Welcome.


Hi everyone and welcome to Bristol Grandparents Support Group blog. Although we are Bristol based we have grandparents from all over the UK and beyond as members.

It is estimated that over one million children in the UK are denied contact with their grandparents due to family breakdown which may have been caused by divorce/separation, alcohol/drug dependency,domestic violence,bereavement or family feud.
Every child has the right to have contact with their grandparents
if they wish and unless proven unsafe for them to do so. To deny contact from a parent or grandparent has to become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.
I hope to keep you up to date with what is going on in BGSG and I shall continue to campaign for the rights of children to have a loving and meaningful relationship with both parents and their extended family. So please join in as good to hear your views, not just mine!
I also will support via Skype.
There is no membership fee to be part of Bristol Grandparents Support Group.
Esther Rantzen says, " To every grandparent, links of love can never be broken in our hearts."

Please contact during office hours.
07773258270


Tuesday 26 March 2013

Denying Contact is Abuse.

I make no excuses for this post.
So much has been in the press over the last few months regarding  abuse of children, abuse of any sort against anyone is totally unacceptable and the perpetrators must be named and shamed and punished.
Children must be protected.
I consider that to stop a child having a relationship with both parents is also, abuse.
Why is it that these cases come to the public eye when a celebrity is involved or a person in power is involved.
It is time for us to accept that abuse is happening to over million children in the UK, by a parent who thinks it is ok to prevent their child from seeing the non resident parent.
IT IS NOT OK.
My parents split when I was just 16 years old, and I know how it feels to be 'piggy in the middle.' As a child you desperately want things to go back to how they were, you at home with Mum and Dad.
Of course that is not always possible, but the damage that is inflicted can be enormous and irretrievable.
A child who has to perhaps spend time with Mum one week and Dad the next is literally torn in two, they love them both just the same, they are Mum and Dad.
They will have to tow the parent 'party line' with whoever they are with, they behave differently with each parent, trying to make them both happy.
Children should not have to be thinking this way, they are after all children, they should not have to be burdened with adult conflict.
If they are denied contact with one of their parents they feel the bereavement of 'losing' one parent, although it is not anything to do with them, they are changed forever. They have to listen to horrible things being said about one of their parent, who they love, what would you do if this abuse was happening to you?
This is not to say that when couples separate it is always like this, many, many couples do whats right by their children.
This abuse has to stop, say it like it is, don't flower it up, this is abuse of children.
Jane
www.bristolgrandparentssupportgroup.co.uk





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