Should I ignore my mum's comments to my DS when they make my blood run cold? (long, sorry)

[NoNoNoMYDoIt]

Background - I have 2 DCs (DS 5 and DD 2). I am separated from their father but the children have shared residence with both their father and me.

My parents live 150 miles away so when they come to visit, they always stay.

My relationship with my parents is strained at best. My mother is very controlling and disapproves of me in just about every way imaginable.

This is about the way she is with the kids, tho. She can't cope with their behaviour at all (and their behaviour is far from awful). She rises to every single situation and gets very stressed by them. My father is also very short with them and calls DD 'child', rather than her proper name.

When they come to stay, I find it very stressful, not least because I hear my mum talking to the children, mainly DS at the moment but I can see it starting with DD also, in the same tone that she used with me. When I was growing up, I was always a 'horrid child', 'stupid', 'retarded, 'the worst thing that happened' to her. She 'rued the day I was born', wished she had never had me etc etc. And of course this has left me with woeful self esteem and an inability to form a real bond with another adult.

I am desperate to protect my children from this and go over the top (probably) to make sure they never have anything negative said about them. I still discipline their behaviour, with time-out / warnings and withdrawal of privileges etc. But it is their behaviour which is horrid or naughty, not them, and I am very clear about that.

So when my mum comes and starts saying to my son 'you are a nasty horrid little boy', I want to scream at her. But I don't.

I can't tackle her about this as she has only just started talking to me again after I went to court in the summer over residence of the kids - it didn't go the way she thought was best and she withdrew all contact with me for 4 months after the court ruling. If I try to say anything to her, she will just stop talking to me again, which is fine but then the kids miss out on seeing them altogether. The kids still ask to see their GPs so I know the relationship is important to my kids.

So am I right to just ignore what she says? I end up so stressed when she is here, because every time the kids get over-excited and start to play up, I worry she is going to start saying hateful things to them. As a result, I can't leave them on their own with her and my dad. I have tried to go for a run (for 40 minutes) while they are staying, but when I get home, usually one, and sometimes both, of the children is upstairs in its bedroom screaming because it is in trouble for something and has been sent to bed. My mother has a tendency to scream like a banshee and I cannot bear the thought that she might do this to my kids.

Not sure I agree with your councellor saying confront your mum as you seem to minimise and play down what she does and so would be talked around by her. I also don't think your mother will ever take on board your point of view and you will be wasting your time and getting stressed over the build up to confronting her.

Personally I think that no contact is the only way to go with people who have already abused your children on at least one but maybe more occasions and refuse to even see it.

Then again I am not a councellor so what do I know.

Or lie (can't believe I am telling someone this)

Tell them that the police sent SS around, they have raised concerns about your children being in touch with your parents and you had better not come next week until you have them off your back...

You can use it as a breathing space for the next week or two as a slow cut off.

Well to my mind you would be protecting your children, not punishing anyone.

Look back at your OP.

She has actually called your son "horrid".

And after 40 mins of your absence they had both been sent to bed for being naughty!

Xales I know plenty of counsellors some good some effing awful....

Your counsellor is full of balloon juice.

"facilitate highly managed contact" ???

Why?

Think about your counsellor and her usefulness to you, realistically. I hope you will conclude that you should find another. I don't think the one you have right now is the right one for you.

You don't have to stay with someone who is telling you to do things that go against your own very healthy instincts. You can shop for someone else.

OP - in your post I thought you described it so well "woeful self-esteem and an inibility to form a bond with an another adult".

My mother was exactly the same - even down to the comments. I have no contact with her, haven't for many years. I do still have some contact with my father (they are divorced and he has remarried)

I have a daughter now and I am very very vigilant over how my father speaks to her, and what is said. The first time she comes home and anyone has called her fat stupid or ugly - all contact will stop.

I was abused emotionally by my father, and emotionally and physically by my mother. I will not let the cycle continue for another generation.

Be strong girl, don't let the cycle continue.

I'm sorry nonono but I disagree with your counsellor and stand by what I said at the very start of this thread (have only just caught up):

I wouldn't see them any more - your kids don't need people who put them down and shut them in their rooms for any minor transgression in their lives, no matter how they are related to them.

