Your Parents "Parenting" Your Kids

[MISSINDI]

Just came back from spending Christmas Day at my parents house. It's been awhile since my parents have been around a 4-year-old, and I think sometimes they, particularly my Dad, forget how four-year-olds are. Our son is pretty well behaved, but is obviously excited about the Christmas holiday. I catch my Dad making faces or getting slightly exasperated at Nicholas' energy sometimes, and I get little lectures about what I should or shouldn't be doing with him. It makes it more stressful for me because I end up getting more stressed about what Nicholas is doing than I normally would. And we're talking about normal 4-year-old behavior, not acting up by any means. From their side, I understand that it's been awhile since they've been around young kids, and having raised two girls, boys are a little different. ;) And from my side, I want to be able to enjoy time I spend with them and be able to relax, you know? Any suggestions on how to handle it?

[Terri_A]

Would it be possible to talk to your parents about it or would that just cause more stress? I had to lay down the law with my mother last year about DD. She kept talking about weight and how fat she was ( mother, not DD ). I had to tell my mom that I can't enjoy being around her if I have to worry the whole time about her creating an eating disorder in another generation!

Anyway, I was surprised how well she took it. I was geared up for a bit of a battle and it went well. I think they just sometimes have a hard time letting us go and letting us be the parent.

I'm sorry to hear your dilemma, but I do really think that if your parents are reasonable people that honesty is the best policy.

[emptyspool]

I have three sons. When they were small we would go to my inlaws for the holidays which I loved. However, my FIL also was impatient and the house was small, etc etc you know the drill. And like you, I watched the kids closely and they were well behaved but were busy boys. I finally told my husband that he had to talk to his dad or I would - which of course he knew would be bad news!

I was surprised at my husbands approach. He told my FIL (and he was over 70) that he knew they weren't used to having kids around and how they were used to the peace and quiet. He told him if it was too hard for them that we could stay home for the holidays, that we didn't want to upset their household. My FIL apologized and apologized and insisted it wasn't too much trouble and that was the end of that....he never gave us or the kids a hard time again, ever.

My MIL was always wonderful. She made jello which is something they never had at our house. My kids could have painted the walls with jello and she would have just told me what great artists they were.

Those days are long gone, so are the inlaws - hope you can work it out.

[Tizzylish]

I was surprised at my husbands approach. He told my FIL (and he was over 70) that he knew they weren't used to having kids around and how they were used to the peace and quiet. He told him if it was too hard for them that we could stay home for the holidays, that we didn't want to upset their household.

This is our approach too. The holidays are supposed to be a time of enjoyment, but if spending it with family/inlaws is to stressful, we'd rather stay home, and we let our family know this. ;)

[lindrusso]

Sounds like emptyspool has given you a gracious way to bring this up with your father.

Does he react this way to your son in your home too?

I have noticed that people seem far more sensitive to disruption in their own home. They are used to having their home a certain way and have a hard time dealing with having their routines turned upside down. Even if Nicholas was being a perfect angel, it would still be more noise than your Dad's used to and a disruption to the normal routine. When people are outside their own home, they often don't have the same expectations of order and quiet and don't get as stressed out about it.

If talking to your father doesn't work, perhaps you could try hosting more in your own home and see if that helps. Or maybe offering to do so could give you your opportunity to talk - perhaps you could tell your father that your visits seem to be stressful for him and ask him if he would rather that you hosted gatherings at your home and then go from there........

Good luck. :) And hey, it's not only a boy thing - my 4 nieces are an extremely rowdy bunch - way more chaos than my 2 boys! :D ;)

[testkitchen45]

I agree with the idea of tactfully catching this early--or it'll only get worse. We are all OK with the 'rents now, but for awhile there when our oldest child was little, the interference got really bad, even in our own home. We had to say that unless they could back off, they wouldn't see grandkid much b/c the interference was destructive to our little family (both parenting and marriage). It is fixable (usually); we all get along famously now--I like emptyspool's DH's approach b/c it addresses the issue head-on but gives the folks a chance to save face.

[sneezles]

My mother would comment about their behavior (I have 3 boys) and she would even have her nice things down on the coffee table when we arrived!:eek: My mother raised 6, very close in age, children, who were not allowed in the house most of the time!:rolleyes: So I finally told her that we would be celebrating holidays at our house and if she wanted to be with us that would be great but I wasn't going to have them sit the whole time we were at her house...like I could ever get them to do that!:p

[luv2cook]

On the flip side, I think that parents get used to certain activities as normal and don't even hear it! e.g., Friday night we had some friends over who brought their one-year-old.

This little girl was a very active, as to be expected, toddler. She wasn't bad. she was normal BUT when we sat down to eat dinner, she started kicking the underside of my table. I expected her mother to stop her. She didn't. I finally said something. Her comment to me was that she does it all the time at home and just didn't "hear" it.

I think that's the case a lot of times at stores -- kids not using their quiet voice in public and the parents are just so used to the noise level...anyhoo, FWIW, I am sure it's stressful to have to constantly watch your kids in someon else's home - as happened to me Friday night. I wasn't aware that they were bringing her and I had a lot of stuff out for xmas...I'll post pics later because they're pretty cute...

[MISSINDI]

luv2cook - I agree that parents have the ability to "zone out" a bit when it comes to things their kids are doing, absolutely. I'm definitely not doing that when we're at my parents house though - if anything, I'm MORE in tune to what he's doing than anything.

lindrusso - you made an interesting point. Now that you mention it, I don't think he's as sensitive to the disruption when they're here. But maybe he just thinks he's less free to tell me something in my own house? I don't know.

My dad and I have never been especially close to begin with, so having this type of conversation isn't easy - I usually go through my Mom, who I'm much closer to. :D They're down the shore this week, and I was going to take Nicholas down for a day or two, but after this weekend, I opted not to. Just not as relaxing, you know?

Don't get me wrong, he's not on Nicholas' case all the time. I just see the exasperated face, an occasional eye roll and a comment here and there and know what he's thinking. Nicholas is very intimidated by my dad and even shy sometimes, so doesn't go near him much on his own, interact with him or be overtly disruptive near him because of that, so it should bother him even less, you know? Whatever he does is very much in line with being a four-year-old boy, which is what makes it most difficult.

They actually watched Nicholas for a few hours on Saturday for us, so we could wrap presents, and he was perfectly well behaved, and they definitely enjoyed having him. But the next two days (Christmas Eve/Day), we're all there, including my sister and BIL, and he's naturally more excited, Santa's coming, and my BIL is like a big kid when it comes to Nicholas, so they're acting silly and goofy, etc. No screaming, no yelling, no racing around. Just being kids. Sigh...