BPD ex mom harassing teachers. How to stop it?

[trappeddad]

Our 7 YO son has special needs, and my ex is constantly attacking his teachers on emails.   It is not personal attacks, but attacking their teaching style.    I feel the teachers do not take her seriously with the plethora frequent barrages.    Certainly the teaching can be tweaked but there is a proper way to go about it instead of non-stop emails.   She has been trying to get his teacher and school principle fired or in trouble with the school board.     Our son goes to public school, so the teachers/admin just put up with it.  One reason I think is that the teachers/principle are attractive white females in a similar early 40's age category, and my ex is threatened by them... .especially if I ever talk/email with them.  I feel our son will get short-changed as my son is not going about things in a cooperative fashion.     

Does anyone have experience on how to restrain her from sending these emails?    I am thinking of telling a school admin not to assign a teacher to our son next year with similar demographics as my ex.   

[flourdust]

Sounds very unpleasant! My ex also likes to make enemies out of teachers, medical professionals, and others. Here's how I manage this... .

First, though it is tempting and may be an ingrained habit to try to intervene or fix the conflict ... .it's not your responsibility. Your ex is an adult, and so are the teachers, and you don't need to step in as the ref.

Secondly, as you've probably learned over the years, you can't make your ex do anything. You can't stop her from sending emails.

What I would do in your shoes is ignore your ex and certainly not try to intervene to ask for a male teacher next year. Maybe the best teachers available for your son fit the demographic that threatens your ex. Don't deprive your son!

I might speak to the teachers and school administration myself, let them know that you are aware of your ex's behavior, that you don't agree with it, and make yourself available to them to talk about your son's progress and how you can support his education. You can't stop your ex from being the crazy parent, but you can present yourself to the school as the reasonable cooperative parent.

[Turkish]

I agree with flourdust. They are adults and professionals. Sad to say that they have likely felt with high conflict personalities.  She's outed herself as an HCP. It isn't your job to fix those relationships. This may be a time to parallel parent. It doesn't mean triangulating school staff to your side,  but rather being stable and advocating for your kid.  They will see that,  they probably already do. 

[david]

My ex convinced the school I was a monster. I had a court order that allowed me to pick the boys up at school/be involved/etc. Eventually the school saw who was causing the trouble. After about three years I had the school try something different. I went to meetings prior to them meeting ex. We decided what to do and then the school contacted ex for a meeting. As long as I was not included things went fine. I know this is different then your situation but I found a way around my ex. Our youngest was in third grade at that time. He is now in seventh and things have been pretty smooth since that time.

[livednlearned]

I did the same thing as david.

You can be sure that every email your ex sends to the teachers and principals is going in a file, and that there are meetings to discuss her behaviors and how best to handle them.

I am certain that the school treated our broken family very carefully in case there was a lawsuit.

[bravhart1]

We have actually had school staff reach out to convey fear for their personal safety and ask if BPDm has ever been violent.

Do as the others suggest. Meet with the staff altogether without mom, explain her BPD and how you feel it's best to handle her and your son. Have them treat her emails like the venting rages they are, I'm sure they have little to no merit anyway. If the teachers are too upset by her emails, tell them to not read them. We stopped reading BPDm's emails for a year and nothing happened, she actually stopped sending them as they got no response and she must have figured we quit reading them.

Is there anyone else, like a therapist or any court documents that spell out moms difficulty?
That may help. Just make it clear to the school that it would be best if you were the point person for them to deal with regarding your son. And mom should be paid lip service at a best.

[trappeddad]

My ex has tie breaking legal rights over education, etc. so she will not allow me to be the front person with the school.     She threatened the court evaluator so he did not talk about psychotic behavior.    Thanks for advice

[livednlearned]

My ex has tie breaking legal rights over education, etc. so she will not allow me to be the front person with the school.

Is that how your lawyer interprets tie-breaking?

[david]

My ex would be furious if she ever found out that the school was meeting with me first. I explained that to the school.
My separate meetings actually started after many unsuccessful joint meetings. I explained my position to the principal and he said that he was not in favor of separate meetings. I said okay and told him that I would call 15 minutes before the meeting to say I can't make it and I would reschedule. He wasn't pleased with my response. However, that first separate meeting went great. It was the first time the school felt something positive was happening for our son. I then explained that from now on we would have separate meetings and that ex would not be informed. They tried it and everything started working good. I then went further and told them that our meetings were not to be discussed with ex or this would not work. I then explained that all the ideas would have to come from them when they talked to her. They were hesitant but went along. After a few of these meetings the principal actually called and said he didn't understand why or how this was working but it was working for our son and that was what he deemed as most important.
He is now in seventh grade and ex doesn't even go to parent teacher meetings/back to school night/etc. I go separately so there is no chance for her to try engage with me. It is a boundary that works very well.
I am certain she has no idea what is going on.