Exchange

[Thunderstruck]

We had a wonderful weekend with SD10. It was our baby shower and my birthday. Now SD10 goes back to uBPDbm's house for her two week "vacation" period over the summer (our temp CO says we alternate weeks with each parent picking a two week block). I put the vacation in parenthesis, because she has no plan on taking one. SD10 will be home alone, uBPDbm will be at work, and we won't be receiving our court ordered phone calls.  :'(

Usually the drop off is at daycare, but the daycare is closed for these last two weeks of summer. The CO says we had SD10 until 6pm so I took the day off work and hung out with SD10. DH took off early so he could spend the afternoon with her before she had to leave for two weeks. uBPDbm was demanding an exchange at 5:30 because that's what time she gets out of work. DH didn't want to cut short his time so he said no the exchange, per the court order, is at 6.

When we show up at the exchange (I think 8 minutes late) at the police station, uBPDbm is waiting in front of the building instead of in her car per the court order. She starts to approach our car so DH drives to another part of the parking lot. She follows the car and comes over to it. SD10 is getting confused, we tell her it's in the court order that her mom is supposed to wait in her car. Before we have a chance to say goodbye, uBPDbm opens the car door, screams "get the f#$% out of the car" and rips SD10 out of the car. She didn't get to gather up her stuff to go. She didn't get to say goodbye to us for TWO weeks.

When I saw uBPDbm wasn't following the order I hit the record button on my phone. This is all video taped. There are cameras in the police station parking lot.

What do you all suggest to do? I'm thinking a boundary needs to be put in place. Maybe if uBPDbm isn't following the order (waiting in her car) then DH will drive away and wait until she is?

[Nope]

I think the only thing you can do is document and bring this specific incident up (with all evidence) when your case finally gets to court. DH and I had to tolerate all sorts of behavior from their mom and she got away with all of it until the chickens came home to roost when we finally had a hearing and example after example was brought up.

It seems to me that since she was already out of the car she had already decided exactly what she was going to do and would not be deterred. The problem with driving away is it will likely just trigger her further and she's likely to only make more of a scene. There is virtually no way to hide that scene from the kiddo. I think maybe calling ahead to the police station so a third party can stand outside might work better. Mostly because theoretically she's less likely to make a scene in front of an outsider. If need be, show the police the order and the video of what happened and tell them it's important for SD10 that this kind of thing not happen again.

[david]

If something like this happens again perhaps you can drive away and call the police asking them to come out of the building to help. This way you can also get a police report if she still rages. It might be enough to help her control herself.

[livednlearned]

How awful for SD10  :'( not to mention your own nerves jangling like that.

It sounds like you can also say to SD10 that it's important that you and her mama follow the rules because no one wants a repeat of that experience. Will you bring it up when you see SD10 again?

david and Nope both have good suggestions about involving a police officer, with the understanding that there needs to be some kind of domestic assistance to make sure there is minimal conflict for SD10. Is that something you would consider doing?

[david]

I had an exchange at ex's house where ex ignored the court order and did not let S12 out of her residence. S12 had no idea what was going on. I called the police and explained that it was my time to pick S12 up and how our court order is written. The police said it was a civil matter and there was nothing they could do. Ex's car was in the driveway so I asked the police to do a wellness check since I as concerned for everyone's safety. They were not that pleased but they had to do something. As they approached ex's front door my phone magically rang and S12 said he would be out in a minute. When he got in my car he asked why the police where there. I simply said I called ex's phone and the house phone and no one answered. I was concerned that something might be wrong so I called the police to make sure everyone was okay. That made sense to him and everything worked out fine. I told him that I called both phones and no one answered and that was why I became concerned. He said that both phones were missing and he didn't hear them ring. The phones at ex's place are missing on a regular basis. I usually mention that we have a court order that needs to be followed or the judge will get angry. I find that young children understand that rules need to be followed.

[DreamGirl]

How awful for SD10 indeed.

There's no excuse for what Mama did. Dropping F bombs over having to wait is a little bit on the extreme side.

For me, just to keep the bigger picture in view, I would be pretty annoyed if I asked a favor to meet me a half hour early so I wouldn't have to wait... .was told "no" and "the court order says 6:00pm"... .only to have the other partent show up late.

She overreacted by far, but maybe there would be a way to diffuse the situation? For your stepdaughter's sake? I'm not talking about walking on eggshells here (like thinking you have to agree to the 1/2 hour early pickup) but maybe just giving her a heads up that you're going to be late and then apologize when it happens. Or are you wanting her bad behavior to help your case? (I take it that's why you're recording her?)  

I also wouldn't get police involved personally, because then all at once she's going to get the green light to get police involved and then it just gets all messy where both sides look like they can't handle their business. The professionals in these situations tend to dislike when there's a lot of unnecessary drama coming from both parties. Even when it's reactionary drama.

Our city has an Supervised Exchange Program, mostly used when there's a Restraining Order involved, where neither parent has to see or interact with each other during exchanges. The kiddo is dropped off, walked to the room where the receiving parent has been waiting for 15 minutes and leaves, while the dropping off parent waits for 15 minutes before they leave. It costs money and can be inconvenient when it's miles away from your home, but for some situations is pretty helpful and necessary.  

Is there something like that available?

[Thunderstruck]

When uBPDbm was chasing us all over the parking lot, we did have a second to explain to SD10 that she was supposed to be waiting in her car and that was why we were trying to find another spot. When we see SD10 again, we will definitely have a little chat about the exchange. Probably phrase it as "what could we do next time to make it go more smoothly?". And explain that that is why these things are written into the court order the way they are. We always stress to SD10 that we are trying to avoid fights.

Poor SD10. Just, what, two weeks ago she was carrying on that her mom was a "psychopath" and "mentally ill" and should be in therapy for her anger. This incident didn't do much to reverse that, huh. :/

We record exchanges due to false accusations of abuse. Last year uBPDbm filed two false restraining orders, so we started asking for a PO to wait with us at exchanges. We stopped doing that after awhile. For the most part uBPDbm has been behaving at exchanges, especially since the CE has started and the temp order has been in place. This was the first "blow up" in about a year. At the last messy exchange uBPDbm started crying crocodile tears to the PO and was telling him how we were awful and SD10 didn't want to go with us but we were forcing her to because of the court order. It ended with the PO telling SD10 to talk to the judge about not wanting to be with us.   Completely inappropriate!

Now uBPDbm is making false accusations (to us, on OFW) that we were trying to "kill" SD10 and were acting like psychos.   DH just replied that we have the incident recorded and to next time please follow the court order and wait in the car.