Supporting my children

[timetofight]

Does anyone have experience of this?

I’m a lone parent. Their father died. Paternal parents have a court order to see the children. I have always been against it because of gaslighting, serious false allegations against me and the grandmother trying to exert control and badmouthing me to the children as soon as we separated when they had the children on their own.

I stopped contact over a year ago because they took my son to somewhere that had previously caused an allergic reaction. It was somewhere they had taken him before and I had I told them immediately that it had happened. They knew it had caused an allergic reaction. They bad mouthed me to the children and then when the children told me that they denied everything and accused me of slander. It’s in the recitals that they can’t bad mouth me. I actually did think that they had broken the court order but apparently recitals are pointless. They have actually accused me of engineering the whole day for my benefit so you can see how batshit crazy they are.

They had no contact as the children refused to do even zoom calls with them. I’ve had two hearings. I am a litigant in person as I have no money to spend on this. They have solicitors and barristers. Zoom calls were reinstated because I am being threatened with paying their costs and having to do voluntary service (I’m self employed). They made a comment about me listening to the zoom calls to the children (not in so many words but we know that’s what they meant). The kids were made to feel uncomfortable and now don’t want to do zoom calls. Basically the kids now know what I know about the grandparents and that is from seeing it with their own eyes and from nothing I’ve said. They are 14 and 12. They will be speaking to Cafcass before the next hearing.

I just don’t know what to do. There has been a huge breakdown of trust. If this was adults we would remove ourselves from the situation but the kids are being forced to continue.

Sorry very long.

I would just play nice for a few more years and as soon as they hit 18 you don’t have to hear anymore about those people.

Your children will eventually see their grandparents attitude. They always do.

@YourGladSquid 6 years is too long to wait 😭

And they are already aware of the GPs attitude.

The kids are old enough to know when one parent (grandparent) is talking shit about their mother.
They're also old enough to know if they want to zoom call or not. I would try and take a bit of a back seat. You can't make this perfect for them, but they are old enough to vote with their feet. Or regarding a zoom call, all they need to do is say the bear minimum on the call. The grandparents will get the hint soon enough.
You heve to let this play out, rather than try and stop this. Allow your children to have their own voice. Tell them to speak honestly to cafcass. This will resolve itself.

@TickingKey46 You are right but I worry about their mental health. The rest of the paternal family are enablers so there is literally no one to stop the grandparents. I don’t feel like anyone is listening to my concerns. They seem to think that if it’s not physical abuse it’s not abuse.

I hear you I really do. But you have 2 children who are old enough to have a voice, they need to use it. Your job is to impower your children to do that.
Honestly unless you have really good evidence of what they are doing you won't get anywhere. You have yo try and work with it. Eg you could say yes you will accommodate the zoom calls, but if the children dint want to talk or just want to say a quick hello that has to be OK.