My son did not come home from school MASH Referral help

[NervouslyWaiting1]

My son did not come home from school on Thursday. We had a small argument that morning because I told him to have a shower and he refused. He usually prefers to shower at night, but he ended up having the shower in the morning before leaving for school.
When he didn’t come home after school, I thought maybe he was with his friends. At 10pm that night, I called the police and reported him missing. The police went out looking for him and also went to his dad’s house to check if he was there, but he wasn’t.

The next morning, I decided to go to the school to speak with teachers and his friends to find out who he had been with the previous day. I met one of his friends outside the school, who told me my son was in school that day. I told the friend that he had not come home.
I then had a meeting with the Head of Year, and my son explained didn’t come home because he had received a detention and was scared I would take his phone away. He had spent the night walking around and sitting in a park. I was shocked and spent the whole night crying.

Because of his behaviour at school, I have rules in place. If he gets a detention or comes home late, I take his phone away, and he is also not allowed to go out with friends because of things I found on his Snapchat. I believe some of his friends are a bad influence on him. He has previously told me that he feels trapped and wants more freedom to go out with his friends.

The school has now made a referral to MASH. I understand they are doing their job and treating this as a safeguarding matter.
At the moment, we are also involved in court proceedings regarding relocation back to my home country in Europe. Everything had been going very well. We had a hearing in April with a very understanding judge. He said he understood my reasons for wanting to relocate, that he had visited my country many times, understood what life is like there for children, and that his wife is from a similar country. He also said he did not need any more evidence from me. After hearing that, I was 99.9% sure the relocation would be granted.

The judge ordered CAFCASS to prepare a safeguarding letter as part of the usual procedure. I spoke to them a few days ago and the conversation went well. CAFCASS mentioned they may recommend a Section 7 report, which is a more in-depth report involving speaking to the children, although this was not something the judge originally ordered, so she said it may not happen.

Now, I’m worried this incident with my son may trigger a Section 7 report and prolong the case. I spoke to my solicitor, who said my case had previously been straightforward and easy to predict, but that it has now become a little more complicated.

We had a long chat about everything, and he opened up to me saying he just wants things to go back to how it was before where I allowed him to go out with his friends. After speaking to him, my family and a police officer who visited us after he was found. I’ve decide to let him go out with his friends and set some rules, which he promised he would follow. I work closely with the school and have agreed with the school that I will pick him up everyday.

He’s currently out with friends as we speak. Just wondering what will happen next with MASH? And if they will treat it as one off or safeguarding concern? Anyone who’s been through this?

What sort of a world are you living in where children/teens dictate where they live!? Presumably OP knows what is best for her family.

I despair, no wonder there are so many entitled kids around if parents give them this level of control over family matters.

A world that recognises parents don’t always make the best choices for their kids. Obviously.

What happens to one of your children if they get a detention? Why was he too scared to come home?

If this was my 13 year old I absolutely wouldn’t have just gone to school the next day I’d have been going wild and working with the police to look for him
this sounds a bizarre set up - perhaps the school thinks so too hence MaSH?

One in which The Hague Convention exists, which is presumably also the world you live in.

It's actually illegal to take a child out of the country without the permission of everyone with PR regardless of marital status. Just It's very rarely an issue except with seperated parents.

Op - what else did you do to find your child? Speak to school or neighbours? Ask on the local social media pages or school pages / pta groups etc? Spend the night searching? Get family and friends to look?

If my son went missing at that age I'd be galvansing everyone and every possible option i know to search. Especially once it was night time. I've seen more fuss on local social media for cats going missing at dinnertime!

Given the ops strange behaviour ie the kid hasn't come home or made contact from 3pm to 10pm before she contacted the police. The fact that she doesn't track his phone which I thought would be standard with a kid that age...do you think she could do something like move to Iran or Palestine? Because given the level of parental care displayed so far I wouldn't be surprised

But also a world where a child has the right to family life and education etc. That mean both families. Even though ops son might not have contact with his Dad currently there are also other family connections and cultural heritage to consider. Plus the impact of moving on education, friendships etc. The impact on the child isn't solely to do with their personal views but also much wider impacts.

