Your Parents

[the saint]

We appreciate our parents presence especially when extra hands are needed to take care of the children. When do they overstep the line from being helpful to meddling?

 

[daddyJoe]

Parents overstep the line when they know the parent has a rule for the child and they don't enforce that rule. Children need consistency and parents need to reinforce the parent's rules. They overstep if they buy children things that the parent may not approve of, too.

 

[Wilbur]

We kind of throw the rules out the window when the grandparents are around, but that's because we don't see them very often. On those rare and special occasions, we let them spoil however they want.

If grandparents are involved on a regular basis though I could see how they could sometimes be considered meddlesome. I have a few friends who have trouble with that and it seems like a never ending battle for everyone to get on the same page.

 

[Richard]

Grandparents' job is to spoil, at least that's what my family believes. I don't like when my parents decide to lecture me on the way I'm raising my kids, though. I know they do it with good intentions, but I also know that my kids have a much different life than I had at their age, and that means I need to do things a little differently.

 

[SeaUrchin]

I never say anything in front of the kids about their grandparents on either side. I have had to tell the kids that while Grammy and Pa love them that we are their parents and have the last say. I don't say anything to my parents, or her parents either, when the kids are there. I wait until they are out of the room and then we discuss it. Yeah, they do interfere, but you have to think of it this way; what will you do when your kids are in your place? Circle of life guys, circle of life.