Naughty Grandparents

Why parents and grandparents clash over boundaries – and whether it matters.

My mum inspired this post. She’s visiting us this week. We don’t see her so often, as we live in different countries. The kids are always excited when she comes and want to get home from school as quickly as possible to spend time with her. She’s a fun nanny. Here are some examples of the types of Christmas cards she sends my son and daughter:

For anyone not from the UK, this refers to the Catherine Tate sketches about ginger-haired people – google them, but possibly not loudly and while sitting next to anyone with red hair 😉. My daughter was very ginger as a toddler and still has a proud ginger streak, hence the selection.

This was my son’s card; the slang phrase this is playing on took some explaining to my Austrian kids and is highly inappropriate for children 🙃:

They love their nan because she’s naughty!

Many people have a problem with naughty grandparents. Clients have often brought cases of family friction to me involving their parents and the way they are with their offspring. It’s an area of great tension for some. For frazzled parents trying to create some order and routine, grandparents can be a headache. This is not an exhaustive list, but three of the main areas I have come across in sessions:

• The sweet bearers: you’re trying to give your kids a healthy start in life, but the grandparents ply them with doughnuts and often tell them to keep it a secret (something you are trying to teach your kids not to do!).

• The strict and/or opinionated (you could argue these don’t fall under the umbrella of naughty, but they are answering you back in an area that you feel is not theirs to comment on): they know everything better and constantly criticise your parenting techniques, making you feel insecure.

• The chaos bringers: they throw everything up in the air, including the children at times.

Not all of them are as extreme, nor do they all fit into these categories. In some cases, they fall into more than one category.

The outcome of many of my coaching sessions has largely been around the extent to which the grandparents are involved in the child’s life. The situations that are brought up in coaching are usually one of two extremes:

• Grandparents who play a significant role in the child's upbringing.

• Grandparents who rarely see the kids.

Both types can span all three of the points listed above. No two coaching clients have reached the same solution, but their realisations by the end of the sessions have often been similar and along these lines:

• If the grandparents are in a support role of any kind, we may need to accept their standpoint, reach a compromise or pay for childcare to separate the situation and ease the tension. I know many don’t view grandparents wanting to see their grandchildren as childcare, but if they fit visits around your agenda and it's helping you, then a certain amount of support is being given.

• If the grandparents don’t see the kids often, there probably isn’t any harm in the odd rule-breaking. Maybe the kids should enjoy the time with them for as long as the grandparents are able and around.

I’ve predominantly worked with parents, but I've been privy to the perspective of a couple of grandparents who have a similar view. At the start of sessions, each often defends their own corner, but both usually have the child’s best interests at heart.

I would have liked more help with my kids when they were younger, but I chose to move to another country before I became a parent. My in-laws were around and saw the kids fairly regularly when they were very young, but when it suited them, they also had their own lives. The plus side of this is that I haven’t had any great tension to put up with or interference. We can’t have it all.

Kids can never have too many people in their lives who love them. It’s up to you how you balance these relationships and what you allow yourself to get wound up about.

As I sit here typing, I listen to my mum chatting away to the kids. My son explains Minecraft and how you shouldn’t look into an Enderman’s eyes, and my mum says, “It sounds like travelling on London Underground.” My son nods, like he knows what she’s talking about, as does my daughter when my mum tells her how she should have been Mick Jagger’s wife, instead of some silly ballerina. They are completely absorbed.

I, meanwhile, am clearing up the mess they are making as they chat. They are chipping away at a slab of clay she bought for each of them to get to the hidden golden nuggets within, scattering chunks and dust across the table and freshly hoovered floor. I already know they won’t get off to bed on time tonight because she’ll be tickling them or telling some outrageous story when they are supposed to be calming down to go to sleep. That’s alright because they are making memories together, and that’s so much better than sticking to the rules. Don’t forget, some of us might be grandparents ourselves one day; I already know that I plan to be a naughty one 😉.