Grandparents Get Involved in Positive Parenting

Her brain is withering from that technology, your father says as your daughter is savoring her one-hour daily screen time.

Your mother's voice threatens, "I would have washed your mouth out with soap," when your kid answers back to you.

Parenting is difficult enough; it is even more difficult when our parents—now grandparents—offer unwelcome counsel.

Actually, parents never stop being parents when their children grow up—not least since they advance to grandparents.

Usually, grandparents want to share with us real, hard-earned experiences they have had. Having having reared a kid or more for themselves, their views are hardly anything to minimize.

However, it does not imply our parents and in-laws have the right to meddle with our child rearing just because they want to be active in our life and worry about their grandkids.

1. Clearly State Your Parenting Goals

• When one does not get to the core of their intentions, people in any relationship run the danger of misinterpretation. This is why it is so important to have a real talk with grandparents about our parenting techniques.

• Positive parenting at odds with their upbringing—or the way they raised us—may be something grandparents think about. Part of that, though, results from misinterpretation.

• Maybe your parents or in-laws don’t aware you’ve purposely offered your eight-year-old the choice to wear a coat on a 40-degree day or suffer the inevitable consequence of being chilly at the bus stop. They only see a youngster refusing to put on another layer and your lack of an ultimatum.

• They might not understand that your objective is to produce children who are self-driven by their own decisions–and that you disagree that depending on conventional forms of punishment like spanking or using force will promote better conduct.

Sort Between Punishment and Consequences

Consequences vary from more conventional parenting techniques such as punishment. In positive parenting, consequences are a sort of discipline that allows life be the teacher. They educate a youngster how to make good decisions and grow from their errors in a constructive and encouraging manner using successful strategies.

What’s wrong with punishment? Plenty–and that’s why it’s not very helpful in achieving the conduct we desire from our kids.

Punishment is reactive; discipline is proactive. Punishment seeks to make youngsters suffer from their mistakes or poor choices–with the goal that they won’t make those same decisions in the future. However, data reveals that these measures, like spanking and time-outs, merely put the youngster on the defensive.

However, natural and logical consequences, when applied effectively, enable youngsters to make great decisions and/or handle the outcomes of unfavorable ones.

2. Remind Grandparents That Parenting is Not One-Size-Fits-All

• Grandparents who feel forced to intervene with parenting realize that the world looks different nowadays. In fact, it might worry and terrify them.

• But, it’s because the world is different that parenting practices have been pushed to develop. Technology, media, and less authoritarian parenting have grown prominent in children’s lives. They determine our society and, consequently, our parental reactions.

• So, while grandparents may feel the need to double down on the strategies they grew up with, it’s useful to point out that many of those ways are now null and invalid. If you actually scrubbed your child’s mouth out with soap, you may get a visit from Child Protective Services!

• New diagnoses are also coming to light, which are helping detect and treat diverse learning, attention, and sensory abnormalities. Many of these distinctions were undetected in prior generations; rather, they were brushed aside. Helping children overcome these obstacles needs understanding and adaptations in both parenting and grandparenting.

3. Consider the Grandparent’s Perspective

• Having a discussion works both ways. If we’re telling our side of the parenting narrative, we should be ready for the grandparents’ comments.

• Before you get defensive, imagine yourself in their position. One day, fate willing, you’ll be seated in their seats. Your kids, whom you love more than everything, will be grown and gone and have children of their own. You’ll want to assist them just as much as your parents want to help you today!

• Lend an ear here and there to grandparents’ worries, and try not to take things personally. They may have solid ideas, and at the absolute least, they give a fresh perspective. Keeping an open mind is key to parenting.

• But, if grandparents become pushy and continuously disrespect your parenting ideals, feel free to accept their counsel with a grain of salt. You are the parent, and you make the ultimate decisions!

Read Also: When Grandparents Interfere in Positive Parenting

4. Be Grateful for Your Parent’s Involvement, But Say, “I’ve Got This”

• If your parents are active in your family, it implies they care.

• Still, parents have to progressively let go of directing their children’s life if they want to preserve a good, healthy connection with us–including long into adulthood and parenting.

• Granted, we all make errors as parents. We don’t always know what we’re doing. It’s good to admit that freely!

• But, we know our children better than anyone and are parenting them in the way we think is best. Nothing more can be anticipated.

• And, to be sure, you can’t raise your children the identical way your parents raised you. Not only has society changed, but you are an altogether different person.

5. Use Guidelines When Grandparents Babysit

The joys of grandparenting are legendary, and youngsters adore their grandparents. But when grandparents come or babysit, expectations might be fulfilled or miscommunicated–or both.

Grandparents, for example, may wonder

Why don’t the kids usually play outside?
Is that truly the way youngsters communicate to their parents these days?
Why can’t I provide cookies as a lunchtime treat?

• While tolerance with family and home guests is usually useful, grandparents may have habits that put a kink in our disciplinary strategies or routines. So, just as it’s useful to share our overarching parenting beliefs with grandparents, it’s also beneficial to go over particular family details.

• This is especially beneficial when grandparents don’t live close and come just periodically. They will be farther distanced from our daily lives and expectations.

• When grandparents babysit, guidelines are immensely useful: especially those that follow a regimen.

• With a well-oiled schedule, grandparents may sneak in and comfortably plan ahead. They know when kids will wake up, what they like to eat for breakfast, when they go to school, take naps, and so on. A lot less can go bad and be left to chance with a strong strategy in place.