DH no contact with family who are now contacting our teens

[Acornsarefalling]

DH is not comfortable with his mother and siblings having no relationship with him (their choice) but then contacting our teenage children (11, 15 and 17) on their mobiles. One of our DCs has asked them why they don’t want to see us at Christmas and they’ve implied it’s not their choice - it is.

Background is that they have stopped talking to DH for two years following a fall out about inheritance. In a nutshell, he wanted them to plan for forthcoming IHT and they didn’t want to, so they’ve stopped talking to him completely rather than discuss and solve it.

Would you leave them to contact DC? Inevitably this will lead to some sort of unfair involvement or mental load on DC who I think should be shielded from all of this completely.

The older two at least should be able to make their own decisions if they have contact or not.

How do they have their numbers?

But tbh there's little point trying to control that, there's no abuse mentioned just a falling out. The kids'll think less of you for trying.

As PP has said, your older two can decide for themselves.
As for the reason, it seems your DH has overstepped (in your ILs eyes) by raising the inheritance tax issue. I couldn’t have imagined my ILs would have welcomed a suggestion like that from my DH either, no matter how well-meaning.

One of your children asked them. Your husband shouldn't poke his nose in.

Without more info it sounds like your DH tried to influence their will making, which is pretty outrageous .
Your DC are old enough to decide now as long as you monitor to ensure no emotional blackmail or lies

We had this. We sat down and explained exactly why we weren’t in contact with granny and let the children make their own decisions. One of them went for a pizza came back and agreed with everything that we said but had come to that conclusion on their own and obviously shared it with the others.
It was incredibly hurtful and in our case the only way to scratch the itch so to speak