It is a shame that their mother is putting her in the awkward position of keeping secrets from you and your husband. You might try having a very generic discussion with her about keeping secrets and when it is not appropriate.

As for the bio not continually breaking her promises, sadly her children will figure out too soon how unreliable their mom is. That is why it is important to try to be a stable, honest, and understanding force in their lives.

Your GD and my two oldest GC are close to the same age. I know that my two older grands still love their mother, but they have begun to realize that she doesn't always keep her promises. It is heartbreaking, I know, but sometimes we can't keep them from realizing that there are people in this world they can't trust -- and some go by the name of mom and dad.

God, I hate people who put kids in the middle! Don't let her talk to them. Tell her they are sleeping, busy, outside playing, whatever. If they ask, tell them she's been busy. If a caseworker is involved, report these incidents and tell them that it is confusing the children and as the adult guardian, you are withholding visits and phone calls. Tell step dtr to get with the ticket or she doesn't talk to them. I sure hope your hubby backs you up on this. Stand firm girl, this is the time to be assertive. Re: Flutter's comment that the kids will figure it out, I have to disagree in a way because they will blame themselves and go through problems with trust. It simply is not fair to them. Read my article on children grieving on examiner.com. The sw spells out how this type of thing makes the kids feel. Be strong. You are in the right here. btw, you have every right to listen in on phone calls as the adult guardian. As a matter of fact you are expected to.

I hate this as well. What really annoys me is the courts who insist these people be allowed visitations!!! AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

Thank goodness the courts aren't involved in visitation. When we got custody, any visitation is informally worked out among us.

As of now, my husband and I want her out of our lives. It's interesting, because so many times she would call high, or not show up because she was using. But to actually SEE her make the choice (in the ER) was like a punch in the gut. It was almost like knowing your spouse or boyfriend is cheating, then finally seeing him in the act.

I have a feeling that if we forbid all contact she won't do a thing. Probably use it as a justification to use some more, which is her problem.

But I'll keep on listening until I get a critical mass of crap, then I'll use it to tell her that either she allows me to listen to every conversation openly, or she can't call again.

I'll probably also do what Daisy suggested. The next time the kids talk about secrets (and they do that all the time regarding their friends), I'll nudge the conversation into that area.

I remember one time before the kids lived with us, their "mother" wanted them to keep secret the fact that she was cheating on her then-boyfriend. The middle child, the girl, kept the secret. The eldest did not. "Mommy" then said that the middle child was her "baby girl" and the eldest was no longer her "baby girl." So that's probably why she's now careful to keep secrets.

Evil B***h!

You are so lucky the courts are not involved in the visitation. Our ex dil has the kids every weekend supervised with her mom from 6 pm Friday til Sunday at 6 pm. If you know she is using, I wouldn't let her see them. Just my opinion but I don't think its good for the kids. Let them get off of the damn drugs if they want to see their kids.

Oh this upsets me so much. First off Can you see she is taking the blame off her self and putting it on her father. So then the grandchild can be angery at him for not letting mom come around. This is just a plan BIomom can use to keep her looking good in the eyes of her child. When a bio uses a child for any reason or lies to them or even blames another person for their poblems I think a child is in danger of being emtionally harmed. And Harm to me is abuse. That parents visits need to be stopped in order to protect the child.

You said that you didn't want your gchild to know that you were listening in to her phone calls with bio. Don't be afraid to tell her. TO me it is like going in and checking your childs draws for drugs. If you don't find any do you keep it quite that you did it. I want my kids to know that they can't hide things from me. That no matter what it is they should know I will find out and I want them to be able to tell me anything, I don't want to hear it from someone else. Talk to your child and let her know that secrets are not alway good and if they blame some one or try to change your feeling about something then they need to talk to you about them.
Sometimes I just let my kids know that I know things. Just to let them know I am watching over them.

Hope this will help you.

Secrets were a BIG thing before we got custody of our 2 gc. The oldest was 7 and his parents were always telling him "don't tell Nanny", but he always did. Lot's of times he did not mean to, but little kids just talk and then realize they let a secret out. His telling the secrets is what brought everthing to light for me. My dd and I would get into it about something and I would confront her about what I had learned from my gs and then they would get mad at him for telling. He is very cautious now about what he tells me. One of the best things I ever did was find a place locally called "Parent Place". It is run by a church and they supervise visitation. The parents have to pay $50 per visit for 2 hours. They must arrive 10 min before the other party so there is no contact between the 2 parties. A representative sits in on the entire visitation and there are rules. If they observe the parents to be high, the visit is cancelled. They are not allowed to discuss anything about the other party. We did this 1x a week for about 2 months and then the bio dad finally entered treatment after 2 years. I don't know if this was the straw that broke the camels back, but it sure seemed like it. I felt like, if they want to see their kids, let them pay for it. Plus I did not want to supervise. It was also good for my grandson, because he knew that I was allowing him to see his parents and if he did not, it was their fault.

I love the idea of "Parents Place" this is a great way to stay out of the vistation angle of it all. I agree if they want to see the kids they can pay. They don't pay for anything else really. I would really like more information on this is you can give it to me.

