what do i tell my four year old?

[kenty]

almost 10mths ago we had to stop my motherinlaw having anything to do with our family,it got to the stage where we had to involve the police as her phone,txt threats became so scary,she has had a history of doing this sort of thing all of her adult life and everyone are of the poinion she has an undiagnosed mental illness.my husband suffered her cruelty mentally and at times physically all his childhood,the only reason she was ever involved with our children(supervised) was she pleaded with us that she had made changes,so slowly she was involved in our lives.her first grandchild our now four year old daughter was doted on and our daughter loved her back,it was such a loss for her and she still talks about her and misses her nana so much,she can never see her nana again what do we tell her its heartbreaking to see

How dreadful for you.
I have no idea what the best course would be, I think you need to be as honest as possible though. Hopefully some better advice will come along shortly.

I think you need prof advice on this. Do you have a social worker? or is there a social worker involved (when you got the injunction) who could advise? I think you need to get the message right for a child of that age. Poor kid

What a horrible situation - a close friend of mine has been through a similar thing with her own parents (mostly mum) over the last year, they have a son of nearly 6, and I would ask her advice for you, but the stress put her in hospital for over a month and she still doesn't mention it so even though we've been friends for over 15 years I wouldn't dare raise the subject.

I think if you can get some sort of professional or spiritual advice (if you have particular beliefs), it would be a good idea. Otherwise I would probably go with somthing along the lines of we can't see Nana because she's not well, and take it from there.

I wish you the best of luck. Not the same situation, but we had to explain to our DD last year at 3.6 that her great nana who she saw v. regularly had died, and although we were as honest as poss, she went to funeral and we had support from our church, she still asks questions and comes out with things now and I wondered if we handled it the right way. Just take any advice/help you can get and be there for her and I'm sure she'll be fine.

things just don't seem to ever settle,thanxs for all your advice,but yesterday the dreaded motherinlaw thought she could contact us again,we changed all numbers but i have a business number we can't change,she seriosly thinks that because a large amount of time has passed and she is saying she has changed we should just forget about past and make up.as i reacted to her in an extremely frank and honest manner,she slotted straight back to her ways denying everything and blaming us for everyting,the difficulties also are that she has made up with her mother 2wks back,who is a much loved greatgrandmother and nothing like her daughter,but now the greatgrandmother wishes we would make up because she is convinced she has changed her ways,for atleast the twentieth time we can recall!we won't budge as our daughters longterm welfare is all that counts,but how soul destroying

Has the MIL recieved any psychiatric treatment since you had to involve the police? I would have thought that part of the process would have at least involved having her assessed by a mental health professional (and these people are usually experienced enough to tell when someone is fibbing about how it's all the unreasonable DIL's fault or whatever). Because if she's having treatment then it may be safe to allow a bit of supervised contact: though the first indication that she really is better would probably be an apology from her. If you get that then maybe reconsider.

the police didn't have to press charges and she was cautioned that she would be arrested if she continued with any form of threats and they told her we had asked for all contacts to end,that worked and because of the rest of her family and the upset we would cause we left it at that.the mental illness side of things she like her own father are extremely intelligent people who seem to convince everyone that they just have tempers,her father now is a registered schizophrenic but it wasn't until he reached his fifties that happened,the mil has laughed in everyone faces saying we are the ones who are ill,she has attacked all her sisters, threatened with knives,threatened to kill,threatened to kidnap our daughter,it took six police officers to arrest her after an attack on her partener in the past,the list goes on and i know her close family are scared of rocking the boat because of what she will do,shes never been assessed metally

I wonder if it would be worth you (or perhaps someone closer to her) contacting one of the mental health charities, like SANE for help and advice? Because it does sound like appropriate treatment and medication might improve the woman and therefore improve things for the rest of the family.
I think it's perfectly reasonable not to want your DD to have any contact with a violent nut, of coursem but it would probably be beneficial to everyone if some treatment was got for your MIL.