My brother has hidden my nephews rugby playing...

[touchrugby]

Asking for my brother - I think he’s in a mess and I need to tell him what to expect and how unreasonable he was. Interested to hear from other divorced parents and sports teachers/ school administrators. I’ve tried to give as much context as possible.

My brother got divorced 4 years ago. They have (had?) an amicable coparent relationship- there was no cheating or unkindness in either side. My brother just became obsessed with giving his family a good life and he worked a lot of hours. When he wasn’t working he was a very engaged parent- my nephew is hugely sporty and they were always off doing sports- swimming, tennis, football, cross country etc. Ex SIL was a SAHP but eventually got frustrated (with justification) at never seeing her husband so went back to work and divorced him. They share 50/50 custody with my brother as the higher earner paying all DNs expenses.

My brother really wanted nephew to go to this very nice private school. To facilitate this he pays all the fees. It’s a great academic school so ex SIL was pretty happy-except for the sport. They’re a big rugby school and she was adamant that DN not play rugby due to injury risks. There was a big argument about it, with my brother and DN really wanting rugby, and her adamant that he wouldn’t play.

The school offers non contact rugby and eventually they agreed DN would do that. DN is in year 9 now and it’s recently come out that he switched to full contact rugby in the 3rd week of year 7 and SIL didn’t know. It’s come out because he’s recently been made captain of the A team and a few mums congratulated her.

It seems he hated the non contact team. He’s very gifted with sport and apparently it was a team of lads who just wanted to run around for a few hours and throw a ball. The school put little effort into it and there were no matches. He asked to switch to “proper” rugby and the school said they needed a parent to approve it- and my brother did.

His argument is that his son wanted it, the school did email SIL as well, and it’s been 2.5 years.
Her argument is that he knew her stance, he also knows she’s a bit disorganised and rarely reads emails especially ones about sport which she know my brother manages (she has over 10,000 unread emails on her phone!) and that my brother conspired to hide it.

She has a very valid point about the conspiring. She has a new partner. He works Saturdays so my brother used to have DN every Friday night so they could see each other, and he’d then take him to Sat morning matches before dropping him at SILs Sat evening. Brother and DN have both, in 2.5 years, managed not to say anything to her about his rugby which is obviously duplicitous, especially considering how good he is. Brother just managed all the kit and the washing and the games and it apparently never came up in conversation.

Shes utterly furious and is going to the school Monday to tell them to remove him from rugby. Brother planning on going to the school to tell them to keep him in rugby. DN is apparently going to refuse to return to his mums house unless she agrees to the rugby and is determined to continue.

I’ve maintained a good friendship with SIL. In many ways I’m closer her than my brother as I see her more (he’s still a workaholic in his non parenting time so he’s hard to get hold of!) I heard about the odd match but nothing specific, I assumed it was non contact and frankly don’t know anything about rugby anyway. She’s very unhappy with our family as obviously our parents knew as well. My dad watches half the matches!

Does anyone know what the school might do? My brother and nephew are digging their heels in and saying he’ll live full time at my brothers and my brother will therefore get full parental responsibility. I think this is rubbish and not legal. I am worried that a nice coparenting relationship is ruined and that SIL might lose my nephew. He loves his mum but he’s obsessed with sport and apparently A team captain at a school like his is a BIG deal. He’s already playing some 2nd eleven matches as well which is also apparently important. I don’t know how to feel about what my brother did. He has absolutely supported what DN wanted. My nephew is so happy playing rugby and so good at it and still uninjured, and it’s the game played by 90% of the school. She knew sending him there that if he didn’t play rugby he’d be a bit isolated but she will not have it.

Frankly I think there’s fault on both sides, but on balance how much more unreasonable was my brother and what the hell might happen next?

Agreed. If ever there was going to be something that makes him dig his heels in, it's going to be his mum "insisting" he walks away from A team captaincy together with all the humiliation that will bring him at school.

All 3 of them have behaved badly. I agree with PPs that she should engage with the school and find out what they're doing to ensure the safety of the pupils as much as possible.