As their mother, it's up to you to protect them from negative influences in their lives and children that young are not able to make any kind of decision of whether its in their best interests to see people.

Your child has been abused in public and the police called by the concerned public. I suppose the fear must be how much worse behind closed doors when you have not been there?

I cannot explain how angry and sick these people make me feel and I'm only a stranger on an internet forum. If someone, family or stranger, had physically abused my dcs leading to them wetting themselves and vomiting in fear, I'd be the one needing the restraining order.

There is no way on this earth that these appalling people should have ANY access at all to ANY children. MA is right too about how harshly your ex and the courts would view your facilitating access for abusers to your children.

Am truly sorry you have had such a horrendous childhood. It's a testament to your strength that you are such a different parent to your own precious dc. I beg you, for the sake of those same precious dc, to cut off all contact.

i have never confronted my mother over anything, and the times i have done something she doesn't approve of or like, she has withdrawn contact for months at a time. so i know the standing up to her over this will result in her not talking to me for quite a long time, which in itself is actually fine

That is a statement of utter helplessness and hopelessness on your part.

i guess i may as well stand up to her, rather than just cutting her out completely. she won't do what i am going to ask her to do - which is stick to my rules around the kids. and i won't be giving her ANY opportunity to see the kids on her own. if i go the toilet, both come with me etc.

Yet more of 'I may as well piss into the wind'. When you stand up to her she ignores you. Therefore to protect your children you must cut her out completely, not allow more of what has gone on before. Your plan instead is to take your two children to the toilet with you when she inflicts herself on you -- sorry but that is just wishful thinking. That is not protecting your children. That is allowing your mother to carry on unimpeded. The police will not be impressed.

so for now, i need to call her and tell her that they are not seeing the children next weekend. one step at a time. that will probably result in a huge sulk from her anyway.

Fine as far as it goes. What I want to know is why after being with this counsellor your mother's hissy fit still has any significance for you, why you seem to still feel that there is nothing you can do to effect real and lasting change, why you are not going to write the letter telling her it is now officially all over. What have you and this counsellor been talking about all this time?

i still do struggle with why i would really want to have her in the kids' lives and my life. but most of that feeling comes from the fact that i want revenge for what she did to me as a child, and that isn't the right attitude to take.

In other words you are using your children as some kind of bait for your parents to keep up a relationship with you, you still hold out hope that they will one day acknowledge your worth and express affection for you, and maybe you hope they will do this through your children. You need to understand that it is not right to use your children in any role that involves your relationship with these malevolent people No matter how much of a victim you are, you have a moral responsibility here as the parent of your children.

the children do talk about my parents and are always pleased when they know they are going to see them. the risk, if i cut them out completely, is that they grow up resenting me for stopping them from seeing them, as they wouldn't understand what happened.

Children talk about sweets and chocolate and Coca Cola too, but that doesn't mean they can have them. You can tell them what happened. It doesn't matter if they don't like you for telling them they can't have a bag of crisps right before dinner and it doesn't matter if they don't understand why you cut off their grandparents. Your thoughts here are actually pure projection -- you are projecting your own enmeshment with your parents and your own need for your parents onto your children.

Children on the whole, and especially young children, are well able to get over the loss of a grandparent. Grandparents get Alzheimers and dementia. Grandparents move to Spain. Grandparents die. Grandchildren survive, and thrive. Your children will get over the absence of your parents from their lives.

In fact, what they will ask you when they are in their 20s is why you didn't act to keep these monsters away from them if all you do is get impotently upset when the police have taken a complaint about them seriously enough to investigate and follow up.
Why can't you understand the gravity of that?
If your counsellor still thinks there should be highly managed contact after that police visit she needs to be disbarred.

i suppose i have to try confronting her - since i have never done it before. although i am doing it with a heavy heart as it's not really what the 'daughter' in me wants to do. the daughter wants to run far far away from the abusive mother. the protective mother in me wants to shield my children from the abuse i experienced - and i need to see if i can do that, while facilitating a very limited contact with my parents.

