More worrying news for the child's best interests brigade in the UK

[grahamg]

I listened to BBC radio reports here in the UK of a quite alarming rise in the numbers of children self harming, and its been found to be happening more often in much younger children, and the reports suggested the only solution being considered is offering more money or support via mental health services etc.

Here is the challenge for all those of you who believe our family law should rest upon an assessment of the best interests of the child criteria, or legal principle, thus denying decent parents any legal rights in the UK once they've separated from their partner, "Who do you believe loves those self harming children, or might love them to help raise their esteem more than the decent parents getting excluded every day in the UK by family court decisions"?

I accept many dads in particular are/can be feckless, sometimes even a danger, but that involves the " harm standard" applied in law to exclude any parent, or couple, thought to have been abusing their children, so a different legal standard than the "child's best interests paramount principle" being used to deny decent seperated parents here any legal rights.

"Who loves those children, who do you think might love them, if you're content their parent who might, balancing perhaps the excesses of the residential parent etc., sometimes, who indeed loves them,...., not you I'd suggest, who supports a family law system helping to cut off one parent from the child's life, and maybe deserves their own view of their children's best interests to take precrndence over strangers views!"

 

[Tish]

I believe without a doubt that most young children self-harm and commit suicide, is due to Bullying at school and on Social media.
Parents are too busy to monitor their children online and conversation about what is going on in school is brushed under the rug as a right of passage.
Teachers do jack $**T about it, and the age of the children is getting younger and younger.

 

[Aunt Marg]

I believe without a doubt that most young children self-harm and commit suicide, is due to Bullying at school and on Social media.
Parents are too busy to monitor their children online and conversation about what is going on in school is brushed under the rug as a right of passage.
Teachers do jack $**T about it, and the age of the children is getting younger and younger.

And failing to spend quality time with their children.

Back in the day when people were less concerned over greed and materialism, mothers were at home, and they more in tune with their children's behaviour, recognizing the early stages of problematic areas and everyday woes.

 

[Rosemarie]

I'm sure children are very confused by all this gender stuff being shoved down their throats....and our history being mangled. No wonder they are having mental problems!
When 'daddy' becomes 'mummy'....when some children have two daddies but no mummy....while others have two mummies but no daddy...they must think the world has gone crazy.
This is the result of all this 'woke' nonsense.

 

[Tish]

And failing to spend quality time with their children.

Back in the day when people were less concerned over greed and materialism, mothers were at home, and they more in tune with their children's behaviour, recognizing the early stages of problematic areas and everyday woes.

Amen to that! These days mothers being home is such a rarety and looked down upon.
You said it best when mentioning Greed and materialism.

 

[grahamg]

I believe without a doubt that most young children self-harm and commit suicide, is due to Bullying at school and on Social media.
Parents are too busy to monitor their children online and conversation about what is going on in school is brushed under the rug as a right of passage.
Teachers do jack $**T about it, and the age of the children is getting younger and younger.

Maybe has alot to do with it, but please have a go at addressing my main point, "Who really loves those children if not their parents, or if other is prevented from doing so"?

 

[grahamg]

And failing to spend quality time with their children.
Back in the day when people were less concerned over greed and materialism, mothers were at home, and they more in tune with their children's behaviour, recognizing the early stages of problematic areas and everyday woes.

Thirty os so years ago when my marriage failed I was told 70% of fathers lose all contact with their children, or "meaningful contact" within two years of their marriage failing, so I ask you again, "Who do you think loves those children if not their parent/parents", (where there is no abuse etc. obviously!)?

 

[Chet]

We lost the stay at home mom, the bread winning father, and running around with the neighborhood kids. Now, both parents must work to make a living, and kids spend too much time in a virtual world and not the real one. Boys had father figures. Girls had nurturing female figures. Rules are flexible and absolutes are disappearing.

 

[tbeltrans]

We lost the stay at home mom, the bread winning father, and running around with the neighborhood kids. Now, both parents must work to make a living, and kids spend too much time in a virtual world and not the real one. Boys had father figures. Girls had nurturing female figures. Rules are flexible and absolutes are disappearing.

