Dr. Lindsay Gibson

And whether it's just snarkiness or cynicism or whether it's outright verbal abuse, I mean, it's hard to tell.

Yeah, well, I mean, there is a strong cultural ideal that you have, you know, grandparents and that your children should have contact with their grandparents because, you know, there's grandparents' day at school and all the other kids have relationships with their grandparents and et cetera.

But it really depends on what you think would be best for your child.

To me, that's the most important thing.

Now, a possibility might be if that person had a problematic relationship with their parent, they could certainly just keep an eye on how that grandparent is interacting with the child.

In other words, don't leave them alone with grandma for the weekend until you are sure that they're not going to be saying things like the punching bag thing.

Because sometimes, you know, people mellow, and like we've seen in so many of these questions, they really do start to reflect on things that they've done wrong.

And they're not under the same kind of stress as an older person, usually.

And they have room for the kindness and compassion and the fun-loving grandparent.

They have room for that now.

And so sometimes they can be a much better grandparent than they were a parent.

But you won't know that unless you take on the responsibility of observing the interaction between your child and the grandparent.

Like I had a client once whose mother would come to visit and she would try to engage the child and would, and the child had, you know, was doing something else.

But the mother was trying to get attention directed toward her.

And this is very common.

The child is sort of feeling badgered to engage with grandma.

So at that point, the parent can step in and say, mom, he's playing with his truck now.

Or mom, why don't you give him a few minutes and try again later?

I mean, you would think, oh, I shouldn't have to tell another adult that when the child is plainly rejecting you to lay off and back up.

But that's exactly what had to happen because this parent, this grandparent, really didn't have the sensitivity to read that cue from the child.