To say if you book the activity then it’s your job to get the child to & from it?

[JustAnotherWhinger]

I am very, very pissed off tonight, but trying to get a bit of perspective. My usual sounding boards of DH and MIL are away for a funeral so don’t want to bother them until they’re back.

AIBU to say that if you book an activity for a child in my home then you can get the child to and from that activity?

The backstory is that the DC is my late cousin’s child. They live here with a SGO so it’s a permanent thing, DH and I have PR to make all of the decisions in his life.

I have, for his sake, facilitated (and encouraged) his contact with my cousins other cousins (I was her cousin on her mum’s side, they are in her dad’s side) as they are his family. They were close to his mum so it’s important he maintains relationships.

However, they’ve overstepped quite a bit at times and the proverbial straw has broken tonight when I’ve had a message telling me I need to take him to a certain activity on a set day each week starting from September as this relative has booked them in.

There was zero discussion about this. No checking that it fits in with the activities we have him booked into (swimming and football atm, and Squirrels in sept, which I think is plenty as he’ll be a starting reception). I have three other children at home as well.

I’m planning to reply and say that that’s fine, but they’ll have to ferry him to and from the activity as it doesn’t work for our schedule (it’s on a night two others will have swimming so MIL will have him and one other at home and I won’t ask her to take him a 40 min trip, wait an hour then 40 mins back).

I’m trying to be nice to people as I know some feel guilty that they couldn’t offer to take him in when our cousin got ill, but I really don’t feel that makes it ok to just do stuff without discussion. It’s so annoying

Well done for standing firm.
These decisions impact the whole household. Are they people who have had their own DC?

How long has he been with you OP? I am (possibly incorrectly) assuming not long. I am sure their enthusiasm to be involved will start to diminish as time goes on.

Good luck with it.

Just over a year now.

I had assumed that myself, which is why i was a bit more relaxed with things that ideal, but it’s not waning and with their competitiveness with each other I’m not longer sure it will.

Surely they can see you’re already doing enough taking in someone else’s child when you have three of your own and still making sure this child attends various extracurricular activities. You’re absolutely right to say no, especially when the child is only 4 and already does so much.

You have a SGO and PR, so you make the decisions for that child, not others. Nobody gets to book him onto an activity, without asking you first if it is ok.

You have done a good thing with the message groups. You need to be in control of this, and setting some clear boundaries to them without cutting them off. Ignore any contact outside of those groups and ignore excessive messages as well.

Spot on with your response, OP. This is madness for a reception child, and it should not have been booked without consultation for a much older child either.

40 minutes each way for a child young enough to be going to Squirrels is too much.

If they'd like to contribute towards an after school activity, they could pay his football subs or for his swimming classes.

You're defo not being unreasonable, it's inconvenient and unfair. When there are 4 children in the household, there has to be a limit on after school activities for your own sanity as well as logistics and giving them a chance for more chilled evenings during the week.

Tbh I’d just say no to it - he sounds like he has plenty going on already and they had no right to book this without discussion!

My mother would pull stunts like this all the time

It was like my dc where her dc but I was only around to do the boring bits and she could take the glory

It caused merry hell when she booked (then baby) dd in to be christened-i put my foot down over that one

Then she decided dd HAD to do ballet

I laughed (dd has the grace of a hippo and had showed zero interest) and I told her that if she wanted dd to do it,she was paying,she was driving her to and from lessons and she was paying for the kit

She pushed back (loudly) but I was firm and it was quietly shelved when she found out the true costs

She tried the same over any school trips/which school they went to/what they wore/ate/who they could be friends with etc

I had to put very firm boundaries in and deal with the pushback,tears,guilt trips and the slagging off to anyone who would listen/agree how unreasonable I was being

I'm their mother (I get your the mother with this little one) and I made the decisions

It's all done to make themselves look/feel better and no thought to the mug having to do it for the little one

I think they are trying to force an element of control and feel they don’t have to seek your approval as they are equal to you in terms of the relationship to child and don’t need your permission. However they do. I think it’s important for you to be firm. A reply like “ that’s very thoughtful and a nice idea, however the timings don’t fit in with our busy household commitments therefore you will have to pick up from school, take to activity and bring home “

Would they listen to you if you outlined the rights and responsibilities of Special Guardianship ?And then made it very clear that you, and to a limited extent still, the parent(s) make all the decisions about the child’s life, including, health, schooling, activities etc.

