Kids conferences

[Godslove]

Hi I have been separated since April 2014 not divorced yet. Kids stay with me and BP has a visitation every other weekends. Now he has the forth girlfriend who live with him and her son. A month ago while meditations were going on, they moved five minutes away from my house saying they want to be more involved into kids life. During the separation, I have invited him to conferences, awards, shows, etc. He never showed up. Now he started showing up with his girlfriend. Next week, I have scheduled two conferences for J6 and H8. He is asking the time and the date.  I do not feel comfortable at all. My real reaction--I want to say, "Schedule your own!". However, having shared legal custody, I am obligated to inform him. Correct? I want to think what are the chances he will show up? But he started coming to schools... .so you never know. Have you gone to conferences together? How do you manage? After divorce is final, would it get easier?

[david]

In the beginning I ex and I went to the same meeting together. Anything I said ex tried to one up me and wouldn't shut up. Teachers had little chance to communicate anything. I decided to have separate meetings. The school protested but I refused to budge. Things worked much better after that.

Haven't had a meeting together in 3 or 4 years now.

[livednlearned]

Godslove, it was pretty much the same way with my N/BPDx, too. I shared dates/times and events and he rarely if ever came. Then there was a burst of interest and in order to protect my own sanity, I put some boundaries in place with my lawyer's blessing.

Is your ex receiving messages from the school about making conference appointments? If so, then no need to invite him into the process because he is receiving notifications. If he is not getting messages, then maybe ask the school to send a note to let him know he can make an appointment. You won't be the first family who prefers separate conferences. Then keep all documentation just in case. If your school has a family specialist, they can often be the best ambassador, and they have walked this road before with many other families.

You have every right to have your own parent/teacher conference. My judge scolded N/BPDx when he made it seem like I was acting unilaterally for meeting with the teachers separately. I produced every email sent from the school (at my request) to show that he had been copied.

N/BPDx expected me to spoon feed him every detail of S14's life without doing anything to engage S14 directly. Don't let your ex bully you on this. You are not obstructing him from being a part of your kids' lives.

You have informed him that there are conferences. I would contact the school and make sure they are sending him messages. Let them know that your's is a high-conflict divorce and it is better for the teachers and everyone involved to hold separate conferences. And to please let ex arrange his own conference.

[Godslove]

Yes, I enrolled him into school system about one year ago because he was using me as a secretary. He IS getting the school notices. That is how he knew that there are conferences coming up. This time, I shared the time and the date thinking I have to do it but now I know that I do not need to. Thanks for the clarification. Yes. That is exactly that. Spoon fee him. I am not doing a good job setting boundaries and it makes myself upset. I will get better, stronger. I have to.

During the conference, I am planning to share family situations and how their dad residence and dynamics changed (live with his girlfriend and her son). I feel that it is an important piece of information for especially my son's teacher. J6 is doing a great job (on grade level) in my opinion but his teacher is very frustrated with him. She actually talked to me last week about his academics. I couldn't bring family situations because J6 was there with me.

I want to say "Thank you for doing a great job. J6 has improved so much since last year even though he is still struggling with family situation. His dad recently moved into a new place with his girlfriend and her son and J6 brings home a lot of questions about it. He shares with me that he is sad" something like this. Do I sound like venting? But it is all truth.

Should I save this for later private meeting? Is it going to make any kind of tension? I can't predict how he will react or do something for settlement as a result of this. I know he will want to appear to be a great father who is so into their life. urgg... .I am still so mad at him and afraid at the same time. It is eating me up... .

[livednlearned]

Be gentle with yourself especially when you have custody orders hanging over your head. Practicing boundaries with someone who has a PD is not a walk in the park, and you're trying to thread the needle by following court orders to a T. You offloaded some of the work to the school, that means you're taking care of yourself  

It took some time before I learned to be proactive with teachers and the school. My ex would qualify as "not cooperative, dangerous" so if we ended up in meetings together, I handled him with great care. If I felt something had to be said that didn't feel safe to say in the meeting, I followed up with the teacher or support staff later. More often than not, I talked to them ahead of time because that worked best for me.

For example, your ex is likely to feel shamed if you link his choices (new GF, new home) to your son's academic performances in front of the teacher (authority figure, someone judging him). If your ex is even remotely narcissistic, he will be performing for the teacher, and anything negative about his son will be taken personally. So maybe call the teacher and let her know you have ideas about what's going on with S6? And that you are working toward a better coparenting relationship with his dad, but for right now you both see things in a very different way, and that could create a lot of unnecessary tension in the meeting. You plan to attend with S6's dad, but going forward, will be having separate conferences. And that in the meeting, you will be there to listen.