DO NOT FACILITATE CONTACT OF ANY KIND BETWEEN YOUR PARENTS AND YOUR CHILDREN

First because you are going to inform the police of their identities and the police are going to go and warn them. You are going to go to the police, right?

Second because it absolutely can not work in light of everything you have said here about these human tanks.

Third because your ex would be perfectly justified in suing for full custody of the children if you continue to allow you r parents even limited or 'highly managed' contact (whatever that wold entail -- taking them to the toilet with you?)

Actually first and last -- because these people are toxic and will destroy your children.

You have to put your children first.
There is no other course of action open to you. You must stop prevaricating. You must stop looking at this from the pov of you and the parents and what you want from them, be it revenge, closure, acknowledgement, affection whatever it is all water under the bridge. There will never be closure of any kind here for you.

This situation boils down to the reality of you the parent either stepping up to the plate and protecting your children or failing to. It is not about you the child any more

You need to find a new counsellor asap.

I'm sorry but this sounds like awful advice. Your daughter was abused very badly by these people. They are NOT loving grandparents. Be careful that you aren't using 'How can I deprive them of a chance to know their grandparents' as an excuse for not confronting them - and be careful that 'carefully managed contact' doesn't end up with you losing your daughter's trust.

You are her mummy, she will look to you to protect her. What is she supposed to think when she is taken by that mummy to see them again? How do you think she will react? If her reaction is one of fear, what are you going to do - coax and encourage her to bury that fear and pretend?

Take control, cut them out, DEFEND your children. Let them know that you will NOT ALLOW that treatment to be ok and that they DON'T have to grin and bear such horrible abuse.

That last post of yours read like a deflated balloon. That counsellor of yours counsellor turned your backbone to jelly.

Get a new one.

Ask at Women's Aid for recommendations.

I think we need to call this as it is. Abuse.

It doesn't matter who's doing it, it's actually immaterial whom it's being perpetrated against.

There is absolutely NO point in trying to negotiate with them. They have no conscience, none of this is about anyone else except themselves. Their 'victims' are all collateral damage on their path to feeling powerful.

You could confront, it'll perhaps make YOU feel better, having said something, you'll have vented, but it won't make them think any differently.

They won't see what they're doing wrong. Not unless they want to, or if, as a result of their abuse of others they have lost everyone from their lives, and they NEED to change.

Strange advice from the counsellor. Is she assuming direct confrontation will improve your confidence and make you feel better?

How does she think you can sort out 'highly managed contact?'

I would say Go with your gut. You know your parents better than anyone. Confront her if you want to -otherwise i'd stick with a letter or e mail. Less upsetting for you and you can say everything you want to and be very clear.

If it was me personally, i would be backing off.

What Math said. hear Hear.

My dses have never seen/met my father. Only now, at early-teens, have they even mentioned the fact. Well old enough to know why there is no contact.

They need good role-models, sometimes this is their Grandparents. Sometimes it;s another older person. It doesn't have to be a blood relative.

This thread has left me feeling sad and angry.

Please no more talking, you know what you have to do.

There is only so much handholding MN can do for you, but it feels like everyone is giving brilliant advice, but you're not hearing it.

Do it tonight, and feel the weight lift off your shoulder. You have nothing to feel guilty about. They don't deserve you, but your kids do.

As if you don't have enough to deal with, OP! There are only so many hours in the day and your priority surely has to be your kids and managing the parenting issues between you and their father. Your parents, frankly, are a load of trouble and no help. Don't waste your precious time trying make 'highly managed contact' possible.

What all this underlines is that you have no sense of proper boundaries between you and your parents or you and your children or between your parents and your children.

You have the instinct to protect them or you would not have posted this thread. However, you are too enmeshed with your parents to do what is necessary in order to protect them; your parents have broken down your boundaries and you are unable to establish a healthy one between you and them. You in turn are also infringing on the boundary there should be between you and your own children when you use them in any role that has anything to do with the relationship between you and your parents.

