Grandparent slapped grandchild

[bluestoneboys]

How do you deal with a grandparent who slapped a grandchild round side of face, left a handprint, then claims ‘it wasn’t hard’ and ‘it was the only way to prevent further harm from angry dog’
child has autism and adhd as well as history of SA on fathers side so has no contact with them. He was shouting, swearing and hitting at the time (struggling with self regulating usually but these episodes are getting worse)
grandparents see him as disrespectful and rude
Currently he now has no unsupervised contact with said grandparent, he has lots of outside agencies involved due to previous abuse and very worried now that my own family will end up being the nail in the coffin when it comes to social services due to their lack of understanding and support, but also feel so sad for him because he doesn’t seem to now have a solid relationship with anyone but me.
Family place all blame on me and say that he’s just got a lack of discipline (which is not true imo)
Just about losing my mind now as I just want him to feel safe and happy - hes only 8 and already classed as suicidal by medical professionals and he’s had all the therapy he can have but it’s no use when everyone else is on a different page 💔

The whole situation is a mess.

No, your mum shouldn't have hit him.
But a dog attacking her is a life threatening sustain, and if that attack was caused/aggravated by your son's violence towards her, then I can see how it could have happened. It's not like it was a reasoned decision by your mum taken in calm, but in a split second in a situation which was life threatening to her.

Do you think if the mum had posted, and after years of being physically abused by her son (yes, it's not malicious, but it still hurts and she's still being abused), she'd snapped in a life threatening situation, that she'd be told she should never see him again? Or would she be given support to try and make better choices next time?

I have a child with adhd too so I get it.

Until or unless you can find other land to rent you need to find a way to keep him with you/in sight whilst you’re working.

If he can help in the morning I would bring the car to the field and do hot chocolate in a flask and a tablet to play on for 20 mins in the evening.

Not a perfect solution, but likely to reduce stress all round which will help with the emotional dysregulation.

Do you know how hard you have to hit a child to leave a visible handprint? I do. It feels no different from being hit by a man as an adult woman.

The grandmother has said she wouldn't do anything different. This isn't someone who hit out indiscriminately and is now mortified. And she isn't his mother.

The dog was at no point a threat to her life, she has a small scratch on her arm and the dog perceived her to be a threat. A child’s behaviour can’t be to blame for an adults response choice- just one week prior he had used their house phone to call me because she had put all of his things in a bin bag - because he shouted, she was throwing out everything from toys to gifts and even keepsakes from dead pets, which naturally will wind him up further when he’s already spiralling- she doesn’t stop she expects him to ‘back down’ when he’s having a self regulation issue response - so I am assuming the same thing happened and he didn’t ’back down’ and she hit him - the dog bit her, after barking multiple times - she could have at any point walked away

Yes thank you, this is what I’m doing currently where if it’s dark or he’s cold he can just jump in the car

Yes and even before this (for the last few years) they have all been very aware that due to his dads family, SS are more involved with him than would be considered normal and therefore they really need to think through their words/actions, which is why I see this as a choice. They even knew he had a therapist appt the very next day when this happened- not sure what they thought would happen, but I’m not gonna send my child to therapy and tell him what he can and can’t say!
But even now, they say he deserved it, and therefore aren’t taking seriously the fact that I stand to have him taken away which would be more than devastating for us both, they seem to want to test out the theories 😪

For him to get as bad as she says would be for the shouting to be two ways - she was following him and micromanaging until he lost it, she does not pick her battles, she does not give she will have just continued to argue with the sole purpose of winning. Therefore the dog was very likely defending the child

Your story has changed OP which makes it really hard to give an opinion. You don't seem to trust your mother's version of events. If you don't trust her to tell the truth then it doesn't really matter what happened as he should t be left with her.

You've said he would never hurt an animal or lash out at an animal yet he routinely is violent toward his own mother. You also said he was lashing out at grandma. Either he can control himself or he can't. I have a son with ASD and he can't turn it off and on.

Your parents may well put down their own boundaries here and I think you need to either find a way to coexist or assume you'll be asked to move your horses with very little notice. They can't have the boy running in their house and you not wanting him there.

The OP lives 10 miles away from her parents, she rents a field on their property and thats where the incident occurred. She’s now concerned because despite her DS being slapped by one of his grandparents he still goes into their house when she takes him over for her work. Social services have been notified by DSs counsellor but it seems they have said all that has to happen is he must be supervised when he visits them.

Their contact needs to be supervised for the person of both if then getting the sound of it. Dog bites can be fatal, and whilst it sounds like her behaviour is making matters worse, and she can't cope with him, she can't be in a position where her own dog bites her.

Everyone here needs keeping apart for their own good. Even the dog. If he significantly bites then he's going to end up paying for it with his life.

No, it's not ok for your mum to slap him.
It's not ok for your mum to be physically attacked by him either. He's getting big now and could cause serious harm.

Keep them apart.

My story has not changed?
he’s expected to control himself by grandparents but he can’t do that, which creates an awful environment and now that she’s hit him round the face there’s not a lot I can do.
he can’t be in their house, period.
he lashes out more because of his ptsd/ sexual abuse history and less so because of autism, but once he’s lashed out, there’s a timeframe in which he can be recontained if handled correctly, grandparents know this but don’t agree and see it as disrespect. If handled incorrectly it then becomes uncontrollable. But a grown woman chasing and yelling is a huge trigger for him.

