QLD 50/50 shared care, child not attending school often in mother's care

[JadeGoldCoast]

Change over is every Friday with the parent collecting the child from school. Apart from the christmas holidays that are split in half, this year my partner has the first 3 weeks, next year the mother will have the first 3 weeks.

I didn't think a school would have to follow the orders but thought best to check!

 

[Atticus]

Change over is every Friday

In that case, not having that phone call on the off week is probably not going to have a hugely negative affect on the relationship... had it been a monthly changeover, then it may be a different story & you could argue that her continued disregard of the order is having a negative affect on the relationship.

If dad is happy to not worry about the phone calls, you may be able to use it as a bargaining point in mediation... Basically he'll agree to having the orders relating to weekly phone calls removed in exchange for something he wants.... Schooling is the most important issue it seems .

 

[sammy01]

ok upper cut again...
So I like your proposed orders. But a bit like the phone calls. How do you enforce it. The school won't stop a mum from picking up a kid even if those orders were presented to the school.

So all you really have is the threat of court and IF you have to pull that trigger you'll be seeking 90% custody and sole parental responsibility around education. All bluff but hopefully enough bluff to get her to pull her head in...

 

[Step2Three]

Having orders wont be able to compel the school to discuss matters with both parents, but it could still help. It depends on what their reason is to not discuss the issues now. If they just can't be bothered, or don't want to deal with separated parent drama, the order won't help you as the problem hasn't gone away. If they are worried about breaching some kind of privacy issue, an order than an educational institution can release records/discuss educational issues, could be enough of a cover for them to come to the table. Have had a few experiences myself where a similar order has opened some doors (same for medication institutions).

 

[JadeGoldCoast]

Hi guys, me again.

Just after some advise please. A quick update on the previous matter. Child is back at school and new teacher has pulled my partner aside to discuss child absences, asked why the father thinks the time off is occurring, said she's concerned. While we are sure this is to cover the school for turning a blind eye for the past 2 years this is 100% an improvement on how we ended things with the school last year.

Mother of child has contacted my partner today to say child came home sick last Friday (child left our care healthy) and child is now on his 2nd day off of school due to his head cold. Father has responded that he is concerned as child was well on Friday and asked what the doctor has advised and whether a covid test had taken place (father has obtained child's Medicare records from last year that show mother has not been taking the child to see the doctor, even though he has 1-4 days off each week in her care).
Mother has responded accusing father of making child sick due to negligence, father has contacted new teacher in email to ask whether she noticed the child was sick last Friday.

Mother isn't happy (hasn't been since father threatened 80% custody if mother doesn't get child to school). She's now threatening to take action against my partner (or the paternal grandmother its not clear) for allowing child to spend a couple of nights at the paternal grandmother's house last week. Some back ground info, paternal grandmother was attacked by maternal grandmother at the start of all the court hearings in 2017. Paternal grandmother did not file a DVO as police at the scene advised that it was not necessary as neither grandparent intended to have a relationship. 6 weeks later after the mother had been served with my partners request for court, she attending court to put a DVO against the paternal grandmother saying she was the one that was attacked. Paternal grandmother agreed to an undertaking which the child is named on and was advised it was a promise to be of good behaviour, but that federal circuit orders would overrule the undertaking. At first hearing when mother advised she had been attacked, the judge imposed an order prohibiting paternal grandmother from spending time with child. Once the DVO was dropped by the mother, the judge removed this order upon request of the father. At the final hearing when the final orders were made by consent between the father and mother, the judge specifically asked the mother if she was happy for the child to spend time with the maternal grandmother. She agreed (after being spoken to in private by her legal aid lawyer).

I am wondering if anyone knows the rules with undertakings? Our understanding was that the paternal grandmother could see the child once the federal circuit court order was removed stopping her from seeing him. Child spends regular time with the maternal grandmother and there has never been a problem, but mediation will be occurring in the next month or so, so it appears the mother is looking for ways to make the father look bad.

 

[sammy01]

yawn...
Boring.
Don't get caught up in nutter's nonsense.
If there is nothing in the family court orders / consent orders specifying that granny can't see her grand kid then the nutter has nothing. Scientist are yet to make a link between the common cold in kids and spending time with Granny. Them scientists have been a bit lazy on this one but I suppose they're busy trying to cure covid.

The law does protect the kid's right to have a meaningful relationship with granny.
Grandparents and other family members - Family Court of Australia .

So you wanna go to mediation around the school absence stuff? Mum doesn't wanna talk about that because that conversation isn't gonna end well for her so she is looking for other stuff to act as a distraction from the fact that mum is a nutter.

