EA ex now intending to continue to control via school

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Hello all

Regular on here. Just namechanged. My EA ex has newly decided to attend parent teacher meeting. His reasons for doing this are

1. to harass me as well as

1. to appear to be good in the eyes of the school

1. to get things to incriminate me and use in the court process to attempt to take children away from me

No proof of domestic violence and therefore the headmaster will not allow separate interviews

Please some advice on what I can do!!!!

Will not allow? Is he serious? Schools should be trying to accommodate the wishes of the parents (and I speak as a teacher). I am not sure of the rules and am in Scotland anyway so they are probably different. However, I would be very angry if a school was not ensuring that the pupil's needs were met by keeping the parents apart. A stressed / miserable parent will not be the best parent and it will have an impact on the child.

I will talk to the teacher but I fear she will say that she has to abide by what the head says.

He says that on a previous occasion with separated parents, one person was asking the teacher not to disclose information to the other parent and this led to problems. He says he is 'not going there again.'

I have even offered to show him a letter from womens aid to say this is a domestic violence case but he says separate interviews would need to be 'court ordered.' Seeing as the court prefer to believe his lies over the reality of his continued abuse and control, this will not be possible!

has he told you he is doing this to achieve 1 2 and 3?

or is it your perception?

you cannot get in his head....

he could equally say he is going in order to be fully involved in his childrens lives...

is it a usual parent evening or a specific one about a particualr issue ?

if you ahve to attend together - strategy would be to stick to conversaiton about your child and not veer away from that.
if your ex suggests something you dont agree with interject with "I need to think about this and will get back to you"

It is a normal p/t meeting on progress.

I know the person in question and he is only going for the reasons 1, 2 and 3.

No domestic violence in our split, but horrible and messy school willingly gave separate PT meetings, ExH no longer goes.

This is an abusive person we are talking about here. Not a normal caring parent. There has also been abuse towards the DC.

There shouldn't be anything of 3 that he can get from a Parents evening, surely?

Sorry mistlethrush but perhaps you don't have an understanding of this kind of person.

'Your child is doing well at maths' - can't see a problem there. 'Your child needs to concentrate more in maths' - not exactly your fault. 'Your child is falling behind in maths' - response - what are you going to do about it and how can I support DC - again no issue.

'Your child is arriving late every morning' - well, yes, he could use that in court - but I can understand why he would want his child in school on time.

So, unless there are particular issue with your child that he could use, I still think 3 is not as likely as 1 and 2.

When you're there I would be as calm as you can be and have some stock phrases that you have worked out that you can use - like 'what resources can I use to help my child in the evening' etc - you hopefully will know what sort of comments might come back that you will need to deal with. Make sure that you don't have a row with exH - you can come out of this looking like the reasonable one. It is perfectly acceptable to say, in front of the teacher, to your ExH 'Please do not speak to me like that' - but I would be speaking to the teacher and ignoring him as much as possible. Don't be afraid to ask the teacher questions about things that have been moved on from because ExH has been the main talker.

Our school also don't routinely allow separate meetings for separated parents, they state this on the letters they send home.

The meetings usually only last 5 mins. Just go and if he goes sit and ignore him completely. Unless there is a specific problem you want to raise with the teacher it's usually the teacher doing the talking and parent listening.

As the other poster said if (and I bet he won't want to behave badly at the school in front of the teacher) he says anything rude just keep cool and tell him he is not to speak to you like that.

Would strongly advise the OP to write to the headteacher about this and follow up with a meeting. If she doesn't get any joy write to the board of governors.

There is no reason they cannot accommodate her other than a refusal on their part. It's rubbish about it being `court ordered'.

As for his motivations for going - that's a different issue.

Don't go. Leave him to it.

You can always make an appointment to see your DCs teacher another time - it's not as if parents evening is the only time the teachers are prepared to meet with parents, is it?

I'd demand separate meetings. A parent can't prevent the school from disclosing schooling information to a parent with PR unless there's a court order preventing it as far as I'm aware.

I'd not turn up and tell the teacher the afternoon of the meeting and then arrange a new separate date for yourself.

The head just sounds like he doesn't want to bother.

Thanks all. I think I would get into trouble if I didn't turn up. My ex would mention that in court proceedings to make me look bad, even if I did arrange another meeting, which of course I would.

Lostdad do you really think a letter to the Board of Governers would be of use?

...Because I have already met with the Head and he told me what I said in previous post.

Yes, the head cannot insist you attend together court order or not. The head has an obligation to accommodate you as a parent especially in this situation - I believe there are guidelines published by the DofE - who does he think he is to dictate that you have to spend time with the ex.

In fact I think they have an obligation to make themselves available(teacher, head) any time of year outside of P/T meetings for you to have the opportunity to discuss children schooling/progress etc...

I can't see how a court would think it that relevant if you didn't go and arranged another meeting with the teacher outside of PT evening. He'd just look an arse if he tried to use that against you surely?

Though I understand why it would annoy you that you had to do that and would not work forever - at secondary school it might be much harder as there are many teachers and meetings. However, if he was no longer getting any benefit in terms of your 3 points then he might have given up going by then?

Ridiculous on the part of the school. DH and his ex-wife were offered separate parent-teacher appointments. No domestic violence, emotional abuse etc....

Just to clarify- it is a p/t appointment ie just usually parent (me) and teacher in a class room and we talk about his maths and literacy, look at his books, how he is. The school has written a letter for use in court about my son. Now my ex wants to throw his weight around and by that I mean be super charming with the all female teachers and very concerned about our son and manage to worm his way into everyone's good books to be in a position to cast aspersions on my parenting and on the version of events which the school knows (the true one.)