Grandee,

I don't know where you live, but I am in Knoxville, TN. I found out about it thru the Juvenile Court system. Since I have complete control over when, where or if they see the kids so this was an option for me. It is run by a Catholic Charities group. When I made the decision to do this, all I had to do was tell the bios this was how it was going to be, then it was up to them. They had to set it up. The group does all the contacting. I did not even have to speak to the bios about it. If they set it up and they don't show, they must pay anyway and if it happens too much, they aren't allowed to come there anymore. I loved the no communication thing and that a 3rd party sat there the whole time and made sure there was nothing inappropriate going on.

That is definitely a great idea. It is a little less restrictive than visitations that are supervised by a CPS worker, which is what my daughter was ordered to do for six months. She never did it, said she didn't have the money.

Oh well, you can't make them care about their own children.

I guess I'm a little different.
If you told her that you would be listening, speak up during the conversation, don't let the children have time to internalize the things she is saying.

"Mommy" is making you and your husband the bad guys and that can have terrible consequences for you later.

If you are listening, stay silent until she says something that you told her not to say and then speak up; say "we agreed that you would not tell/say ****to the children and if I hear you tell them that or lie to them again you will no longer be able to talk to them."
That way the kids know the rules as well.

When our kids started talking to their bio mom, I listened to every conversation for months, and I did just that, when she made promises to visit, send gifts, or other things she was told not to say, I spoke up and said, "We agreed you would not do that, it hurts the children when you make promises and don't keep them and I won't have the children hurt by anyone, IF I can protect them I will. The next time you do that will be the last time you talk to them." After that, they would call her on saying the things she wasn't suppose to say and for a while they stopped talking to her, by their choice and they told her they didn't want contact.

We also had an incident when my husband's ex girlfriend, who still had contact because she was a part of their lives for so long, asked our daughter to keep something a secret ( that she had gotten married). As soon as we found out, we called her on speaker phone with the children in the room and explained that if she EVER asked them to keep something from us again she would loose the ability to contact them. We continued to explain, in front of the kids, that we have open communication with them, we have not kept anything from them...aside from surprises like for their birthday or Christmas or something....and that by asking them to 'keep this secret' you are blocking our communication.

She got angry and started saying, "Well do they know this or that"...thinking she could prove we kept secrets. Bless the children, THEY answered and said, "Yes Dad and Liz have told us those things and we don't appreciate you trying to cause trouble for them." I was so proud of both of them in that moment for standing up to her.

Now our kids were a little older (10 and 11) when these things happened but I started young (5 and 6) teaching them I meant what I said and I would always tell them the truth. With those 2 events, they learned for themselves that I did what I said (by confronting both ex's, we told them the truth, AND that we would do what we could to protect them.

Now, 2 years later, they talk and ask things most their age likely would not, I know I didn't.

And while I understand not wanting to confront her and make her look bad in front of her children, what is she doing to you and your husband behind your back? What damage is she doing to your future relationship with your grandkids?

I say fight secrets and lies with openness and honesty; the children will always know where you stand and that they can count on you.

Luna, that is excellent advice, and I will start doing it today. I heard her say something else to the eldest that completely undermined me yesterday, and that will stop. I tried to bring up the topic, but my granddaughter is good at leaving out the "important" stuff -- like the keeping secrets and badmouthing of me. She does know who is there for her, but I don't want that kind of twisting to go any further.

Thanks!

Luna, I'm sorry but I TOTALLY disagree with you. Speaking up with children on the phone will only place the children in the middle. Conversations with the bio mom should be well out of the children's hearing. They will only be more confused. I feel very strongly about this because in our case whacko stepmom made it a point of bring my gs in and he was 4/5 years old. He became so conflicted he didn't know what to do. We made it a point not to discuss anything with him. We confirmed our love for him and told him his job was to be a kid, something she tried to take away from him. Kids are not emotionally ready to handle relationships and conflicts. They need us to protect them at all costs. As I said in previous post, Sara you not only have a right to listen in, you have an obligation. If their mom starts in on them, disconnect the call. Distract the children and take them out for ice cream. Later, contact mom and let her know you will do it again unless she stops putting the kids in the middle. This is why so many grandkids are suffering from attachment disorders because they cannot trust adults. Please, please do not put your grandkids in the middle.

I have had this problem with my daughter telling my grandsons that she was going to come take them away to live with her.They have been with us sinse birth,I brought them both home from the hospital.Of course this frightened them so I did some research and found that I could legaly put her on speaker phone and record every call as long as I told her about what I was doing.So I made a point of making sure that the at the first of the call I recorded me telling her that I was recording the call and that she was on a speaker phone and asking her IF SHE agreed to it.When ever she said something that scared the children I would inform her that I was terminating the call.After a while she just stopped calling at all because she couldn't say or do what she wanted.

I tried the speakerphone thing yesterday when she called. She complained that it made it "hard to hear" the conversation -- even though she routinely calls when she's on a noisy bus. So I listened in. She didn't say much, but from now on we'll go to a quiet room where we can use the speakerphone.