If they want to contribute to the child’s life financially, for activities or in any other way, such contributions would be welcome BUT they must be through you or it may be deemed you are not keeping to the role of SG.

They do not have the right to sign a child up to activities, so if they do so without your agreement then you are well within your rights to cancel those arrangements even if they lose money.

Well done for stepping up for the child, SGO is a big thing and it doesn't help if other people don't understand.

I don’t get why you don’t just say “sorry that doesn’t work for us in terms of drop off and pick up. Hope you can get a refund”

Oh well done, sorry I missed this!

Disrespectful/thoughtless/misguided?

Either or all of the above but I dont know why you would give it headspace

You either say, no that wont work/doesnt want to do it

Or 'yes great, when are you picking them up and what time will you drop them back'

No further engagement needed.

This
beautifully put.

If there are some people having trouble understanding what your role is, then you might need to say it louder for the people at the back.

Perfect response from you, and with the WhatsApp groups, time to draw some firm boundaries, what you're doing isn't easy, you don't need people chipping in and making it more stressful.

I'd say 1 of 2 things are going on here based on my experience of similar situations:

1. They were just thoughtless

2. This is one of many "tests" they will do because they will see "refusal" as some sort of non-compliance or negligence of the child's emotional needs. Especially if they or people closely related to them were considered/rejected when deciding who will be his guardian(s).

Whenever I do an SGO I build into the plans a mediation session between the parents and the SG to set out who holds majority responsbility and what that responsbility covers and what the communication levels will look like and what not to expect, so that the parent doesnt just hear it from the SG or in court plans (which they will probably not understand or bother to read) but from a somewhat neutral source.

Well done for your messages, setting up the groups and doing such a wonderful job for the little boy. His mum made the right choice.

Did you post a while back about your late cousin leaving money to the person who was meant to be taking him and then keeping it when you took him because they decided not to?

I wondered if it was the same person. I hope they got the money back off the selfish cow!

It’s not parents, he has no parents.

It’s his late mother’s cousins. I was her maternal cousin, these are paternal cousins.

Great idea with the group chats. To draw a really clear line in the sand, you could post to each something along these lines.

I've set up this chat because lots of you want to keep in touch with how X is doing and it's simpler for me to talk to you all at once. But this is a good moment to be clear that I'll be equally updating you on the news with all my other children. I don't want X, or my other children, growing up feeling that the wider family are more interested in one of them than the rest! We really appreciate all the extra support as x bedded down into our family, and do understand all the extra interest there has been, but it wouldn't be right to carry on like this indefinitely.

Note repeated use of "my other children". X is your child now and they need to take that in.

And yes I get it that some of the family are his family but are only cousin's cousins to your other children. But he and your other children are siblings now and they come as a package. Refusing to show interest in the rest of your children is equivalent to grandparents refusing to treat their resident step-grandchild as their own.

ETA main point being, if they manage to take in that he's equivalent to his new siblings within your family, they'll see how ridiculous it is that they might want to arrange things for him, or think they should have a say on his schooling.

To all extent and purposes he is your child and should be treated as such. He is not a “family” child.
They need to know the boundaries and you’ve made a good start establishing these.
Make sure they know they have no more right in making decisions for him, than making decisions for your other children.

Yes I had a thread about that.

They actually turned out to be simply refusing to hand the money to the executors, and rightly so it turned out. The executor were, and are, nothing but trouble and were more focussed on their own family squabbles than on the wee one.

The original carer is actually a very firm part of his life now, a great help to me when needed and she very much made choices based on what’s best for the wee one, even though people have been horrid to her for it.

They money is safely tucked away for the wee one.

Oh that's a brilliant update on that.