Is my DSD being neglected?

[MINNIEMOG]

New to mumsnet so bear with me!

My partner has a 9 year old daughter - he has no formal arrangements to see her so gets her as and when he can (we live an hour away and he works shifts), he sends money to his ex everymonth.

Im so fed up of what I can see happening and how it isnt right and that NO ONE says or does anything about it.

These are the main problems I can see;

Her mum has married a turkish man, so DSD misses ALOT of school to go over there (even though she doesnt like going and likes school). Ive worked out shes missed around 7 weeks of the school year.

DSD is always scruffy when she turns up at ours - dirty, scruffy and tatty clothes. Not once has she turned up with clean clothes, change or underwear, pjs or toothbursh (obviously we (I) provide all of the above but still! I recently even took her shopping and spent £75 of my own money on clothes for the summer all of which have now dissapeared to her house never to be seen again.

She turned up this week on Sunday afternoon filthy long nails, greasy hair, dirty socks. her (dirty) school uniform shoved in a carrier bag with bits of food in the bottom - no socks, underwear or shoes or raincoat - just a dress and cardigan. and no school bag. when i asked DSD where her shoes are she said she wears trainers now cause her shoes are too small !!! I know for a fact school wont allow that!

Shes 9 but is now getting too overweight for age 14 clothes - her diet is appauling and gets whatever she asks for.

No set bed time - we frequently get facetime calls from DSD at 10.30pm onwards on school nights!

whats frustrating is that my partner will NOT say anything. says hes tried in the past and nothing changes and if he argues his ex will stop him seeing her. He wont agree that his ex is a scruff and just blames her family, although his family agree with me.

Im at the end of my tether with it - its just appauling to me and Im struggling to keep a lid on it now which is bound to cause rows between me and my partner!

rant over!!!!!

You are a dime a dozen OP I am sure his poor hild is happy to have you in her life.

If the child is happy then she probably won't appreciate being removed from her mother, all of this is obviously very normal to her.

Your DP needs to get in touch with the school as there might be all sorts going on that you don't know about. What has the Mum said to get all of that time off school? Is the girl being bullied? How is her performance at school?

Do you want a future with him? Because his parenting is too lax . Be should attend parents evenings...He should receive school communication....Instead he's using the excuse of the Ex will stop contact.

It's neglect by the both of them.

OP if this child is as 'filthy' as you describe then you need to inform SS on both parents. I'm very surprised if she is as dirty as you say that the school have not lodged concerns. Combined with 7 weeks absence you would think that they would have already started the ball rolling.

Re parents evenings: your partner needs to get in touch with the school and ask them to send him these details. He needs to use his own initiative.

Re Pyjamas etc- she shouldn’t need to bring anything with her, you should have all she needs at yours.

It’s hard to comment on the rest of the stuff but if you can filter out the bits where you are being unreasonable then people (court etc?) will take you more seriously

If it’s as bad as it sounds then he can’t stand by and ignore it or he is guilty of neglect too

It's so frustrating when your partner is more worried about the upset to the EW than growing a pair and protecting the welfare of his DD. I have had 15 years of exactly this. Like you I have bought extra bits to help out, but all these years later DH can't deal with the confrontation.

We had my DH's 2 DD's every other weekend - they would arrive with dirty clothing, stuffed in plastic bags, no underwear as they'd do their own packing, usually no socks (in the end we kept clothes at our house for them to wear). There was a long running issue with headlice and I would spend the weekend sitting on the floor using conditioner to clear their heads, using the time for chats and reading stories. I had a full-time job and 2 DD's of my own living at home at this point too.
They'd go home and this wouldn't be maintained and they'd return a fortnight later with them back with a vengeance.

EW was very defensive about the headlice and stated she didn't have the time to do their hair each night so we taught the girls to do each others heads - turned it into a game of playing "hairdressers".

General hygiene was lacking too, but we taught them as much as we could.

15 years later youngest DSD asked to live with us. A recent visit to the dentist has revealed terrible tooth decay resulting in many fillings. DH feels guilty that he didn't push more for his DD's to see the dentist regularly, but he wasn't the primary carer and was always scared to criticise.

You are in a difficult position but it seems that you are doing your very best - in the end that is all that you can do.

@cuckoo66 the judge made it pretty clear to my ex that dads are supposed to provide everything needed at their house, I only ever hand them over in the clothes they are wearing (usually scruffy ones as otherwise dad hangs on to anything nice). I really hope exH’s girlfriend isn’t judging me based on this.

Could your DP at least offer to have her stay next time her mum goes to Turkey? That'll help prevent her missing so much school and might give your DP a bit of a nudge towards being a more responsible parent.

Her dad is also a disgrace! He isn’t laid back, he’s not actually bothered!

He needs a massive boot up the arse and then he needs to step up and get down the school, find out wtf is going on and get legal support to sort it out.

Otherwise we’ll be hearing about her on the news.

DO SOMETHING!