[Solved] Problem with child agreement plan

Hi there

It would be helpful if you can give a little more detail please.

Do the children live with you or their mother? Is she refusing to pick them up from school on the days that you both agreed they would be with her?

Unfortunately, without a court order setting out arrangements, she can do more or less as she likes.

However if she is the parent with care and is refusing to pick the kids up, you should contact the school and ask them for advice, hopefully they would speak to her and tell her that it is her responsibility to pick them up.

Parents have a duty of care and a responsibility to look after their children, leaving them at school without making firm, alternative arrangements, could be classed as neglect, or even abandonment.

Hopefully she is bluffing to upset you, but if you are unable to make arrangements for contact with the children, your first step would be to attend mediation to try and sort it out.

If all else fails, then court would be the only other option open to you, to get a Child Arrangements Order in place.

Best of luck

Do the children live with you or their mother?
Children live with their mother

Is she refusing to pick them up from school on the days that you both agreed they would be with her?
Yes this is correct.

I am currently at work and she told me now that she will not pick kids from the school today and she closing her phone.

Could you please advice what i can do in this situation. I am at work and this is not first time when she did this,

Last time she changed agreed day without informing me and she informed school that its my day so school chased me.

I have emailed school after to make them aware about his but they said that they dont want to be involved between parents agreement.

It so frustrating what she is doing. the same as for children.

How is your work about taking time out to collect the kids? Works these days are supposed to be supportive of parents with children and should be able to give a little flexibility in your working.

If your work gives you a problem could another family member help out? Grandparents?

what i would say though is keep every message from your ex and especially these where she is droping you in it at last minute becasue this is poor parenting on her part and would be very helpful for you to build a case against her should you end up going the legal route.

So my employer is quiet flexible however but I cant stretch this flexibly due to the ex unexpected plans.
I don't have any family around.

I believe she is doing this to make my life more harder.
She did this before. She switched phone off ignored school phone calls.

I cant do the same. I cant leave kids at school like a revenge. This is so wrong.

I think I will inform school that I will stop pick them from school and I will send her formal letter. However I don't know if this will have any positive results.

There is parents which refuses to be involved in their child’s life. So how this is working? How she can force this things and why she is allowed to do it.

I hope this make sense because i am very frustrated at the moment

I would call Social Services and explain what has happened, also you could ask the school if they have an after school club that they could place the children in, until you can get to pick them up.

Unfortunately the school are involved, as the primary carer, it is her responsibility to pick the children up. By dropping this on you at the last minute and turning her phone off, she is being negligent.

I am planning to inform her and school that I will not pick them up anymore due to blackmail and work flexibility problems.

I will pick them up from home 30min later
Do you think this is good idea?

Did you pick them after all? I'm not sure that not picking them up anymore will solve the issues you're having, it sounds to me that this is a way for her to continue to excercise control you and she won't give that up easily.

You could try mediation if the problems continue.

Best of luck

Yes I did. Fourth time already.
However next week I can’t and she texted me yesterday that she will not pick them up also.

I understand this is way of the control and she will not give up easily.

I just wondering what is my options.
Because this what she is doing is very wrong.
It’s affecting children, myself, my work and relationship

Is need to be the way to stop her doing this.

As the short term solution I am thinking to stop picking them up from school, but I don’t know how to formally do it. What is the best way and who need to be informed.

Long term solution is mediation or court.

Thanks for help
I

I can see you’re in a really difficult situation here, the school doesn't wish to be involved and there is no reasoning with the mother. I think your only option is to contact Social Services and talk to them about the mothers threats to abandon the children at school.

Whilst it’s reasonable of the school to expect to turn to you as a parent, to step in when there’s an emergency, this is a situation of the mothers making, purely to assert control over you.

The only other option would be to put them in an after school club, or childminders, and pick them up after work.

Best of luck

Thank you for support.
I contacted school but us expected they don’t want to be involved in parents dispute.

I will contact social service in Monday for advice.

Regarding after school this solution will only work when it’s my agreed day and I can’t pick them up due the work flexibility limitation. However my problem is when she changing /breaching our agreements and by blackmail “I will not pick children from school in Friday “ she is trying to force me to take girls to my place
for the weekend. E.g. we agreed on the beginning of January the sequence of the weekends and now she realised that in valentines weekend girls are with her so she said to me that “I am not picking up girls in 15th feb and I am not in town until Sunday “

So I know mediation and court could resolve this issues but it’s probably gonna take while. I am looking how I can protect myself and girls in shorts period.

One of the solutions which come to my head was to stop take them from school.

I do understand how this makes you feel, but sometimes it’s just down to us as parents to rise above the pettiness and game playing and do what is right for the children.... your ex doesn’t seem capable of putting the children’s needs before her own, so it looks like it’s down to you to do the right thing, at least in the short term.

If you don’t pick the girls up and she turns off her phone so that she can’t be reached, and you refuse, who is it that suffers? It’s the children and that’s just not right.

Don’t view it as her having won if you pick them up, look at it as the children have at least one parent that will put them first.

Don’t get me wrong, she is absolutely in the wrong and her behaviour is awful, thank goodness they have you, because when all is said and done, I get the feeling you will do what is right by your children.

I think a court order which specifies when you have them will be better, although she could still expect you to swap weekends, even with an order in place, and courts do like to see some flexibility within an order.

I think if you speak to Social Services about her plans to abandon the children, to try and force you to step in... and the times she has done this in the past, which puts your employment at risk and just makes you feel controlled, that you’ve tried to talk to the school, but they refuse to get involved and basically you don’t know where to turn.... see what they say, they may go and speak to her about her responsibilitiesa as the children’s primary carer, it might be enough to make her stop and think about what she is doing.

Best of luck