In the summer, children stay with their grandparents for a long time. Often there is a misunderstanding between the older and younger generations. Children complain that they are forbidden a lot, in response, grandparents complain that their grandchildren are ill-bred and naughty. Parents have to balance between two fires.
Let's look at what grandparents are like and try to divide them into types according to their relation to grandchildren. Maybe this will help different generations to reach mutual understanding and to establish relations among themselves.
1. Rangers
This type of grandparents can be difficult to persuade to sit with the kids. They always say right away that they have a lot to do, and they don’t have to look after their grandchildren at all.
All care for the younger members of the family comes down to feeding and putting them to bed. Such grandparents have children left to their own devices, there is no control over them. When the older generation is not too severe with them and provide them with freedom, then everything is quite happy for the children.
2. Supervisors
This is the very opposite type of grandparents who, on the contrary, are too serious with their grandchildren and seek to organize total control over them. Since the children have entrusted them, they are fully responsible for them. In this case, the life of the grandchildren passes under constant and vigilant attention: “Where did you go?”, “Who called?”, “Why is the forehead wet?” ...
This category of grandparents considers it their duty to report in detail to their parents. And they regularly reprimand them for raising ungrateful daughters or sons who eat porridge poorly, are naughty, and hardly agree to go to sleep.
Children of such grandparents endure with difficulty and try to evade communication with them.
3. Teachers
Such grandmothers and grandfathers, as a rule, were former teachers before their retirement lives. They believe that their main task is to fully develop the child, even during the holidays. Children are forced to solve problems, study Russian, take them to classical music concerts. In general, every second a child should spend with maximum benefit.
Children usually love the grandparents of the teacher category, because they feel their care, but still prefer to communicate with them in a dosed manner.
4. Companions
There are also grandparents who do not make much difference between themselves and grandchildren. They let children into their lives and are keenly interested in their lives. Relations in such cases are built trusting and equal, and the main mode of influence is agreement. Sometimes alliances are even made against parents. Children are allowed to eat sweets, walk late into the night.Grandchildren are allowed a lot of what is forbidden by their parents, explaining this by saying that while they are small, let them play and indulge, but they will still have time to become adults and serious.
Children are very fond of grandparents who act as their partners, only such are rare.
How to interact with grandparents of different types?
It is unlikely that you will be able to change the habits and worldview of adults. Therefore, the most reasonable is to adapt to them, which should be explained to children.
Each of us periodically meets people with different values, attitudes and life priorities. They disagree with our opinions and carefully defend their point of view. The same applies to the older generation.
You will not succeed in changing older people. They accumulated their life experience, on the basis of which their current life position was built. It is more correct with respect to accept this.
Understand yourself and explain to the children that older people should be accepted as they are, you should not be angry and offended by them. Then the child will have the opportunity to understand the causes of behavior and the point of view of their grandparents. So he will learn to negotiate and find consensus. This will come in handy in the future.
Remember: as we relate to elders, so our children will relate to us when we grow old.
We also read:
- How to establish a relationship between a child and his grandparents?
- The role of grandparents in raising children
- Five situations when grandparents should be stopped
- How not to spoil a child with a grandmother?
- Grandmother or nanny: with whom to leave the child
- Grandmother spoils her grandchildren and everything allows them - how to react to parents
