Coping with Grandparents who Behave Badly

Your parents did a pretty good job raising you, right? You turned out pretty well. So why is it that they try to completely undermine your every move now that they’re grandparents?

This post is inspired by a true story. Ours.

Despite the overactive sense of guilt my mom instilled in me, I think she did a pretty good job bringing me up. She didn’t abuse me. I remember getting spanked, but my mom says it only happened two or three times. I grew up as a rather obedient child, afraid of disappointing my parents more than anything. I was forced to wash dishes, a task that I hate so much that it was practically a part of our wedding vows that my husband would do the dishes and I would do the laundry. I didn’t mind my other chores so much.

But now that my mom is a grandma? It seems like all good sense about child raising leaked out her brain through a hole in her skull. She gives my son sweets every time she sees him. If we only saw her once in a while, I wouldn’t mind. But my mother-in-law babysits TJ while we work, and she hangs out nearly every day with my mom and the little girl she babysits. She lets him drink soda, a bad habit of mine that I was hoping not to pass on until he got older, despite the fact that I had the pediatrician back me up on why it was a bad idea.

If it was only the junk food, it might be tolerable. Grandma Debbie, aka my mom, is willing to give in to TJ’s temper tantrums far more often than I would like. Just yesterday, my husband Tom got a phone call at work from his mom. Apparently, TJ had climbed into my mom’s van after lunch and refused to get out. Despite his temper tantrum, my mom was buckling him in to his seat to go down and play at her house. Just as he wanted. Thankfully, Tom told him mom to put the cabash on that – but as he said to me, did our parents suddenly forget how to raise children?

And then there’s Grandma Kitty, Tom’s mom. She watches TJ five days a week while we work. She has a really good heart, but TJ can do absolutely no wrong in her eyes. We used to have a junk food problem with her, too, but she saw the light and stopped giving him snacks during the day. (She knew that my mom would take care of that.)

Grandma Kitty’s problem is that TJ doesn’t misbehave, as she sees it – he’s just being a little boy. She makes excuses for him all the time. There’s always a reason for his bold behavior. (We call it being bold. We don’t want TJ to think he’s bad.) It got to the point where TJ would throw a fit at home, and when he got put in time out, he would start making the same excuses he’d heard from his grandma. I’m tired. I’m sick. [Insert fake cough here.]

When TJ started making excuses for himself every time he got in trouble, we had to have a heart to heart with Grandma Kitty. She said she understands and will back us up, since we’re the parents. But what she says and what she does are often two very different things.

As TJ would say, “I’m just SO FRUSTRATED!”

What can you do when faced with otherwise intelligent people who become completely incompetent when they become grandparents?

• Choose your battles. Like with your kids, you have to decide what’s important with your parents. If you can live with your child getting a cookie every day at lunchtime even though the only snacks in your house are fruits and vegetables, then let it go. Chances are, there’s something that bothers you even more. If there’s not now, there will be.
• Talk to them. Grandma and Grandpa may not know that they’re doing anything that bothers you. You can’t change something if they don’t know they’re doing anything wrong. Be sure that the discussion doesn’t come across as an attack. You can make up an “article you read on the Internet” to use as the basis for the discussion. Or blame your pediatrician for the water-only except with meals rule.
• Talk to them again. Grandparents love to spoil their grandkids, and old habits die hard. If you talked to them about something last week, and they’re already back to their old tricks, have another chat. We’ve been in the middle of a conversation with Grandma Kitty before, her nodding and saying, “Oh yes, I’ll do that from now on,” and before we even finish talking, she does exactly the opposite. These things take time and patience.
• Reward good behavior. You may not be able to give your mom a sticker every time she says NO to your son’s unreasonable demands, but you can thank her and praise her every time you witness such an occurrence.

Coping with grandparents and their bad behavior is much like doing the same with your children. In both cases, the outcome will affect the type of person your child will grow up to be. It’s okay to let your kids be spoiled a little by their grandparents. But when grandparents also act as caregivers, they need to know that you need them to step back and support your parenting goals.

Christina Gleason is 30 years old, wife to Tom and mother to TJ.  Read her blogs at Cutest Kid Everand Cute Mom Clothes, follow her on Twitter @cutestkidever or @ChristinaGayle.

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