Something like that?

[Godslove]

livenlearnd, always thank you for your valuable advise. That seems to be a wise decision to email the teacher let her know and set up another meeting. He will be definitely performing and take things personally and I do not want the tension during my children's conference.

[livednlearned]

I do not want the tension during my children's conference.

One other thing (sorry -- this topic is dear to my heart  ) is that the school deals with a ton of legal things behind the scenes about all kinds of things, and I think those of us with high-conflict situations sort of step into that legal zone, even if we aren't aware.

I don't know how much they document. I do know that everything you email the school is part of a public record. I got the impression that the school had a thick file for our family, especially by the time S14 was in middle school.

It's a good thing to be aware of. I made sure everything I did would be ok to hear about later in court. You don't need to explain things to them -- just make it clear that this is how things are going to be going forward.

Teachers and admin don't want to sit in hostile meetings either. One of our meetings had 8 people and N/BPDx kept saying awful things, often talking as though he was speaking for me (incorrectly), "LnL won't agree with that because she thinks our child is retarded." That's a direct quote that made everyone in the room cringe. S14 is considered "twice exceptional" because he's both gifted and has a learning disability. All N/BPDx cared about was the gifted label, he blamed me for focusing on the learning disability. The disability didn't affect S14 in math, so the school was recommending that he meet with an accelerated group, then go to a different room for help with writing, which is where his LD was affecting him the most.

Anyway   I'm sure you know the drill.  

[david]

Our oldest, he was 8 at the time, used the school counseling services and they helped a lot. That was when ex first left. He was ashamed or embarrassed. The school had a group counseling for kids in separated or divorced families. For him to find out through outside sources helped him.

[Godslove]

livenlearned, thanks for the reminder. J6 had a speech IEP meeting. I got the meeting scheduled after many emails, phone calls with Special Ed, recommendations from other professional, and informal meetings. I made a mistake persuading his dad to come to the meeting. I really thought it would be good for both parents to be there to persuade other staff that my J6 really needs speech service. Well... it didn't. The school says he does not qualify speech service because he is on grade level but recommend private speech service. Anyway after the IEP, BPD feels that I opened my arms wide and happily for him to interact with me--which he always wants this or that. I started practicing arm length communication again.

David, J6 and H8 are getting school counselings since last year. three four times last year. This year twice so far. The children are pulled out together. My older one is very receptive but she says her younger brother does not want to participate in talking just games. Also, the counselor often forgets to pick up my kids so while I still request and remind the school counselor to see my children regularly (which I am happy to hear from H8 that they will start the group counseling), I take them to Christian counseling outside. It gets quite expensive with two kids and insurance does not cover. BPD is not paying his share, but this is something I can not delay.

[david]

My younger was not much of a talker when we went to counseling. He was listening because weeks later he would repeat something verbatim. I attributed the quietness to his young age and not able to process and communicate at the level required. It's probably good that his older sibling is there.

From what I gathered when they talk to me there is little interaction between them and their mom. We went through a custody eval and the evaluator even noticed it. He talked to each boy one on one for an hour. The next meeting he talked to ex and I. He started by saying the boys said they loved both parents but he wanted to concentrate on what he said were the things of concern. The biggest thing he talked about was that he asked both boys to describe a typical day with their mom and a typical day with their dad. He said that both boys mentioned me when they talked about time with me but neither mentioned anything about their mom when describing their time with her. I was already hearing that from them but it really sunk in that day. The entire meeting consisted of me listening to the conversation between ex and the evaluator.

I believe that both boys avoid ex because they never know what to expect from her. She blows up at some of the simplest things. She even yells at them when they are avoiding her. She will blame them for all sorts of things that have nothing to do with them.

[OutOfEgypt]

I don't know if you need to tell him anything.  He's an adult, right?  Can't he contact the school or ask to be on the school's email list?  Surely, he can make his own appointments and keep in the loop all by himself, especially when his new woman.

My ex is the same way.  Court date coming up and suddenly she's showing up, getting homework done with her, etc.  Yet in the past forever years she hasn't come to a single parent-teacher conference.

[scraps66]

I've done both, yesterday we both attended.  I deal with what david mentions, ex trying to convince me that anything I say about the kids is just not correct, or, I deal with ex interrogating school personnel about why S8 got a "1" in one testing category and the data to back that up, etc.  What I found yesterday is that my ex likes to give S11 "extra" work at home that she chooses and sometimes this extra work, though it makes her feel good about what she's doing, conflicts and does not complement what school is doing.  I see this as some kind of a control thing.

