advice please

Hi,

Please could someone advise me. We have a defined contact order in place re: children and both have PR.

Son, aged 9, was invited to a party involving going to a very large theme park, which would include driving on the motorway for appx 2 hours. The child who invited him is not at all a close friend of the family or indeed one of sons good friends. He has never had him round etc.

I expressed my concerns to ex (child was with ex at the time of the party), that ''i did not feel comfortable for son to be going such a distance on the motorway with a family whom we hardly knew)

ex replied that unless I was saying ''i wasn''t allowing him to go'' then why comment?

I replied that as a parent I wasn''t comfortable with the situation and that as the other parent he may have commented too?

Son went!

Is it the case that when the children are with ex, he can do what on earth he likes with them or allow them to do things no matter what I say. (I am not talking about petty things here, but I had genuine concerns re: the safety of my son)

Please advise

Survive

Survive

It''s correct that your ex can choose what to do, where and who with when son is with him; and as he PR he can make decisions on his own regarding activities, etc. Unless there is a genuine child welfare issue, you can''t really lay down the law regarding what he can and can''t do.

You are right to express any concerns you may have to him, but equally he is within his own rights to either act on your concerns or ignore them.

Thanks Ruby,

Yes I did have comcerns that is why I raised this. I normally wouldn''t comment on what the children were doing. But this was 2 hours away with an unknown family

Survive

perhaps your ex has been building relations with this family that you weren''t aware of?

maybe......son has never mentioned this child before either when at mine or when he has been at dads


I guess I just wanted to check, as this was something I was truly uncomfortable with. What saddens me, that when parents split, any decisions that would have been made jointly (in the childs best interest) have now fallen by the wayside due to the nature of our hostile relationship. It would appear that any comment or concern I have, ex will do the opposite, whether he agrees or not, I feel, sometimes just to prove a point!

Survive