However this child's mother has not consented to this child playing contact rugby. She has assessed the risks, decided that she considers them too great and said no.

But she also ignored all communication from the school for two years - she doesn't know that there hasn't been multiple e-mails home about it in that time.

For lots of schools, they don't need two lots of parental consent - if dad said it's okay then they'll consider that sufficient.

This, in spades. This is dad's responsibility to sort out, ideally without severing his son's relationship with his mother, who has been backed into a corner by their deception.

The fact he's now 14, the courts would simply ask the nephew what he wants.

Far better she just admits she didn't read her emails.

Fwiw my own dd did this to me, the I'm only playing touch rugby to I'm playing full rugby!

Sorry OP but this is bollocks & your SIL is spinning you a yarn.

Even if what you say is true about parents evening, you have said Games is mandatory therefore it will be listed on his progress reports so obviously she hasn’t been reading those either.

It's probably been already said but the concussion protocol is something that the RFU has handed down to clubs and schools so that they know what is expected of them should anyone complain about a head injury or be on the receiving end of a bad knock as they are playing.
It's to prevent someone returning to play if they have a concussion and what schoolboy will know what a concussion feels like? They just wont so their coaches and managers have the tools to stop them returning to play too soon, or even at all.

Lots of people get dementia. My mum had it and never played rugby. My dad did play rugby and never had it. You just cannot know.

American football is totally and utterly different to rugby in terms of risk. I wouldn't let DS play AF. It's been proven to be extremely dangerous for their bodies.
I have no worries about him playing rugby. I know kids who've broken bones falling out of trees, playing football, hitting their heads on radiators doing stupid jumps - that's life; boys are prone to doing these things.
Without sport he'd be miserable. The MH aspect matters too.
And before anyone jumps on me, I work for an MND organisation. The evidence of causality from rugby is still not there - people just think it is.

Your SIL created this situation. She didn’t want her son to play rugby, despite the fact her teenage son really wanted to. He’s playing a sport not taking drugs. She should have supported him especially as this is something he is gifted in.
she needs to move on and support her son or she will lose him. She’s putting herself first in all of this.

Not great how it’s come about but Mum should have been on it with school info . Year 9 is when kids really start to make their own decisions and grow in confidence in my experience - choosing sport , choosing GCSE subjects etc Mum may not like it - but she will do so much damage if she tries to stop her son playing a sport he’s so good at . The captaincy itself is awesome for his development.

Strong willed kids do what they want - foolish to put them in the position where they feel they have to lie about it

For me I feel like lying is such a hugely shitty thing to do, the subject and reasoning is almost irrelevant.

Your brother has involved your son in deceit, and if someone (even kid’s dad) had put my child in a position to lie to me like that for years, I’d be raging. She’s not only coming to terms with her child engaging in something that she is scared of, but also processing how deep the lies go with someone she was amicable and trusting with.

All this talk of “she might lose her son” also needs to be knocked on the head by your brother. He needs to be clear with his son that there will be no running away from his mum over an argument about a sport, it shouldn’t be an option. The mum’s anger and upset is from being bullshitted. All this “she didn’t read the email” well, she has him all week and seemingly does all the rest of the school admin, and the brother does the sport admin, surely that’s fair? We’re always talking about the unfairness of the mental load, she trusted her ex and son not to lie to her, does scouring through every detail/email/admin to detect lies have to be part of a mum’s mental load, too?

Can’t believe she’s ignored all the emails about this so completely that she didn’t even scan over them, but also all the reports and whathaveyou. She sounds a bit of a twat, quite frankly, only showing any interest in her son when his activities align with her own.
She would be an utter fool to try and stop him now. She’ll lose him for good. And all on the basis of her doing some Googling about American football injuries.. an entirely different sport..

at dn age now ses got no chance of winning in court they take te wises of te child would be a waste of time

she sould just look into it more and how thhey teach rater than a blanket no ten losing er son altogether wic is wat will happen

@touchrugby - you wrote "In fairness to her she's very engaged with his academic and social life. She just handed all sports over to my brother."

