Stepdaughter - School attendance.

[Lollylucyclark101]

I have been with my (now) husband for 10 years. I have a son 17, he has a daughter 12. She was roughly 2.5 years old when I met her dad. Her mother is lovely. We get on really well. Mom and Dad co-parent really well. We have her as much as possible and he pays his maintenance by bank transfer every month. We both work hard, have 1 car between us and he leaves at 4am (important for later)
We have a few concerns about school attendance and lateness. SD started high school last year and has had a lot of time off. SD does have a medical condition, which doesn't impact her now as she on the right diet, (Coeliacs) however she does have the occasional hospital appointment to see her consultant about every 6 months - so that's an understandable morning/afternoon absence from school.
lateness started almost immediately, meaning SD keeps getting detentions, and the absences started during the Winter when we had snow. Mom drives and didn't take her to school for 3 days out of the week. When asked she stated "I don't like driving in the snow and it was too cold to get the babies (1 year old and a 4 year old younger siblings) out to take her to school".
SD lives within a 20 minute walk to school and could have taken herself, but mom doesn't want her walking alone (we have FindMyIphone) and she has a phone.
Mom has then taken her out for 2 term time holidays since, and last week she never went in because she was "ill". I messaged SD to ask how she was feeling and she said "I burped and felt a bit sick, but feel much better now", but when I called to speak to mom, mom said "she had a temperature/shivers and a fever and spend the day in bed" - but said nothing about her vomiting/feeling sick.
SD had a hospital appointment yesterday at 11am and you would have thought that she would have been in school for 8:30 when it starts until about 10am..... but no. Mom just didn't bother to send her in, and then didn't take her back to school afterwards at 12:30-3:05pm.... so that's another whole day she has had off.
When dad speaks to mom, mom says things like "well I have 3 kids to take care of, its not that easy" or "she's not walking by herself" or "what's the point in taking her in if she's only there for a couple of hours". She always blames the lateness on the smaller children.

Now, last year we had 2 cars and COULD/DID take her to school if mom was unable/didn't want to, but after a crash where the car was written off we now only have one, and we live too far to walk to moms and then walk to school, so we cannot take her to school any more. If her appointments are after 2pm, dad picks her up and takes her to her appointments and he picks her up from school and takes her home to mom - so he is doing as much as he can. He changed his working hours to accommodate the after school pick ups at moms request.

SD told us that if her absences continue, mom will get a fine. Her attendance currently is at 91%, which to me is abysmal! We are worried that we will also get a fine - despite none of the absences having anything to do with us. Every time SD is off, we ask mom why and actively encourage her to take her in or allow her to walk to school. We understand that she has 2 other children and it can be hard getting small children ready in a morning.
Ideally, we would like SD to come to us during the week so we can ensure that she gets to school regularly and on time, but without a 2nd car (which we cannot afford to buy!) that's a no go!
How can we get past this with mom? how can we make sure that SD is going to school or getting there on time and we don't get a fine!

We have a FABULOUS relationship with mom, so need to tread carefully.

no hate please, just genuine advise.

How far do you live from the school?

I doubt you'll get a fine, my niece is never at school either and no one has been fined yet

Unfortunately, I think you need to take the bull by the horns.

"SD's absence is getting really high, and I'm concerned about the impact on her education. I understand it's not easy getting her in every day, although I do think she's old enough to walk in by herself now. If you're not ready to allow this, could we discuss having her stay here in the week and I will take her to school each day so she doesn't miss any more days?"

You might get on well with the mother but tiptoeing round her isn’t going ti resolve the fact that she is too lazy to parent, get her arse out the house and get her child to school and is being precious about her getting there herself, which is what most kids her age do.

I think you need to back off, this is not your fight. The child has two parents and you aren't one of them.

The mum may be a lovely person but she's a crap mum, failing to ensure her DD accesses education appropriately is a form of child neglect. What your DH should do is take his ex to court to be made the full-time residential parent with a court-enforced contact schedule with the mum that specifies that she can only stay with mum overnight if there is no school next day, and he will need to apply for a school place for her at a school that is reachable from your home either on foot or by public transport. If there is no such school then moving to a house which does have access to one. If your DH fails to do this then he is coluding with his ex on neglecting the child's education and it is 100% correct that he should be fined and prosecuted too for that failure.

But your only role is to support DH as he seeks this resolution.

Walking? About 50 minutes.

She’s not getting her full education though, that’s the major concern.

We can’t though. We don’t have access to a second car any more. Nor the finances for taxis. We live a 50 minute walk from her school.

we are hoping to get a second car then we would take her and pick her up, but until then it’s a no go.

A healthy secondary-school pupil is perfectly capable of walking for 50 minutes. Or get an adult-size scooter to cut it down to a 25 min journey.