What I am always aware of, maybe to the point of paranoia, is ex suing these sessions, whether they are conferences, coparent counseling or counseling for S11, is that these sessions are used to allow her to gather intel on what's going on at my house with the kids.  This information then gets used in, maybe not direct conversations with the kids, but used to posture "her" house as "more fun" than dad's house.  A consistent thread is that ex will no give S11 consequences for his bad behavior but rather reward him with gifts or activities immediately after he does something bad.

The living in close proximity and involving the SO in activities is concerning.  I don't know how to limit, but you should really create the boundary of involving only mom and dad and not mom, dad, and girlfriend.  I have this also where ex tries to give her bf more and more involvement at a parenting level, having him help coach S8s baseball team, putting his e-mail on the distribution list for his teams, etc.   

[scraps66]

PS Ex does not have to live five minutes from your location to be involved in the kids' lives.  This is just a convenient rationalization to make you uncomfortable and gives the opportunity to stalk your patterns obviously.  I also have this situation in that my ex's bf is the best friend of one of my neighbor's and this neighbor has a son that is best friends with my S8.  So she always has eyes on me and she always has an excuse to be in my neighborhood.  It's sociopathic.

[david]

I just had a teacher conference on Monday. The school always schedules them this week. The teacher asked about ex because he hasn't seen her or had any contact with her this entire year. He contacted her recently about the teacher conference and she told him she couldn't make it and that she wanted a phone conference. She lives five minutes away so distance isn't an issue.

We had a court hearing the last few years and ex was "involved" in the school. She volunteered for a lot of things. The hearing ended last year. I got more time with our boys during the school year. Since then her participation had disappeared.

It has nothing to do with the kids. It's all about her and what she thinks people or the courts want to see so she is a good mom. When no one is looking she does nothing.

[Godslove]

I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving. just to follow up, he never showed up. After the first kid's conference, I got a text saying, he is sorry that he missed the conference due to back to back meetings (same reasons for years) asking me to share some feedback from the meetings. I didn't respond. Even when he wants to pretend he is an involved dad, he couldn't commit.

Today, he was supposed to come for Thanksgiving holidays. didn't show up. After an hour waiting, I texted him if he is planning to take the kids. Thirty min. later, he said he is coming. I said no since kids are getting ready for bed. Hours later, he texted he will come tomorrow morning and going forward, he does not want to disappoint the kids, so communicate with him and confirm holiday schedule. It is still surprising how he can turn things around and put blame on me for everything. I answered that I never thought I have to remind him his visitation schedule that is on the paper. Going forward check the schedule and be on time. I am proud of myself setting boundaries this time.

My H8 had a melt down the other day saying she feels her dad is not her family anymore since he has another family-GF and her son living with him. I worry if she feels like a third wheel that she is visiting but they live there. GF moved in way before her son moved in together into this new place. H8 was fine when gf moved in but this son (I hear he is older like 17--she said he doesn't go school anymore) concerns me as a mom of little girl. My l on the lease paper, BPD only listed himself and H8 J6 as tenants and we can ask to list everyone who lives there. I feel like it is waste of money as he will lie anyway and do not have any force. What can I do with this situation? I started texting BPD but never sent. Not sure what to do.

[Thunderstruck]

We have a different flavor of situation. I guess I was the "new girlfriend" (gasp!) but uBPDbm was the one not attending conferences.

uBPDbm would receive all the information from the school about how to schedule conferences and on what dates they were occurring. She refused to send any of it to DH. Please don't be that person. Send him the information on how to schedule and when they are occurring.

Regardless of uBPDbm trying to block the information, DH went out of his way to find out anyway. He scheduled conferences. Him and I attended. At the time I was unemployed, so I was the one doing homework with SD anyway so it made sense for me to be there. uBPDbm complained that I attended and that DH didn't invite her. We have stuck to the firm boundary that she can schedule her own conferences with the teacher. She never does. We still after every single one send her a summary of what occurred. Sometimes she reads them, sometimes she doesn't. It won't change a thing, but at least no one can accuse us of withholding information.

We have always been very tactful about saying anything about our personal situation to the teachers. We usually state that we are going through a custody dispute (DH is going for primary) and that it may be difficult on SD. There is no need for us to mention uBPDbm's behavior and how it affects SD10. Her reputation precedes her anyway.