In this case the involvement of social services and the huge safeguarding issues will seem likely to prevent any upcoming move abroad.

You can’t just leave the country a child’s dad is from (unless dad is coming too of course.), there are quite strict laws in most countries about this.
My dad always told me never to marry a foreigner because of this (I lived abroad for years.) I thought he was completely nuts until I realised how hard it can be if you are from two different countries and you split up.

Blody hell, my cat went exploring one evening and i spent half night with the torch and dreamies scouring the fields until she got home safe. I would have not been able to sleep if she didn't come. How can you leave a child, your child, overnight without knowing where he is? What if he was hurt? This is mad!

I'm absolutely not buying any of this OP. Sorry but there are too many gaps in the story. You wait till 10pm at night to report a 13 year old missing then rock up at school the next day looking for him. Where the fuck were you all the other hours?

I dunno, my mother certainly didn't worry too much about me when I went off for days at a time. Not everyone gives that much of a shit about their kids.

You didn't report him missing until 10pm?!!!

So you stopped him seeing his friends (what have they done?), he’s then gone missing but still gone to school the next day (weird) and now you agree he can see friends, with rules.

why didn’t you put the rules in place to avoid banning him seeing his friends? He’s 13, social life is everything. On top of the fact your planning to move him out the country, uprooting his entire life.

totally unreasonable

Do you mean a dumb phone? A burner phone is for illegal or illicit activities

He is quite young to have beenout all night on his own, I would be surprised if you dont get allocated a SW for an assessment, however there could other variables you've not mentioned that mitigate the risks.

I keep wondering what the heck the school are thinking.

I think the problem with waiting til 10pm for a 13 year old is that it's so late and so long after school ends, it wouldn't have taken you 6+ hours to search the parks/speak to friends. I have a 13yo and if she wasn't contactable and wasn't home by 5 or 6pm that's when I would have called the police.

Your ex doesn’t show up at the court hearings, so the only thing that you’d have to worry about stopping you from leaving is the court asking your son what he wants or thinks about it all - and this is what concerns you most of all. That’s interesting.

and how would you have gone “wild” and worked with the police exactly? Do you think I was just sitting at home watching TV whilst my son was missing?!!

It’s easy to sit behind a screen and write nonsense. You have no idea what I was going through, I had a panic attack and was up all night crying, talking to the police every fucking 10-20mins as they were calling to update or get more information. I then had officers coming into my home to search my son’s room and taking some of his things for dna. Read the fucking thread properly before you write nonsense sitting behind a screen.

Not it’s not interesting actually, I have no issue with the court talking to my son’s wishes and feelings. First things first, my son want to move. And even if he didn’t the court will decide on what is best for him. And not just go by what he wants or doesn’t want. So if life in a different country is better than the life he’s currently living, then they’re not going to listen to a child whose frontal lobe isn’t even fully developed yet, and whose opinion or wishes and feelings changes as often as he changes his pants.

You don’t have to buy anything, read the whole thread. That will answer your questions.

That is definetly not what you said in the original post! You said you called the police at 10 and next day you went to school. That's all. Then you dripfed then with "I told the sibling to call friends" "I got the brother to look for him" then this last post saying you were frantic. Why would you leave this information from your post? You mentioned nothing of staying awake, panic attacks and all that you describe here. For me it was a very cold post and the worry was about authorities involvement and not your son. So people advised on that post. You can't just change the narrative then say "you don't know what I've been through". Of course we don't, you didn't tell us!!!

You really think the social services will prevent the relocation? 😂 you have no idea why I want to move. What if I told you DS has no granparents (dead), no cousins, no uncles and no aunts in England?!! There is nothing to preserve in England, other than friends.

I think I quoted the wrong post but you will know which one I am talking about.