Barbara Evans is concerned for the well-being of her grandson -- who she had custody of for more than a decade -- and believes Jenelle Evans' decision to take him off ADHD meds might have led to his runaway incident.
Barbara tells TMZ 14-year-old Jace was put on the medication 7 years ago, and was regularly seeing a behavior specialist ... which had seemingly been working well for the teen.
However, Barbara says when Jenelle regained custody of Jace, back in March, Jenelle not only took him off the medication, but also ended his sessions with the behaviorist.
Jenelle denies part of Barbara's claim though, telling us, "Barbara has not been in contact with Jace since Monday. I have cut off contact with her as of 3 weeks ago. Barbara doesn't have any idea what is going on inside my home. Jace had a therapist appointment today on zoom at 10:30am … she hasn't even attempted to speak to Jace directly."
It's not clear if Jenelle booked the therapist appointment as a result of Jace's runaway, or if it was already planned.
TMZ broke the story, cops in North Carolina put out a runaway bulletin Tuesday for Jace after he took off from school. Luckily, he was found safe hours later, but the situation was scary for all involved.
Jenelle told us, "Jace, got in trouble at school, we decided to take his phone away and that's when he decided to run off, Jace is a good kid and we're not dealing with anything that most families don't deal with while raising children."
Barbara says Jenelle's not talking to her, so she doesn't have any more info about why her grandson ran off -- but she squarely blames his issues at school on the lack of medication and therapy.
What's more, Barbara says she isn't looking to regain custody of Jace, as she's getting older and his behavior is too much for her to handle ... she just wants to make sure what happened Tuesday doesn't happen again.