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Jul. 14th, 2024 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyDear Care and Feeding,
How do you gently set boundaries with relatives? My 8-year-old gets along well with her cousins from my husband’s side. In the last year or so, there have been more frequent trips and sleepovers. I was generally easygoing about the arrangement for a while. But now my child is old enough to be aware that different houses have different rules—and my household’s rules tend to be stricter.
She has come home being overly dramatic about any restrictions, complaining about our house and habits, talking back with attitudes, and being mean to her little brother. It usually takes a whole day or more to turn her back to the sweet girl I raised, and sometimes this has to be done with discipline. I am tired of it.
The thing is, when I want to enforce some boundaries that I think are appropriate (with my kids only) when everyone is together, my husband’s relatives sometimes dismiss me or can be patronizing. My husband is more like his family, so he doesn’t see it as much as I do, despite multiple private discussions. I do not want to overly restrict her play with the cousins, as they are really good kids. But I want to be more mindful when I let her have extended sleepovers at the relatives’ house.
Recently during an outing, a relative directly said he planned for her to stay over during the summer. I felt weird about it—the statement was not even phrased as a question to me. I had a chat with my husband and told him that I would prefer to have my daughter stay closer to me for the couple of weeks that she doesn’t have summer camp, and that she should use the time to prep for her next grade anyway. If this is brought up in front of me again, how do I phrase my feelings politely? I don’t want to hurt the future relationship, but I do want to let my husband’s relatives know I have the parenting rights as a mother, and they should not circumvent me, as though my husband is my children’s only parent.
—Boundary Time
( Read more... )
How do you gently set boundaries with relatives? My 8-year-old gets along well with her cousins from my husband’s side. In the last year or so, there have been more frequent trips and sleepovers. I was generally easygoing about the arrangement for a while. But now my child is old enough to be aware that different houses have different rules—and my household’s rules tend to be stricter.
She has come home being overly dramatic about any restrictions, complaining about our house and habits, talking back with attitudes, and being mean to her little brother. It usually takes a whole day or more to turn her back to the sweet girl I raised, and sometimes this has to be done with discipline. I am tired of it.
The thing is, when I want to enforce some boundaries that I think are appropriate (with my kids only) when everyone is together, my husband’s relatives sometimes dismiss me or can be patronizing. My husband is more like his family, so he doesn’t see it as much as I do, despite multiple private discussions. I do not want to overly restrict her play with the cousins, as they are really good kids. But I want to be more mindful when I let her have extended sleepovers at the relatives’ house.
Recently during an outing, a relative directly said he planned for her to stay over during the summer. I felt weird about it—the statement was not even phrased as a question to me. I had a chat with my husband and told him that I would prefer to have my daughter stay closer to me for the couple of weeks that she doesn’t have summer camp, and that she should use the time to prep for her next grade anyway. If this is brought up in front of me again, how do I phrase my feelings politely? I don’t want to hurt the future relationship, but I do want to let my husband’s relatives know I have the parenting rights as a mother, and they should not circumvent me, as though my husband is my children’s only parent.
—Boundary Time
( Read more... )