I have been addressing this in various posts around here too.

Tony

 

[HoneyNut]

I haven't seen any statistics that would indicate children with a stay-at-home parent are less likely to commit suicide (but I haven't done any research either). I have read tho that the stay-at-home mom's themselves have higher suicide rates.
But addressing who loves children more than their parents, it really depends on the parents. Parents who get drugs by trading their children for sex destroy that child's self-worth, almost any other adult in the world is better for that kid than their parents.
I think grandparents can be a very important support system for kids. I don't have any grandchildren yet but I know that during adolescence my daughter sometimes only felt understood by my mom, and I remember one wonderful visit with my grandmother when I was at a rebellious age, and to my very happy surprise my otherwise proper grandma joined me in roundly criticizing my parents parenting abilities. I'm cracking up just remembering it!

 

[Pinky]

Troubled adolescents often don't confide in their parents, or even their peers. Sadly, they fall through the cracks, as they don't trust adults .. not even school counsellors. At least, that's how I felt while I was trying to cope within a dysfunctional family life growing up.

 

[grahamg]

I haven't seen any statistics that would indicate children with a stay-at-home parent are less likely to commit suicide (but I haven't done any research either). I have read tho that the stay-at-home mom's themselves have higher suicide rates.
But addressing who loves children more than their parents, it really depends on the parents. Parents who get drugs by trading their children for sex destroy that child's self-worth, almost any other adult in the world is better for that kid than their parents.
I think grandparents can be a very important support system for kids. I don't have any grandchildren yet but I know that during adolescence my daughter sometimes only felt understood by my mom, and I remember one wonderful visit with my grandmother when I was at a rebellious age, and to my very happy surprise my otherwise proper grandma joined me in roundly criticizing my parents parenting abilities. I'm cracking up just remembering it!

If you've read my posts on this thread carefully you will have noticed I separated those parents abusing or otherwise harming their children, from "decent parents/dads, (I've read a paper by a former head family court judge, judge Wilson, twenty years ago describe them as "okay dads").
The law likewise uses a different legal standard too, fathers/parents no longer living with their wife or mother of their children are judged using the "best interests of the child paramount principle", (some expert observers have said this standard provides weak protection for parental rights, and of course in the UK there are no statuary rights for parents in relation to their children, and this may violate human rights legislation, such as the right to a family life).

 

[grahamg]

Troubled adolescents often don't confide in their parents, or even their peers. Sadly, they fall through the cracks, as they don't trust adults .. not even school counsellors. At least, that's how I felt while I was trying to cope within a dysfunctional family life growing up.

A child doesn't necessarily need to confide in you are a patent for you to get a pretty good idea whether they're okay, for example had my daughter been at all withdrawn I'd have known pretty soon there was a problem maybe worth addressing.
Let me just point out here, for those quick to jump to the wrong conclusion, that my ex. loved our daughter, and her step dad treated her well enough, so their fairly settled relationship for twenty years before my ex left him, was a boon to my daughter, (no one, on either side made any false allegations of abuse either, I'm very glad to say).
However, once when I'd taken my daughter to Yorkshire where I was working/living for a long weekend, on the return journey home my daughter did look apprehensive/worried, and this was unusual, although I assure you she'd had a great time staying away from her mum for the short break, (she'd rung her mum each day, but I think enjoying herself with me made her feel disloyal to her mother).
I tried to talk to my ex when I returned our daughter hone about what we were putting her through, however on my next visit to pick up my child her stepfather, (who had rung me at work to accuse me of calling my daughter "mental", was there hugging or holding on to my daughter as though she needed his support to cope with having to encounter me).
My ex played a double game the whole time too, so there you are, I couldn't have lived my daughter more, and no other man could have !over her in the same way I believe, (she had two younger stepsisters so the stedad has a few to share his affections with didn't he, oh and he'd given up a son for adoption by the mother when the child was aged two, and from his first marriagemarriage, conveniently divesting himself of financial obligations in the process).
Hence my argument decentparents/fathers need more protection, though those who don't want to listen, don't listen will you, keep thinking you or other professionals know what's best for our children, I expect that after thirty years loosely campaigning for parental rights, (sorry I didn't intend that to sound so personal).

