DD is 9, Year 5.
Split with her dad when she was 18 months old. He was abusive to both of us proved in family courts but he still got unsupervised access. DD also has SN and a medical condition.
DD is in denial about her conditions, says theres nothing wrong with her and rejects any adjustments or attempts to help her. She has an EHCP but if the TA tries to work 1-1 with her even outside of class she gets upset and refuses to go saying she doesn’t need to. She can read and write but struggles due to dyslexia and dyspraxia which she denies she has. She hates school and would rather not go. She tells me she hates me for forcing her to go – she doesn’t like a single thing about school apart from playtime, lunchtime and hometime. School keep trying to get her to work 1-1 but no consequences work, she isn’t bothered about anything they do. She’s not violent, and sending her out of the classroom is exactly what she wants, so they just have to leave her.
ExH tells her she’s perfect. He took me to court for contact and originally wanted full residency without visitation for me, he obviously didn’t get it but he still tells DD that I’m the mean woman who won’t let him see her more. With him they sit in the pub his family runs during contact, they have soft play inside and a park outside, she gets free icecream and gets to feel important. She’s been told she wouldn’t go to school she’d be homeschooled so ExH could focus on the pub – he never does any school runs as he says it’s not his choice to send her.
So she’s been saying that she wants to live with ExH. She’s always said it, from when she was 3. I tried to prove parent alienation in court when she was 5 and was basically laughed out of court and told if I tried it again I’d see my residency time cut to 50/50.
She hates me for sending her to school when she knows that ExH wouldn’t make her. ExH wouldn’t get her an education either. I don’t get a single penny in maintenance as he’s apparently a volunteer at the pub and gets no benefits or has any income he lives elsewhere though in a place that needs paying for and he has a car
I know if I had ExHs backing it’d be fine but I hate myself for thinking it but I cannot compete. I’m starting to think letting her go is the best way forward. She is always going to hate me for sending her to school which she hates. It’s a school in general problem as I had to move house between Year 2 and 3 so changed her school and she hates this one as much as the last and she’s in a smaller class and has her own 1-1 support covered by her EHCP. She is going to end up resenting me for it and theres nothing I can do – she doesn’t want to go to a special school, she says theres nothing wrong with her.
I’m giving it until half term then letting her go fulltime to her dad, because I can’t do this anymore, the arguments over her not wanting to go to school, breaking myself trying to force her in so I can earn an income and keep a roof over her head, the tears as I drop her off shouting and hitting me again because she doesn’t want to be there, her teacher calling me yet again to say she’s not even picked up her pencil and they don’t know what to do with her because consequences don’t work.
Didn’t post in AIBU as I know I’ll be slaughtered, but I don’t have any other options do i? She is going to end up hating me and I can’t do that, so I’m doing the only thing I can and letting her go.
I know I’ll never see her again while she’s a child but I have to do whats right for her and school isn’t the right place for her and I need her in school to earn money. At least this preserves our relationship.