Grandparents often find themselves in a difficult position when it comes to handling grandchildren who are disrespectful. On one hand, they want to maintain a positive relationship with the child, while on the other they may feel that their authority is being undermined. This article provides a few tips on how to handle this situation.
Talk Things Over with Their Parents (Your Own Children)
Communicate with your own children before you use any form of disciplinary measure. Remember that they are the parents of your grandchildren and they still got the final say on how to deal with their own children. Discuss the problem together and offer them support in their parenthood and house rules.
Take note that your daughter or son in law didn’t grow up in your home and their idea of dealing with disrespectful children might be different from yours. Talk things over and most importantly, make sure you listen. When you listen with a goal to understand and create a plan, forget about hurt feelings and guesswork. The last thing you want is to alienate your own children because of this.
Implement Your Own House Rules
These house rules are those that you implement in your own home. It is important that you set up your house rules that your grandchildren need to obey. These could be the same rules that you used when your children were growing up so there shouldn’t be big surprises here.
For example, if your children let your grandchildren to jump or stand on the sofa in their house but you don’t allow this in yours, you got all the right to expect that your grandchildren will obey that rule when they are in your home. What you can do here is to set clear and definite expectations right from get-go. This can prevent heartaches as you try to discipline your grandchildren.
Ignore Behavior That Only Seeks Attention
It might seem like you are letting your grandchild get away with minor disrespect if you just ignore it. However, selective ignoring is actually among the most effective forms of negative consequences.
When you ignore a bad behavior, you are refusing the disrespect of your grandchild to stop you from doing the more important tasks at hand. If your grandchildren refuse to clean their mess and roll their eyes after you tell them to do so, avoid engaging in a long argument about the disrespectful behavior.
Every minute that you spend in power struggle is equivalent to 60 seconds they will put off doing what you told them to do. Warn them about the possible sequences if they refuse to obey your instruction.
If eye rolling has already become a common concern, you can solve this problem later on when the two of you are calm. Ask them if they are aware how they tend to roll their eyes when they feel mad.
Discuss the potential consequences of their disrespectful behavior. Talk about how others might feel if they see this rude behavior. Tell them the natural consequences of being disrespectful like having a hard time making friends.
Set Specific Consequences and Expectations
Once you have already talked to your grandchildren’s parents and you understood their own point of view, it is time for you to come up with specific consequences and expectations for your grandkids. This is assuming that you and your spouse have the same opinion on the matter. Everyone involved should be on the same page to prevent any argument. You have to make it clear that all consequences and expectations have been set up and that you are going to enforce both.
Practice Consistency
This next tip is important when dealing with disrespectful grandchildren. Make sure that you are ready to follow through and are consistent. If you don’t stick to your word, you cannot expect your grandchildren to obey all your rules that will only leave you frustrated. When you practice consistency, you won’t have any issues with both your grandchildren and your children.
But, be warned, though. It wouldn’t be easy. It can be very difficult for you to discipline your grandkids for the first time. Expect to be brokenhearted. However, by being consistency, your grandkids will still love you and love to stay in your home. They will tell you how much they love spending time with you even with all of your house rules. For all you know, having a structure in your home can make your grandkids feel more secure every time they spend time with you.
Love and Love Even More
Even though you need to discipline your grandchildren with sharpness and firmness every now and then, you still need to make sure that you show them how much you love them afterwards. This is a sound advice that really works. When your grandkids understand that you discipline them as a consequence of their bad actions instead of a reflection of your approval or love of them as a person, this will help strengthen your relationship with them.
Send Them Back Home to Their
Probably one of the main benefits of being grandparents is that you can enjoy a fun visit from your grandchildren then send them back home to their parents to solve any problem. Grandparents tend to be more forgiving and patient with their grandkids compared to their parents. It is usually because they have longer experience and better experience in raising kids.
Although grandparents love to joke about how they spoil their grandchildren, in reality, there is no such thing as giving children too much listening, caring attention and good quality time being spent together.
No matter how much you love and adore your grandchildren, it is important to remember that as grandparents, you play a big role in developing good manners that will stay with them even as they become adults.
Communication is always the key when it comes to how to handle disrespectful grandchildren. Be consistent, clear, and loving as you implement your rules and strengthen family relationships further.