 

[fuzzybuddy]

Why a kid wants to harm himself is complicated. We need to know why there is arise. We have to learn much more about the causes. of childhood self abuse. There are no easy fixes. You can't go back to the way things were a half century ago, as if that would have any affect. We have to live in the day, without armchair, pet notions. I don't why kids are doing this more, or it's just being reported more. But, in either case, we need way more input in order to form effective solutions.

As an aside, I have some male friends, who are now divorced. And frankly, they are only needed to provide financial aid to their kids. I have noticed how some of their exes use the kids as a way to get back at them. And I was shocked that getting to see your kids for 2 hours twice a month is pretty much what most men get. I question whether having the kids only live with one parent, while the other is seen as an "orbiter"- like a planet, which only comes in , and out infrequently, is healthy. I'm not sure how to handle that.

I also believe the law does not treat men equally with women. My dad divorced his wife in the late 1930s. His wife had alcohol issues. Since the wife wasn't able to take care of the kids, they were placed in an orphanage. My dad was not allowed to take his kids out of the orphanage till he married my mom. Clearly, if his ex divorced him, she would have been able to have custody of the kids. I don't think the law has improved that much since then.

 

[grahamg]

Why a kid wants to harm himself is complicated. We need to know why there is arise. We have to learn much more about the causes. of childhood self abuse. There are no easy fixes. You can't go back to the way things were a half century ago, as if that would have any affect. We have to live in the day, without armchair, pet notions. I don't why kids are doing this more, or it's just being reported more. But, in either case, we need way more input in order to form effective solutions.
As an aside, I have some male friends, who are now divorced. And frankly, they are only needed to provide financial aid to their kids. I have noticed how some of their exes use the kids as a way to get back at them. And I was shocked that getting to see your kids for 2 hours twice a month is pretty much what most men get. I question whether having the kids live with one parent, while the other is seen as an "orbiter"- like a planet, which only comes in , and out infrequently.

I apologise for boring the pants off everyone, but does anyone want to answer, "Who loves the child if the parent does not or cannot because they are excluded for no good reason"?
I think it matters, some states in the USA think it matters, because it either their statutes, or in the rules guiding those implementing family law the word "love" is mentioned, and who might provide love to the child/children, but twenty years ago when I did a search on the then "Lord Chancellors department" website, (now Department for Constitutional Affairs), I found just six mentions of the word "love", and three times the word was mentioned in the paper I mentioned previously written by the senior Judge Wilson, who was stepping down.
A department intended to oversee the conduct of laws around child contact etc. never chose to concern itself with who might love the child in other words, and if you did a search now it probably wouldn't appear very often if ever either.
Here on this forum too, it seems a challenge to get anyone to agree a child needs love, and the love of those two most important people, (where there is no good reason to prevent it), the love of the two people who once loved each other, or professed so to do if they were married, and chose to have a child together!

 

[Kathleen’s Place]

Who loves these children if they aren’t getting the love at home??? There are probably a host of people who love, or at least care deeply about them. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, teachers, social workers, parents of friends. The list goes on. The problem is, who legally CAN help them? Who can make these kids love themselves????? There are many, many, MANY loving parents out there who can’t help their own children, as much and as hard as they try. What makes these kids so unhappy that they feel the need to harm themselves?