@bluestoneboys your parents don't get any of this situation, do they? I'm sorry. I don't really understand it because I'm older than them and had actual Victorian grandparents who had more empathy and ability to cope with challenging situations. They never laid a finger on any of their grandchildren in anger or as punishment (I'm sure they were sometimes tempted!)

Keep your DS way from them and try to extricate yourself from any dependence, because I don't see their approach changing, sadly.

What a horrific experience your wee boy has had. I'm so sorry.

This is exactly why it is so harmful to throw around statements like the PP did, about it "not being an excuse" and "I'd make damn sure they behaved", etc. Every single person is different and has different histories informing how they behave, and more people than you'd think, including children, have tremendous trauma behind them.

Thank you, no I don’t see anything changing either unfortunately, no matter what’s said the same will be done 💔

I think for my son, it’s so easy for people to see autism and think that it’s an excuse and even those that know his background seem to forget that he went through 4 years of SA from a grandmother (which for that amount of time obviously was a huge amount of emotional abuse too to keep him quiet) and that seems to be forgotten

People underestimate autism. They underestimate ADHD. They often think it's simply a case of things being a little bit harder but ultimately, no excuse to express your struggle and effort will fix it. It's an entirely different operating system in the brain, constantly and ceaselessly trying to work out what the hell is going on around oneself, ceaselessly trying to interpret what the expectations on you are, what the effects are of what you've done and said. And you basically just have to guess. And if you get it wrong, it's "autism is no excuse!".

And as you sadly know, people also forget or underestimate trauma. It's very difficult at the moment because there is a lot of lip service paid to being aware of different brain types, disabilities, trauma histories, mental illness, etc., yet when real life difficult situations like this are brought to peoples' attention, it's still all too common for the "it's no excuse" line to be wheeled out. I think it's just easier for people to brush it off like that than actually engage with what reality is like for some of us.

Yes I can see why thats hard for you - practically and emotionally. The need to work out how your son and his GP can still have some kind of relationship that’s beneficial and safe for him. And it sounds like thats not going to be them acting as any sort of carer for him but rather as having visits together when you are there . Or perhaps at outside events or places where it’s less intense and there are other adults / family members around . Something like that.

Despite the bravado I'm sure they must know what they’ve done. But if they’ve always taken the position of “ the boy needs a firm hand and a bit of discipline , you molly coddle him “ then it will be almost impossible for them to back down.

So very difficult for you all. Theres no winners here , just more loss for you all.

Thanks, but I’m in no way minimising it, I’m horrified and struggling with how to move forward when I am yet to find suitable land to rent away from the land that I grew up on and have built both a non profit charity and a business on

I appreciate that must be difficult for you but frankly, it is irrelevant.

Your child needs you to protect him from abuse and violence. If that means giving up your business because your parents are vindictive enough that they'd remove your livelihood in retaliation for you protecting your son from further violence from them then this simply reemphasises the need to keep such people away from your child.

If it means moving somewhere else and taking a regular job for a while, and later reestablishing your business elsewhere then so be it. It is minimising to be even considering whether you should continue to expose him to people who have been violent to him because it might impact your work if you protect him.

From the ops account , the child was in a violent fury and the GP had to intervene to stop him further provoking the dog, who i am guessing could have inflicted much more serious injuries than a slap!

Or, the GP could have not had a vicious dog around a child whose previous trauma and medical conditions make their behaviour unpredictable, rather than hitting the child because this situation - entirely predictably - went wrong.

It's just yet more evidence, frankly, that these people should be nowhere near the child, not some kind of mitigation for them assaulting him!

Your poor dm is as much a victim in this incident as your child

Bloody hell. What is wrong with people?!

You need to read the Ops posts about what the horses mean to her son and that fact that he’s home schooled.

What do you suggest happens to both the horses and the child while the Op “gets a regular job elsewhere “ ? maybe she could get a job in Tesco and tie them both up in the car park while she’s at work

I have read them.

I'm sure he likes horses. However, far more harm will be done to an already traumatised child by being subjected to yet more physical abuse than will be done by him not being around horses so much.

She can either find some appropriate land further away to relocate them to (I'm afraid that I don't buy that no such plot of land is available to rent anywhere in the UK except this one) or she can sell them and get a different job.

Protecting her child needs to be the priority above all else, including horses.

No one suggested that he should be subject to physical abuse, in fact you are the only person on this thread who has said that.

The OP is trying to keep her son safe in every way. You clearly know NOTHING about the love that a child can have for an animal if you can describe selling one who is very loved as “ not being around horses so much “.

And if you think it’s that easy to find land for horses AND get a job that allows her to home school her SN child at the same time - I can only assume that you are trying to wind up the Op as no one could be so wilfully ignorant.

It’s easy to be a brave little keyboard warrior, making cheap pronouncements about a situation where you know nothing and care less. real life is much more complicated. The Op needs support in what sounds like a hugely difficult situation.

Yeah sorry I’m not gonna tell him he can’t keep him much loved pet because GP hit him round the face, nor am I going to put multiple animals in a position where they are forced into a situation which could lead to their death.