If she did that, then I think she's in a difficult spot as she would have deferred to him whether their son was suitable to play in full contact rugby (even having made her opinions known) because the school would have done trials to see if he was suitable and able for the sport, and she was in agreement on sending her son to a 'rugby school' too.

I sent my son to a 'rugby' school and he played some very heavy matches but they had a concussion protocol in place so that if someone took a knock, a substitute went on while checks were done or it would have been similar to a 'sin bin' time off the pitch while the checks were happening. Nothing happened in the 6 yrs of him being at secondary school. I do think she is worrying unnecessarily because unless he's at a whole other level of playing, his sport will finish when he leaves school and he won't go on to a professional rugby playing career.

But, doesn’t she give kids lifts places, take ds and a friend somewhere? I can think of a million ways it would have come into the conversation. And his friends parents would have known, including the music one- the friends would have mentioned he’s super good at rugby, they just do!! I find it impossible to believe that even without the emails she’s not been a rather crappy parent by not knowing this major fact, and by never going to a game. My interest in football is negligible and I’m concerned about the concussion. But I turn up to a game a month as it’s my child and being part of his life.

If your nephew is over 13 the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) deems him to be in control of his own data.
Therefore if he puts in writing to the school that he does not want any information about him, his grades or his activities released to his mother they are legally obliged to deny her all information.

I'm not saying this is the way to go because it is alienating his mother but this does seem a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Why is his mother so anti Rugby?
Wouldn't it be better to address this?

You could do that but the exSIL would look quite silly as the father has consented.

Pp saying the mum must not have engaged with school to not know - depends on the school perhaps. My son is 13 and I go to every parents evening, and whatever else I’m invited to, assemblies and awards etc etc. parents evening is all about numbers and GCSE trajectories, very few details are laid out and you get a few minutes with each teacher - plus you have to queue ages for all of them. Last parents evening I was told that my son had done brilliantly in cross country 🤷‍♀️ which he hadn’t even mentioned. No other sports were mentioned in any great detail, it was more of a “he’s doing brilliantly, makes so much effort in all sports, off you go!” Type thing. I get bombarded with emails from all my kids schools, I think it’s sad to turn this deception round onto the mum for not raking through every detail when they’ve lied to her which is surely the main issue here.

It can also be argued, that despite receiving emails for two and a half years keeping her updated, her failure to object is consent in itself.

I'd imagine that there was rugby talk around her, she just assumed that it was tag rugby and no-one corrected this (why would they, to all intents and purposes, she was aware).

Honestly, it is my national sport so if the boy wants to play let him play. He could get paralysed in a car accident or get dementia anyway.

This should be the child's choice. Personally, I think rugby is a great sport for them to play, teaching lots of people skills and stuff about team building. The school consider the risk to be acceptable and the mother is being over-protective. But ultimately the parents need to sort this out between themselves, and it's not appropriate for other family members to get involved.

I think it’s sad to turn this deception round onto the mum for not raking through every detail when they’ve lied to her which is surely the main issue here.

She didn't bother to read a single e-mail about sport for 2.5 years and readily admits she left it to her ex to deal with the sports stuff.

Those are her own words.

You can't opt out of a huge part of your child's education then bitch about it afterwards.

All this talk of “she might lose her son” also needs to be knocked on the head by your brother. He needs to be clear with his son that there will be no running away from his mum over an argument about a sport, it shouldn’t be an option.

This. Whatever the outcome on the rugby, the brother should not be supporting his son to sabotage his relationship with his mother by offering to have him full-time. It would be quite frankly shitty to use that as a threat against the mum to effectively silence her. If the mum and son have an otherwise good relationship, the father should be trying to support this.

On one hand, as a mother, I can't imagine having so little interest in my child's interests that I could go over two years without seeing him play sport once. But on the other hand, if I trusted my son, I would be devastated to findout he has such little respect for me that he would lie and lie and lie. Your brother is a disgrace for encouraging his son to deceive his mother like that. He has now created a wedge - not only between himself and his ex who he was a shit husband to - but also between his ex and her own child.

How hurtful and humiliating to know everyone has been lying to me for years.