 

[Dana]

I apologise for boring the pants off everyone, but does anyone want to answer, "Who loves the child if the parent does not or cannot because they are excluded for no good reason"?
I think it matters, some states in the USA think it matters, because it either their statutes, or in the rules guiding those implementing family law the word "love" is mentioned, and who might provide love to the child/children, but twenty years ago when I did a search on the then "Lord Chancellors department" website, (now Department for Constitutional Affairs), I found just six mentions of the word "love", and three times the word was mentioned in the paper I mentioned previously written by the senior Judge Wilson, who was stepping down.
A department intended to oversee the conduct of laws around child contact etc. never chose to concern itself with who might love the child in other words, and if you did a search now it probably wouldn't appear very often if ever either.
Here on this forum too, it seems a challenge to get anyone to agree a child needs love, and the love of those two most important people, (where there is no good reason to prevent it), the love of the two people who once loved each other, or professed so to do if they were married, and chose to have a child together!

Graham...you sound as if you have some very unresolved issues. The fact is, all we know is what you tell us and unfortunately every story has two sides. A parent may love a child to bits, but is that parent the right person for a child to spend most of his or her time?

Yes of course "a child needs love", and there are many who would love a child, not only the parents. When it comes to the Courts and Family Law, that is just not enough when considering the ruling "in the best interests of the child." It may seem clinical and unfair when a decision is made to place a child with one parent instead of the other. The important thing is, cherish each and every moment you have with her. Make it fun, because children pick up on your moods and it affects them.

 

[grahamg]

Who loves these children if they aren’t getting the love at home??? There are probably a host of people who love, or at least care deeply about them. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, teachers, social workers, parents of friends. The list goes on. The problem is, who legally CAN help them? Who can make these kids love themselves????? There are many, many, MANY loving parents out there who can’t help their own children, as much and as hard as they try. What makes these kids so unhappy that they feel the need to harm themselves?

No, the question I'm trying to raise is "Who loves the child if the parent doesn't because one or other of them have been excluded for no good reason", (though I do accept you could fairly extend the question, however please don't for now because the question I've raised seems too complicated already to extract an answer from anyone reading it so far!).
Your other questions are very fair questions too, but for reasons you'll see in the post following yours why I won't try to address them is responsibility or my motive for my OP question, I've repeated over and over without anyone answering is so easily passed back to me having the " problem", thus deflecting attention away again from the issue I've raised.

 

[grahamg]

Graham...you sound as if you have some very unresolved issues. The fact is, all we know is what you tell us and unfortunately every story has two sides. A parent may love a child to bits, but is that parent the right person for a child to spend most of his or her time?
Yes of course "a child needs love", and there are many who would love a child, not only the parents. When it comes to the Courts and Family Law, that is just not enough when considering the ruling "in the best interests of the child." It may seem clinical and unfair when a decision is made to place a child with one parent instead of the other. The important thing is, cherish each and every moment you have with her. Make it fun, because children pick up on your moods and it affects them.

Your post appears to me to give equal footing to love a natural parent might give a child, to any love anyone else might give the child, (forgive me if I'm wrong, wouldn't want to unfairly criticise someone with sufficient knowledge or understand to diagnose my "unresolved issues").

 

[Dana]

Your post appears to me to give equal footing to love a natural parent might give a child, to any love anyone else might give the child, (forgive me if I'm wrong, wouldn't want to unfairly criticise someone with sufficient knowledge or understand to diagnose my "unresolved issues").

Please consider this: "Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away." Elvis Presley

 

[grahamg]

Please consider this: "Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away." Elvis Presley

In return please consider this, (btw the timescale for the truth to come out may be the issue in the case you're referring to):

Christmas Version, about the need for love:

"If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust... But giving the gift of love will endure."

 

[Kathleen’s Place]

No, the question I'm trying to raise is "Who loves the child if the parent doesn't because one or other of them have been excluded for no good reason", (though I do accept you could fairly extend the question, however please don't for now because the question I've raised seems too complicated already to extract an answer from anyone reading it so far!).
Your other questions are very fair questions too, but for reasons you'll see in the post following yours why I won't try to address them is responsibility or my motive for my OP question, I've repeated over and over without anyone answering is so easily passed back to me having the " problem", thus deflecting attention away again from the issue I've raised.

