Grandma is driving us CRAZY!!?

Question

(I'm writing on behalf of my sister-in-law)

My mother-in-law is totally overstepping her bounds. She's spoiled her 4 year old grandson rotten. He goes to her house one day a week and they've bought a full wardrobe for him. As soon as he gets there she changes his clothes and doesn't return his own clothes when he's picked up in the evening. She lets him get away with anything--lets him glue things to their walls, lets him play around on youtube unsupervised and never disciplines for anything (maybe puts him in timeout for 30 seconds)!! In fact, when his mom was there with him he was kicking her for attention and she (appropriately) said, "This is not OK. You may NOT kick. If you continue kicking, we will go home and you will not get to play at grandma's today." The response from Grandma & Grandpa? "He's just a baby! He doesn't know any better! You're not going anywhere- we had fun things planned for today. Don't talk to him like that," etc. Mom just wanted to scream! Add to this the multitude of guilt trips that come when they deny her invitations for him to spend the night or come over more often. She's even gone to their house and found him playing unsupervised in the dishwasher-with a chef's knife!

He calls grandma "Maa-Maw" and she tells everyone he calls her "mama" and that he likes her more than his mom.

What should she do?

Answer 1

You have to stop this NOW. There are ways to do it without making it dramatic. Your in laws can only get away with what you let them.When they do it again, just be firm, sometimes its hard to be firm because they are parents and inlaws and they help out a lot, and even help financially sometimes, but you have to swallow the fear and do it.

Answer 2

Well, the child has no doubt who his mother is, whatever gramdma says! His mother shouldn’t get stressed out with such talk and allow this to become a tussle for the child.

Grandma made her own mistakes when she was a young mother that she’s now compensating for with the grandchild. The boy also is at the age of curiousity when everything in the surroundings is interesting. He’ll naturally want to do everything that seems attractive to him.

The mother should be careful not to unload her anger with the grandma on him with punitive discipline she might feel guilty about later. It could harm the child’s relationship with her needlessly, creating doubts about her love for him. The child perceives undercurrents between parent and grandparent but he’s far too young to understand it, or be held responsible for it, or have to manage it.

Since these visits are only once a week, the mother could ensure her son earns his full fun-day of glueing walls, etc., by being firm about his keeping the boundaries everywhere else during the rest of the week.

She might take what’s happening on the day in her stride, and stay out of any kind of competition/conflict with grandma in that time and space. Remember the child is growing – the focus of his interest will change soon enough.

Answer 3

She should be incredibly pissed off and feel as though someone is intruding in her life and undermining her attempts to parent her child, and then she should tell her mother in law, or tell her husband to tell her mother in law that this has to stop or the only way they can see the boy is to come over to their house to see him while his mom watches him play with his grandparents because this is completely unnacceptable. Forget the guilt trip, isn't it better to say something now and put an end to it than to have your child turn out to be a brat and worse and worse  things as he gets older? I would say something right away or make my husband do it because that **** needs to cease immediatley. I, as a mother, would never stand for that. This really is her child's future life and personality at stake here, and it is well worth feeling guilty to know that your child is well taken care of and is around people who can influence him to be caring and not self centered and who don't allow him to act like a brat. Did they let their children act like that? They are just being selfish, they would have NEVER let their own children act like that because they would have had to deal with the reprocusions twenty four hours a day seven days a week. A BABY who doesn't know any better is under a year old, after that you HAVE to enforce disipline and ensure that everyone who watches that child makes him live by the same rules you do! Grandparents are supposed to spoil a child but only to a certain degree. This is outrageous to me and would COMPLETELY p**s me off if I was in the same situation. I feel terrible for your sister, just tell her something needs to be done about it NOW, and the fact that she brags about him calling her ma ma is despicable. I would throw up over that! That poor woman!!  

Answer 4

Well, I guess she married a man that will not support the proper raise of her kid.

She was supposed to select a good father and to select her future family, she married the in laws too.

All she can do, is try to talk to the mother in law who is obviously playing like a puppet because she can't stand like an adult. Tell your sister in law to get the courage to talk to her as an adult so she can get some respect. And her husband will never support her around his mom so that will be a waste of time.  

Answer 5

Have his mom sit down with the grandma and tell that she is the parent not her and that his mother will give the orders not her. God bless.

Answer 6

WOW!

I would have be having a serious conversation with my husband and his evil mother, if I was your sister-in-law. I would talk to him first, to lay down some solid rules before we'd all sit down together. Then I'd calmly and rationally discuss with her the things that are not acceptable to me.

I would explain that he will no longer be spending time at that house, if these things will be condoned. I would explain that I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to raise my child- and these are the guidelines.

It sounds like she misses having a baby of her own. It also sounds like she is waaaaaay behind the times with safety and supervision. If she doesn't change the way she "supervises" her grandson, there may be a very serious accident. She needs to be made aware of what you consider to be real supervision. Honestly, if she can't be a good grand mom to her grandson, then maybe she shouldn't have the chance to watch him. It's hard enough on a mom with just having to retrain the manners and such, after a weekend at grand mom's. No one should have to worry so much about their child's safety when they send him off to grand mom's. That's just insane.