You need to examine the ways in which you do this:
What are you yourself hoping to gain from your parents by allowing them to have a relationship with your children?
What are you hoping to do to your parents by allowing them to have a relationship with your children?
I appreciate that these are hard questions.

The number one task of your next counsellor will be to help you see the need for boundaries and help you develop them.

I am hearing what you are all saying. And my gut is saying the same thing.

I have emailed my parents:

"I have been thinking very hard since the events of last week, and I have decided that I have to take steps to ensure that DS and DD are protected when they are with me. It was extremely disturbing to have a police visit at my house, and if exH found out about it, it could be used against me in any future residence proceedings.

I need some time to consider what is best for DS and DD going forward. Therefore I will not be meeting you at [theme park] next Saturday with them and I do not want you to attend DD's party on Sunday. When I have had more time to think, I suggest we talk again."

It was probably a cop-out to email. But at least I have done it. It's not the clean break that many of you want me to make (and which I think I need to make). But it does sort out the immediate issue at least.

Wow, that was a cop-out!
Not because it was done by e-mail, but because you're bending over backwards not to hold them responsible for anything or upset them in any way.
You didn't even mention that their abuse of your DD was the reason for the police visit.
Or that it's them you're protecting your children from.
Or that you have any feelings about their appalling treatment of your DCs at all.
OP, what exactly do you think they would do to you if you sent them an e-mail saying, "I am appalled and furious at the way you treat my children and I am not going to subject them to it any more"?
Or are you simply afraid of upsetting them?
Why?

Lesser - what's the point fuelling the fire? I have made my point. I don't need to explain to them why at this stage. IF (and it is a big if) I decide to have a more in depth conversation with them at some point, then I can explain my feelings to them if I think it's appropriate. But my feelings aren't valid as far as they are concerned, so I see no point in explaining to them how it made me feel right now. It would just have given them more reason to heap abuse on me, and I don't want that.

I don't expect to get a response from them anyway.

I think you could have left out this bit: 'It was extremely disturbing to have a police visit at my house, and if exH found out about it, it could be used against me in any future residence proceedings."

What that part said was 'I am afraid of the police and I am afraid of exH'. It did not say 'You did something that was wrong and even criminal and therefore ...'

'The events of last week' (indirect speech) and the lack of direct You did X therefore I am doing Y is a bit of a copout but it is a start and you deserve a big pat on the back for that.

I suggest you bring a friend to the theme park to tackle them if they show up. I also suggest you make sure you have reinforcements on the day of the party. If I were you I would not put it past them to arrive bearing gifts and weeping and wailing about you denying your children their affection/presents/blah blah. You may need someone to physically bar them from participating in the theme park trip or entering your house, in other words.

Please make sure you get in touch with the police.

Sorry if that sounded harsh, OP.
Thing is, I don't know if it will even achieve the modest aim of getting them off your back for the time being.
Because you're being so gentle with them still, they may simply take offence at not getting to see the GCs next week and feel they can still bully you into backing down. And on the evidence of the tone of your e-mail, they may well be right.

I knew the wording would get pulled to pieces by you lot . I can live with that... At the end of the day, I wouldn't be where I am if I had the resilience of you lot, would I - so I was bound to get it wrong!!

I won't be going to the theme park with the kids - we will go somewhere else. And my parents won't come to the party - I'm fairly sure of that. But my good friend will be there with her boys, and I will ask her if she can ensure her DH is on standby in case there is an issue. I don't think there will be.

I'm sad that you seem to have chosen not to press charges. I think you would be better to cease all contact with them. You have to protect your dcs that is your job. Facilitating any form of contact between your parents and your children is enabling their abuse. I'm really surprised the counsellor has suggested this and if my dcs had been treated the way yours have I would have ceased all contact last November. Please act now.

Oh no - they won't be bullying me into seeing their GC. No way! Fortunately it's a long drive (as far as they are concerned) to get here, so they won't just try and turn up. And in any case my mum will sulk for months now as I have stood up to her.

No-one but they calls my landline, so I am safe not to answer it if it rings, as I know it will be them. If it's not them, there is an answerphone so I can always call whoever it is back. And shortly I shall be moving home, so I will get a new phone number then.