Well it surely IS a convoluted question, grahamg, and I can see why no one is answering you correctly
I shall take this one last stab at it. IF both parents love the child, but one is being excluded for NO GOOD REASON (and that phrase is the key to my answer) then the parent who HAS the child, while loving the child, DOESN’T LOVE HIM ENOUGH to see the harm they are doing to the child by excluding the other parent. And the excluded parent DOESN’T LOVE the child enough if they aren’t fighting tooth and nail and slaying dragons to get to the child. So my answer is that neither one love the child ENOUGH

 

[Judycat]

In return please consider this, (btw the timescale for the truth to come out may be the issue in the case you're referring to):

Christmas Version, about the need for love:

"If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust... But giving the gift of love will endure."

Blah. My opinion, you should have the kids permanently. No sending them back to the wife. Get down in the grit of raising them. Then go on about love and other nonsense.

 

[grahamg]

Well it surely IS a convoluted question, grahamg, and I can see why no one is answering you correctly
I shall take this one last stab at it. IF both parents love the child, but one is being excluded for NO GOOD REASON (and that phrase is the key to my answer) then the parent who HAS the child, while loving the child, DOESN’T LOVE HIM ENOUGH to see the harm they are doing to the child by excluding the other parent. And the excluded parent DOESN’T LOVE the child enough if they aren’t fighting tooth and nail and slaying dragons to get to the child. So my answer is that neither one love the child ENOUGH

Now here I have to disagree with you, and claim greater knowledge or experience anyway.
My ex could not have loved our daughter more, I dont dispute that so I've no idea why you feel confident you can do so without knowing any of the people concerned, and without boring you with too much detail I did acknowledge to my ex. she was the better parent, and the right one to have our daughter living with most of the time.
Why she acted as she did, (the ex) is another matter, and yes she can be fairly criticised and I think I may have given details elsewhere on this forum(?). Ages ago perhaps a court welfare officer stepped in at a judge's request to years after our marriage failed, and I could not have paid this woman to better try to defend me as the father and lecture my ex as to her behaviour, (the judge then backed this up a few minutes later). However, the law in the UK changed a little, and whereas my own solicitor at the breakup of my marriage, and a good friend of mine who was a solicitor too, (and is now a judge), both told me very confidently, if I went to court, I would not get less than every other weekend visitation. Without that strong affirmation and support I doubt I would ever have had the belief in myself to form the loving relationship with my daughter I did achieve, (she once told me "she loved me deep down" and that for me will do and I hope you agree too!).
All the best, Graham

 

[Kathleen’s Place]

Now here I have to disagree with you, and claim greater knowledge or experience anyway.
My ex could not have loved our daughter more, I dont dispute that so I've no idea why you feel confident you can do so without knowing any of the people concerned, and without boring you with too much detail I did acknowledge to my ex. she was the better parent, and the right one to have our daughter living with most of the time.
Why she acted as she did, (the ex) is another matter, and yes she can be fairly criticised and I think I may have given details elesewhere on this forum, ages ago perhaps a court welfare officer stepped in at a judge's request to years after our marriage failed, and I could not have paid this woman to better try to defend me as the father and lecture my ex as to her behaviour, (the judge then backed this up a few minutes later). However, the law in the UK changed a little, and whereas my own solicitor at the breakup of my marriage, and a good friend of mine who was a solicitor, (and is now a judge), both told me very confidently if I went to court I would not get less than every other weekend visitation. Without that strong affirmation and support I doubt I would ever have had the belief in myself to form the loving relationship with my daughter I did achieve, (she once told me "she loved me deep down" and that for me will do and I hope you agree too!).
All the best, Graham

The whole story may have helped before stating the question. I assumed you were talking random people of children who were self harming themselves. And in that case, I still maintain that if the mother truly loved the child, she would bring the other parent back into the childs life to try and help too.
I did not realize the question was personal and certainly did not mean to diss your ex or you. And I AM happy that your daughter loves you deep down