You are here

Going to court today

Kindashort's picture

So from my previous post if you read you know the situation well yesterday on my ss's birthday we finally got the call from cps. They told my DH that she is not be unsupervised around any child. Then the lady that he was speaking to told him we had to go file for a restraining order today. So until cps closes their case and they make a decision if they will pursue charges which I believe they will. She isn't allowed around ss or to call. She was blowing up DH's phone yesterday saying how DH and her husband were just hurting the kids and that she did nothing wrong which is par for the course for her. DH told her she could come see little here for his birthday but she refused. I know that hurt my ss but we couldn't make her come for a supervised visit. I know she won't come for any in the future either just how she is. We still have a long road to go down today court and then we have to sit ss down and tell him that mom won't be around for a bit. We wish he was young enough to say she was busy and couldn't come but he knows something is up. While we will of course leave out the big details like the drugs and his sister testing positive we know we have to say something cause we will have to bring him in to get hair follicle tested as well. But we can explain that to him later. If anyone has any advise on how to spin this explanation to a nine year old I would appreciate anything I can get. I'm already dreading this conversation.

Comments

not2sureimsaneanymore's picture

Don't give any. Don't give any. Ignore everything unless it's in the CO or the restraining order. Don't even think about being "nice" at this point and extending a friendly hand. That's done and over with.

Kindashort's picture

Thank you everyone. Yeah being nice is definitely over! Not playing anymore. Yeah we want to tell him the whole truth it's hard to not want to sugar coat it, but your right it would be worse when we have to take him to get drug tested. I can't believe I am going to have to take a 9 year old to get tested because his three year old sister tested positive. It's a little earth shattering. We have the restraining order now and are taking it to the school and just waiting for the initial fireworks from her. We were pretty nervous that she was going to show last night but it didn't happen. We do have to go back tomorrow because we have been asked to come speak to the judge in her chambers. So I don't know what's gonna there.

Tuff Noogies's picture

^^^THIS. i've been down this road before also. twice, once as a child myself, and later on w/ my dh and the boys.

Kindashort's picture

Oh no we weren't going to tell about his sister. Just the situation with his mom because we feel he is owed some kind of explanation why he isn't allowed to see her. We don't want someone else to say something when he is around and him to hear. So we are going to leave some parts out but he does need to know something other than waiting by the window every other Friday or trying to call her.

Tuff Noogies's picture

dont, please. yes he's young, but he's old enough to begin putting things together in his own mind. and he HAS to do it in his own mind, on his own time or he may never come to grips with this.

at near that age, my mom pulled the vanishing act - dad had full custody anyway, but she'd call to arrange visitation then not show up, then go from weeks to months with no contact whatsoever. my dad never once gave an explanation or excuse, and certainly never gave his opinion by bad-mouthing, but he allowed my brother and i time to process it on our own. when he or mom (my sm) saw how it made us feel, we'd get a redirect to an activity. i do not resent my bm and understand and accept that she went through a period of life making very poor decisions.

dh got the boys 3 years ago. kaos was 9, lurch was 13. dumb@$$ excercises ZERO visitation. i know there are phone calls but they are not very frequent. at the beginning, kaos always asked to call her - he'd call nine times in a row, leave voicemails and texts, "has bm called back yet?" "has she called?" dh always answered "no, son, she has not." is desire for lots and lots of contact with her dwindled down during the first year. if she told the boys of plans to pick up, sometimes she simply wouldnt show, sometimes she'd call with some lie or other.

it is what it is. dont sugar-coat it, but let him see it on his own terms. whatever you do, do NOT shield him from the pain she is causing him, but be there as a support-and-caregiver, just because you love him. help him navigate this, but do not do it for him by spelling things out. just be matter of fact with *the facts* without showing any of your own feelings. he's got a lot to process and come to terms with, he may end up needing counseling. but please give him space with lots of love and stability.

Kindashort's picture

It is just a sticky situation. We already have an appointment scheduled with a councilor because he has been upset about his mom more or less ditching him. But since the whole drug testing thing is coming up we know we needed to have something waiting in the background for him. I fully intended on being there for him every step of the way. I was able to arrange for a leave of absence from work for two weeks. I think honestly we might have tried to avoid telling him anything until the summer but since he knows she is supposed to come between now and then we can't do that. We will let him ask questions if he wants but we will leave any bad mouthing out of it. He shouldn't hear that from anyone. We did do something productive with all of this we contacted her husband that she is seperated from and arranged to get the kids tonight they haven't seen each other for two months. Smile so I hope my ss will be happy tonight. We did decide to wait for the weekend before we told him anything so he wouldn't have to go to school the next day with it fresh on his mind.

Kindashort's picture

Unfortunately we are not going to get a choice in the matter the caseworker went to the school and talked to him. So he knows more than we could have told him anyway. He didn't tell us cause he was told if he told him and mom would be in trouble. Kinda pissed as hell about that. He actually seems more relaxed now that it's not weighing on him. So today after we finish at the courthouse we have to meet with the caseworker for the next step. I believe my ss will end up being brought in to court to talk to the judge. I was not aware they were allowed with a kid under 12 but apparently they can order it. So all of our speech planning is gone and all these little things from when he came home from her place before make sense. Used to ask how his weekend was and he would start crying and saying he couldn't say anything about it we didn't push because we just figured BM told him to not tell dad about how they spend their weekends like where they went etc. I guess that was true just in a different way. Poor kiddo was trying to keep mom outta trouble and himself when he never would have a problem just mom. But of course he loves his mom and wants to protect her so I can't say I blame him. I'm just sorry he saw more than he should have.