Grandparents having favourites

Jagraf

Do parents treat all grandparents the same?

I know lots of families where the children grow up being closer to one set of grandparents than the other. Grandparents who are left out, told how to behave.

How many grandparents on this planet bite their tongues daily at the behaviour of their children, which affects the relationship between them and their grandchildren.

Not aimed at the op at all, I have also seen unfair behaviour by grandparents. Just putting a different slant on things - us parents think we are perfect sometimes.

DigForVictory

Grandparents are human. So are spouses, so are children. While we might all wish we could all be equally nice to everybody, it doesn't happen & really all we can do at a low level is just point it out as unfair & wrong to each other, and try to be better ourselves.

At a major level, not seeing relatives etc, then that's extreme, I hope. Start with keeping on talking as silence rarely helps. There's a lot of difference between giving things time to cool off a bit, and maintaining an icy silence, convinced of rightness.

May your mother-in-law's love for her son help her learn to encompass improved fairness. May your sons grow up into glorious lads you can all be proud of.

Best of luck.

Money_maker

I know one grandparent who would probably give the rest of her life to spend a few precious days with her grandchildren who she rarely sees now despite them living in the same town.

There are two sides.

warehouse

Money_maker wrote: »

I know one grandparent who would probably give the rest of her life to spend a few precious days with her grandchildren who she rarely sees now despite them living in the same town.

There are two sides.

Fine, then start another thread, this isn't about that.

culpepper

Sometimes I think it is worth talking things through on the spot so to speak. For example when GM tells DS2 off for helping himself to the salad , you could say something like 'now johnny, you know GM likes us all to wait till we are all ready before we start.. Did you think she had put it in front of you, for you to choose something?'
Then you are seen as upholding the 'no nibbling till we have started' rule but also are giving DS2 a way to admit it was a genuine mistake.

It might be worth your husband talking on his own with his parents about whether they are deliberately excluding DS2..If he describes how all 3 boys did so well in their school work this year but only DS1 and DS3 were rewarded for that, they have a chance to either admit they didn't notice they excluded him, or give a very good reason why they have .

Hubs could always say that they are 'please to stop rewarding for school achievements as it takes away from the 'working for its own rewards' ethic you are both trying to instill in your children'..

nubbins

cyantist wrote: »

I don't have kids so it's probably easy for me to say this, but if my parents treated one differently to the other they wouldn't be seeing either of them until they learned to be more fair

I really agree with this coment, at the end of the day us as elders might have a favourite and thats fine, the grown up bit is treating them all the same so they know no difference. I would explain the situation to the culprit and cut them out if they did not change their ways. This sort of behaviour really affects kids into their adulthood, I had it my mum had it and I wont stand for it when it comes to my kids