AIBU - child maintenance

[babynumber2onboard]

Dear MNers

I have a little issue with my 8 years old son's Dad. We haven't been together since my DS was around 2 years old. Since then, we have had an arrangement where we have DS for half the week each. I started claiming child maintenance from him 2 years ago, and the CSA decided that due to the amount of time he spends with him, he has to pay £116 a month.

For the last 2 years, DS received free school dinners (not because of low income, but a council initiative. This year, I have had to start paying for them. DS never eats the food that the school serve, so I give him packed lunches on the days that he is with me. His father makes him have school dinners. So far, I have paid £150 for the school dinners which he is having on the days when he is with his father (this is alongside me paying for the packed lunch ingredients).

I asked his father today if he could start paying for the dinners which DS has on the days he is with him. He replied that he gives me £116 a month so that is him being financially responsible for his son, and that should cover all food, clothes, drinks, days out, which DS does throughout the year.

I pay for DS to go to cubs, and all the trips and camps which they do there, and his father doesn't take him to any group activity.

Am I being unreasonable in asking for him to contribute to the dinner money?

Focussing on the most important issue, could you have a word with his teacher to discuss his lunch requirements and 'see' what is and isn't working?

Maybe see if you can get something recorded and in writing to determine what you already know full well, that there's a child who will go hungry if the parent in charge of him on each day doesn't supply a packed lunch.

See if they could raise an 'action plan' to be monitored and any patterns noted and reported back to you and possibly even any school welfare officers - maybe an informal meeting with both of you.

This might get it into your ex's thick head that HE NEEDS A PACKED LUNCH every day and that he is being a negligent parent in not providing this. Work may well need to be done to increase the lad's repertoire and tolerance of more foods, but plonking an unliked plate in front of them in a packed lunch hall every day is NOT going to be the way to solve this.

As for expecting you to send your son to him with a packed lunch, he does realise that children need to be given hot meals (whatever they will eat) on a regular basis, doesn't he? Is he really expecting the boy to only eat sandwiches in the evening and nothing at lunch time?

He should be paying for the school dinner when he has his son. Stop paying it and he can decide whether to pay for school dinner or do a packed lunch.

Just contact the school, explain the situation and stop paying for his school lunches. If the csa see fit that he pays that amount then whenever he is with his father, his father pays. Did the csa take into consideration Cubs and after school clubs? If that’s not the case then he should pay 50% of that too