Mum will argue that the kid is sick lots and will probably argue that you guys made the kid sick... This of course is stupid but then, so is mediation. So get to mediation get the 60i certificate and get yourselves into court if the schooling issue doesn't resolve itself. You can bet the kid's school attendance will improve from the day the ex is served with the court paperwork. But don't rush this. The school year is only a few weeks old. Get a 2month track record of poor attendance to follow up on last year's stupidity.

 

[JadeGoldCoast]

Hi Sammy, thank you for your response!

Yes it is very clear to us that the mother is trying to play her old games of trying to distract from her behaviour. My partner hasn't bothered to respond to her and if she tries to discuss at mediation he will advise that as he has nothing to do with the undertaking, the mother needs to take any problems she has with it up with the appropriate person, he doesn't wish to discuss it.

My partner has had 2 phone intakes with mediation so fingers crossed mediation occurs sooner rather than later. The child attended a full week of school in his 2nd week back while in his mothers care (to the best of our knowledge) and we really thought that the mediation process had worked! I just don't think she can help herself unfortunately.

 

[Mumma]

Hi all,

I posted earlier in the year regarding our concerns that my step-son had been missing school while in his mother's care. We have a 50/50 care arrangement and have already gone through the court process to gain this arrangement.
Unfortunately, the school attendance in the mother's care is getting worse and we are not getting much support from the school. They have advised this is a family problem.

The first half of the years attendance is too tricky to work out as the child was kept home from school by his mother weeks before and weeks after the recommended Covid school shut downs.
The second half of the school year currently looks like this:

Week 2 - 2 days off
Week 4 - 1 day off
Weed 6 - 4 days off
Week 8 - 1 day off
Week 10 - 2 days off

Week 2 - 1 day off
Week 4 - 1 day off
Week 8 (current week) - so far 3 days off

These are the days we have received SMS messages for, there are other days where the mother has informed the school that the child would not be attending and we have therefore not received a SMS message for these days. We will be requesting an attendance report for the child to get the full picture of his attendance.

There is a clear pattern to us that the mother is purposefully keeping the child home. The child tells us his mother has told him to pretend he has been sick and also says statements such as 'mum will miss me if I go to school 'mum isn't allowed to go to the sports day so i needed to stay home or she wouldn't miss me'.

I guess our questions is, do we have any legal paths we can take to try and encourage higher attendance of school in the mother's care? My understanding is that you can only go back to court if something happens that renders the current orders not possible - a parent moves away for example.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

Sounds like mum could so with some help or kind words of encouragement about other good things she is doing. If she is suffering shock or heart break threatening expensive letters won't help, spend the money on being a help, in the long run it will benefit you all. When did humanity loose it's ability to care for our suffering!

 

[JadeGoldCoast]

Hi all, just an update. We finally have mediation in 2 weeks time, however, now we have another issue I would like some advice on. The child is court ordered to attend one medical practice for all his GP needs unless it is an emergency, and the parents are ordered to disclose any treating practitioner to the other parent. We have discovered that the mother has taken the child to a different GP practice (mother had not informed the father of this). When we discovered this my partner sent a message to the mother asking why she had gone to a new practice. She advised it was due to not being able to get into the normal practice. This we did not feel was true as we have never had a problem as we disclose he is court ordered to attend that practice and there are many GP's who work there. My partner advised he wished the child to keep attending the same practice as ordered and if the mother continued to take the child to a different practice he would need to seek legal advise. The mother advised she would transfer the records to the current practice (on my partner request) but did not. We have since asked the regular GP to request the records and have been advised that the mother has taken the child to the new practice again this week (we are yet to speak with the GP to find out what he is seeing the GP for).

This behaviour seems to have started from a few weeks ago. The mother advised the child was not attending school for the 3rd day that week and the father asked what the GP had advised and whether the child had been covid tested. The mother advised she wouldn't take the child to the doctor so my partner responded asking why, as anyone with any cold symptoms are recommended to be covid tested and if the child had been sick for 4 days he thought she would have taken him to the GP. I am not sure why she doesn't want to attend the regular GP as it is the GP she requested in court and we agreed, even though we wanted a GP practice close to the child's school.

Just wondering how we move forward with this? I am wondering if the mother now thinks if she takes the child to the doctor each week in the her care then she will cover herself for the time off the child has (has been better this semester but still having time off when he isn't sick, and still collecting early on Fridays that he returns to her care). Is it worth perusing through the courts? My partner will discuss in mediation while he is there. The orders are there because the mother has doctor shopping tendencies and so this was the best way to ensure that this did not happen with the child and that the father was aware of all medical concerns (mother before court would refuse to disclose any information regarding the doctors she was taking the child to see/any hospital visits, and advised doctors that the child is allergic to peanuts, gluten, diary etc when the child has no food intolerances).

 

[sammy01]

book an appointment with the new dr. Take your court orders. Be nice but explain the situation and ask for the dr to agree that he won't be seeing the kid again.