I agree. ☝️

She simply has to start walking from home if she doesn't want to walk 50 minutes from yours. A secondary school pupil would be destroyed if she turned up to school on it - can she get a bike?

The 12yo should just be getting herself up and out the door and walking there, it's a 20min walk. What's mum going to do, run after her??

Sorry this was supposed to be destroyed if she turns up on an adult scooter!

I will forever disagree with people who think stepparents shouldn’t have an input into children THEY HAVE PARENTED for a significant amount of their life.
It’s amazing how STEPDADS are seen as “stepping up” and “is more of a dad than his biological parent” and “he’s the one that’s doing all the parenting for my child”…….. but yet Stepmoms WHO DO THE EXACT SAME THING!, are seen as “the villain”, “evil” “nosey for raising concerns”.

We and I STRESS WE, (because dad has concerns too!) concerns about a child who, for 50% of her life LIVES WITH US.

Her coming to live with us isn’t going to negate the initial problem of the attendance, and a court order could take years of court appearances before a decision is made on residency, over ONE ISSUE that we have about mom’s decision making skills.

When we had a second car she never missed school, however we haven’t got one now and her dad leaves for work in our ONE car at 4am, so you can see the logistics of getting her to school in a morning is not in our favour. We lost our other car the month before she started secondary school and we cannot afford to buy or finance a new one.

thank you very much for your response and ideas however, they are not very suitable for us as a family.

We will take another’s advice and get dad to have a good conversation with mom and ensure that the aim is regular school attendance for our daughter, whilst we physically cannot support the school drops offs, we can at least support mom in her decision making and see if we can support any other aspect of her life.

I know you said it's a 50min walk, but does Google maps offer any bus options from your house to school at the right times of day?

We have been pushing for her to walk to school (from her house it’s 20/25 mins) since she started high school, but mom absolutely point blank refuses:

she’s a girl
shes not street wise (she goes out every weekend with her same aged cousins when she’s with us)
what if someone tried to take her (she’s a tall girl for 12).

mom insists on taking her and dad picking her up.

A scooter for a 12 year old isn’t acceptable. You need to have a driving licence to ride one.

I think dad has decided to have a more formal confirm mom about school attendance for now and see if it improves.

thank you for your advice

No. Unfortunately, just getting to a bus stop from our house is a 20 minute walk, which takes you in the other direction for you to come back on yourself.

from her moms house it’s 20/25 mins, which is completely acceptable.

Sounds like the problem is that mum is not ok with walking.

Possible options:

Bike
Bus (safer?)

Then looking at walking:

Getting the child to do some self defence lessons might help mum's anxiety

Are there friends who walk that way? For my local secondary there are floods of kids going to school

Has she been bullied in the past and that is why mum is reluctant? Walk to school can be easy for bullies to use - not at school and not at home.

What’s the problem with the 20min walk to school? Laziness. Why can’t the SD mother get her out to school ? Laziness. Having her daughter half the time means she has less work than many other parents. Tell the SM that you aren’t paying any part of the fine and that you’ll use this to get the court to remove SD. It’s sad that she has such a slack mother who doesn’t care about school and wellbeing in general.

she’s a girl means literally nothing
shes not street wise (she goes out every weekend with her same aged cousins when she’s with us) how is she going to become streetwise if she doesn't get her self to school?
what if someone tried to take her (she’s a tall girl for 12) stranger abductions are vanishingly rare - she's more at risk of harm in her mothers car, or most sadly, her mothers home if an unrelated male lives there with the mother

@Lollylucyclark101 A scooter for a 12 year old isn’t acceptable. You need to have a driving licence to ride one.

I didn't mean an electric one.

Lots of non-electric scooters here https://www.micro-scooters.co.uk/all-adult-scooters

You can continue whining here about how everything is impossible as much as you like. As I said in my previous post your DH and his ex are committing a crime by neglecting her education to this extent and they should be rightly punished if they don't make something work. It's not your personal responsibility to solve but your attitude of rejecting all the viable ideas just stinks. The mother being a barrier to making these things work and refusing reasonable solutions is simply evidence to present to the court that she is not a fit mother. A grownup vapable of not letting this child down should take charge. If you and DH can't be the grownups here then social services should be.

I’ve got some sympathy for the mum here. Sounds like she is struggling with the logistics on days where something is out of the ordinary like bad weather or hospital appointments and that’s part of the issue. It’s hard juggling everything in those scenarios particularly when you have very young kids to also consider (her 2 and 4 year old). It’s basically all on her if your husband can’t help out so it feels a bit harsh criticising her when your husband also isn’t ensuring she gets to school. He could ask his employer for time off or flexibility in urgent situations like this.

Could you drive your OH to work and then you would have use of the car for the infrequent times she needs a lift?

At 4am every day?

I have taken advise from parents from this thread.

just not yours.

Thanks for your response.