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‘I wish they wouldn’t feed our kids junk and sugar’: How to approach grandparents who go against your wishes

Co-understanding is needed to prevent granny and grandad doing things ‘their way’ and going overboard with unhealthy snacks

If the kindness can be demonstrated in other ways than just sugar, that may be a solution. Photo: Picture posed/Getty

Dr David Coleman

March 15 2023 02:30 AM

Grandparents are, typically, special people in the lives of our children.

Unconstrained from the responsibility of parenthood, they can often enjoy the opportunity to offer genuinely unconditional love to their grandchildren.

Unfettered approval can be a huge boost to our children’s self-esteem and it is no wonder most kids have a unique bond with their granny and grandad.

For some parents though, this can be a double-edged sword. Delighted as we are for our children to have such a loving and supportive relationship with their grandparents, we may also resent it a little bit, or we may feel undermined by it.

What happens, for example, if every time you bring your children to spend time with their grandparents, they get fed fizzy drinks, sweets and crisps, while you have been the ‘no fun’ parent who greatly limits sweets or treats in an effort to keep your family as healthy as you can?

Granny’s treat cupboard could become a flash point of frustration or resentment for you.

Or what if you are reliant on your parents for childcare, yet you find that their child-rearing practices really jar with how you want to parent your children?

Grandad might well tell you that he “did the same with you and it did you no harm”, if he gets cross and critical with your children for their exuberance.

Or maybe he does the opposite and never applies any consequences, allowing them to develop what you might consider to be bad habits.

Of course, if you put yourself into your parents’ shoes for a moment, it may also be difficult for them to sit on the side-lines, watching you making what they may consider to be mistakes in rearing your children.

They may be frustrated that they aren’t given the time they would like to spend with their grandchildren, or they may feel overwhelmed, and yet obligated, to look after your children even though it is too much for them at their stage of life.

It is easy to see how this special relationship between a child and their grandparent could be a point of contention or conflict. To my mind, it often boils down to some variation of the issue of who is really in charge of the child/grandchild.

Determining this issue requires both parents and grandparents to be adult in how they communicate whatever points of difficulty might arise as this balance is found.

It may sound like a simple thing, but it can often be a real challenge to shift the parent-child dynamic to an equal-adult grandparent-parent dynamic over the years.

How many of us walk back into our childhood homes and immediately revert to our childhood ways?

Sometimes it is driven by the adult child, who falls back into the comparative irresponsibility of their childhood, handing over that responsibility to their parent again.

Sometimes it is a parent who refuses to acknowledge the right of their now adult child to be independent of them in thought or action (“as long as you are in my house, we’ll do it my way”).

So there is an onus on both adult children and their parents to shift the dynamic to become the equivalent of adult friends, who can respect each other’s views, beliefs and practices.

If we have managed to achieve this, it can go a long way to resolving any conflicts about who is really in charge of these children, the parent or grandparent.

‘Breaking the deadlock will require you, the parent, to see the issue from your parents’ perspective and vice versa’

For either party, going in “all guns blazing”, complaining about or criticising each other’s behaviour or attitude will probably lead the other to become defensive and self-protective.

Breaking any deadlock will require you, the parent, to see the issue from your parents’ perspective and vice versa. Empathy with each other’s experience and understanding of the situation is the fastest way to unlock conflict and find a workable solution that meets everyone’s needs.

To return to the example of the fizzy-drink-and-sweet-offering-Granny, the parent needs to recognise that their mother (or mother-in-law) is just taking the opportunity to treat her grandchildren since she knows they may not have many treats at home.

The gifting of sugar is unlikely to be every day and so if the parent can acknowledge the grandparent’s desire to offer kindness and ask that the kindness be demonstrated in other ways than just sugar, they may find a solution.

At exactly the same time though, the grandparent needs to acknowledge that their son or daughter is worried about sugar, perhaps obesity or other ill-health, and those concerns are valid — undermining them will just create an unbearable tension.

It is this co-understanding of the other perspective that might allow a solution to be found.

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‘I wish they wouldn’t feed our kids junk and sugar’: How to approach grandparents who go against your wishes

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