Since when don't grandparents discipline their grandchildren?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

When we were growing up, we were disciplined by everyone older than us if they saw us misbehaving. It was no big deal. It is how our family works. We take care of everyone's kids. We love them, they love us. It's family, for God's sakes. Today's Dear Abby had me just wondering what the hell is up with families today. Did your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, make you mind and act like a civilized human being while at family functions? Please read the following and imagine what would have happened to you if you had disrespected your grandparents the way these children do:

DEAR ABBY: When our grandchildren come to visit, their parents do not discipline them. When our children visited our parents, we made sure they behaved. As a matter of fact, we did it no matter where they went.

What do you do when the parents do not attend to their children? When I served Christmas dinner, they did not insist that their 6-year-old join the family. He was allowed to continue playing videos. How do I let them know there are rules here?

It hurts my feelings when my grandchildren treat my good furniture as a playground. I don't see them often, but I'd rather skip having them in my home and visit them. However, my children rarely offer to host the holidays. What's a person to do? -- CONFUSED GRANDMA IN INDIANA

DEAR CONFUSED: I'd suggest a two-pronged approach. Ask your children to inform the grandkids that when they visit their grandparents there are certain rules of conduct that must be observed -- and that includes sharing mealtime together and not jumping on or off the furniture. And then, if the youngsters don't behave, take them aside and explain that they may act that way in their parents' home, but not in yours because you have rules -- and tell them exactly what kind of behavior you expect from them.

The longer you remain silent, the longer your problem will continue.

Please tell me about your family.
Mel

[Left Is Write]

1. I don't know.

When my kids and I visit my parents and my in-laws in the summer, we're there anywhere from two weeks to a month. If they misbehave, they get corrected, whether by me or the grandparents.

[LeftyMom]

2. My parents respect my discipline strategy with LK

His Dad's parent's don't. As a result my mother and father are allowed to handle discipline issues that occur in thier presence, but his paternal grandparent's aren't entrusted with that authority (and I try not to leave them alone together when we see them. It's not a big issue since they live really far away.)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

4. That's understandable...

but if LK were disrespecting his paternal grandmother by treating her things badly, you would say something, and if the grandmother said something, would you freak? I'd hope not, as long as she didn't over react.
Mel

[LeftyMom]

5. Of course

He's a really overactive kid, so I would ask her to meet him part way and put a few of the more breakable things up (she's good about this, but sometimes I have to remind her) and make sure he has interesting things to do.

The last thing I'd do is react to her overreaction at the time (she's a very nervous woman and does tend to overreact to minor childhood misbehavior) I'd handle the situation, correct LK as needed and let her know later if I had a concern about her behavior.

[eyesroll]

6. That, to me, isn't really discipline -- that's self-defense.

If a kid is doing something disrespectful to me or my property, I would speak up.
I would speak up whether I had parental/discipline authority or not. "Please don't jump on my couch." "You need to stop that, NOW."

I wouldn't ground, time-out, hit (well, I wouldn't hit my own kid either), or otherwise discipline a child; that's the parents' job. I might pick a kid up to stop him/her from dive-bombing onto the hardwood, but that's about it.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

8. Yeah, that's a better way of explaining it.

[eyesroll]

3. Hell, my parents aren't even grandparents, but they enforce the rules

in their house. (It's not so much "discipline" as enforcement, but it's there.)

On edit: This means doing exactly as the advice says -- saying 'please come to dinner, in this house we don't play video games at dinnertime.' They don't stick a child in timeout or any of that, but then again, I've never been in their presence with a child whose parents didn't immediately try to correct a behavior.

What I don't understand is why it "hurts (this woman's) feelings" when they treat good furniture as a playground. They're not doing it on purpose. Six year olds bounce on furniture unless corrected. Perhaps the parents don't correct because they don't mind (or don't remember Mom having "good furniture"). I don't mind if the three-year-old bounces on my furniture.

[HEyHEY]

7. I have no good memories of my grandparents as a child

Except for my father's mom and possibly his dad. MY mother's side however, raised chidren in the old school Irish way... IE cruelty. I remember begging my mother not to make me go visit. They butted their faces in when they should have not done so.
When I got older I began to enjoy their company. My Dad's mom however, and her mother were amazing people. Loved the grandkids. Especially my great Grandma.... whenever we went to see her she'd shove money and candy in our pockets and, with a thick Scottish accent, gave strict instructions not to tell mom and Dad where we had obtained said goodies should we be caught with them.
SHe thought it was her god-given right to spoil grandchildren. Man, I really miss her.

[JVS]

11. What did they do to you?

[HEyHEY]

12. Told you to shut up a lot

Never hit me, but my sister got it once.
They liked to make you feel like shit.

[JVS]

9. "QUIT THAT YOU LITTLE SHIT!" if you don't want...

a kid to hear it, make sure that "THAT" doesn't happen

[Gormy Cuss]

10. We were taught early on : if you're in someone's home, their rules apply.

If my parents didn't agree with a relative's house rules we weren't allowed to go there alone until we were old enough to behave without their oversight. I had cousins who could do whatever they pleased and that drove my mother up the wall. We didn't have sleepovers at their house but they did come to ours and understood that my parents' rules were to be observed.

I think the Dear Abby letter is relating a problem with the middle generation's lack of manners more than the grandchildren. The grandchildren are acting as they are accustomed; it's their parents who aren't behaving.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

13. When we have the cousin's kids over to my mom's...

when the parents don't pay any attention to their evil children (Yeah I said it, WHAT, WHAT?) my mom takes over. And if it pisses them off, my mom doesn't care. It's her house, and when kids are laughing in their parents' faces when they tell them no and the parents don't do anything about it, she sits them in the corner and tells them that she'll spank them (she never does) if they get out of it. She doesn't have to spank them because they are all a little scared of mean Aunt Patsy. My mom's a hag to me, but pretty decent to the family's kids.
Mel

[Gormy Cuss]

15. Yeah, my cousins thought my mother was mean.

She didn't care. The neighborhood mothers had the authority to discipline us as they saw fit too if we acted out in their houses. They didn't hit us or call us names but they did tell us to behave in the same loud tones used with their own kids and subjected us to the worst sort of timeouts -- we were sent home and had to tell our mother that we weren't allowed to play with so and so for X days, and the reason why.

Curiously enough, we were considered well behaved kids. I wonder how that happened.:shrug:

[tinfoilinfor2005]

14. I take care of my grandson, age four, three to four days a week

and of course I discipline him. He knows his boundaries and behaves very well. Until we are around mom and dad, who have a bad habit of saying no but then giving in when he whines. And he knows that very well. And he also knows that doesn't work with me. But I must be doing something right because he is happy and even tempered when we are together, and last week he told me, "Even though you're my grandma, you're my very best friend." Made me cry. :cry: (It's a grandma thing)

[miss_american_pie]

16. I discipline my children

There's no need for anyone else to do so when my husband and I are present.

[Darth_Kitten]

17. Grandparents are too scared to have to discipline the kids....

because the snotty assed parents of the kids will take out their past grievances on the heads of the poor well meaning grandparents...

I feel sorry for grandparents, they walk such a fine line just to have a relationship with their grandkids, and don't the parents know it. :mad:

Sorry, I've observed this way too often. :(