Children removed from mother after social workers concern over ‘behaviour boundaries’

Two children were taken from their mother’s care after social workers raised concerns about her inability to provide behaviour boundaries.

The woman’s seven-year-old son has gone into foster care and her four-year-old daughter has been placed for adoption – following rulings by a judge at a private family court hearing.

Detail has emerged after the woman asked the Court of Appeal to consider her case – at a public hearing in London.

Two appeal judges have dismissed her challenge – in a written ruling.

One appeal judge, Lord Justice McFarlane, said concerns had initially been raised about the behaviour of the boy.

He said the woman was providing “good enough” care but it had become clear to social workers that she was unable to provide “predictable or clear” behaviour boundaries.

Further concerns had then been raised about the girl’s behaviour.

A lawyer representing the woman had argued that a child failing to follow boundaries set by a parent was part of the “ordinary stuff” of parental experience.

Frances Judd QC said the problem was a “common or garden matter”.

But appeal judges disagreed and said the woman had “wholly” failed to establish a safe behaviour structure.

The woman has not been identified.

Appeal judges said her case had initially been analysed at a family court hearing in Oxford.

Lord Justice McFarlane said the woman had attended a programme aimed at helping parents deal with children who displayed challenging behaviour – but social services staff had not been satisfied with her progress.

He said social workers had at one stage carried out a parenting assessment – and had noted “no fewer” than eight examples of “worrying behaviour” by the girl, who was three, during a five-week period.

She had failed to respond to her mother’s instruction, had moved around car parks in an “uncontrolled way” and had once run across a road and caused a car to brake suddenly.

A clinical psychologist, Dr Bryn Williams, had also observed the woman and her children.

He had concluded that the woman had “consistently failed to change her behaviour” in order to provide an “adequate parenting experience”.

Lord Justice McFarlane said evidence presented a “consistent and compelling” picture of the “deficit” in the woman’s ability to provide “adequate parenting”.

“(The girl) has learned not to have any trust in or respect for her mother as a parental figure,” said Lord Justice McFarlane.

“She has not learned the need for establishing restraint and internal boundaries.”

The judge added: “I do not accept Miss Judd’s submission that a child failing to follow boundaries set by a parent is part of the ordinary stuff of parental experience or, as she put it, a common or garden matter.

“Whilst it is indeed the case that every parent at some time or other may fail in this regard, the present case is totally outside the norm in that, most sadly, this mother as a parent largely lacks the ability to be in tune with her children’s needs from day to day or minute to minute to the extent that she wholly fails, across the board, to establish a safe structure to regulate their behaviour.”

He went on: “Every reasonable effort has been put in to provide support, instruction and advice to the mother in the hope that she may be able to adapt her parenting to redress the deficit that has been identified but this has not achieved a significant or sustained change.”

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