Who is unreasonable, Mil or Ds?

[Maria1979]

So Mil is having DS 11 over. I left some revision for him to do for school. Not something that will be handed in to school, just answering questions to show me so I can see if he's got it or needs more revision. Well, he called me crying telling me to please come and get him because grandma is telling him his writing is awful. Talked to grandma and told her that btw us I didn't care about his writing, just about the facts since it's not a paper to turn in, it's just for me. Also, to no dripfeed, he has always struggled with handwriting but has learnt to write correctly, if not beautifully, so it's something he's quite sensitive about apart from him being a sensitive child.

Mil is angry and says that we indulge him too much and he needs to hear that his handwriting is bad. And in any case he has not to lock himself in the barhroom and call me, it's really rude.
I agree to a certain extent with her but I do think her comment was unnecessary and hurtful. She's not involved with his homework (doesn't know the subject) so if someone should say something it's me. Then again he's overreacting. That's how I feel, would like to hear fellow mums' perspectives..

If she was ranting and raving for half an hour, that’s one thing, but to make a ‘comment’ and he flounces off to the bathroom is not on for an 11 year old. He needs to say ‘I know, it’s something am working on’ and crack on with the homework.
So now you have a family drama plus no revision being done…

I think it's a bit much to expect grandparents to supervise revision that isn't even homework.

Did she understand that she was just to get him to do it, not to help?

It does sound like she's been a bit too negative, and that he's massively overreacted.

Why did he need to do some revision that wasn't actually school work and sounds completely unnecessary. He's 11 why can't he just spend some time with his granny.

Honestly it seems like you just set up a situation which you knew would be high tension for absolutely no reason.

If it was all over one comment, it sounds like an overreaction on your son's part. I agree with MIL that it is rude to call you rather than discuss or dismiss it with her. In life you might hear things that upset you, but you need to be able to deal with them without calling mummy. I can't imagine your MIL was deliberately trying to upset your son. Any criticism would probably have been coming from a place of trying to help him improve things.

If MIL just said in passing that his handwriting was messy then I don't see the issue there. Your son flouncing off in tears to ring you seems a bit overly dramatic. Why did he even need to do revision at her house if it was for you to look over. Why not just leave him to chill out with his grandmother?

I think grandmother is right .

As a child with awful writing (due to a slightly odd educational experience) I can to some extent understand this child's reaction. To be criticised again for something that's not even relevant is dispiriting. I don't think I'd have flounced but such a comment would have made me miserable and therefore unable to concentrate on the actual revision.
I wouldn't have had the savoir faire to say, 'Yes, I know, I'm working on it'.

Granny is right. Your son sounds a drama llama. 🤷‍♀️

Mil is angry and says that we indulge him too much and he needs to hear that his handwriting is bad..

Anger is not an appropriate response in this situation and tells me this is more about MIL wanting to criticise your parenting rather than have her grandson's best interest at heart. He doesn't need to hear his hadnwriting is bad, he already knows it.
With this in mind, I can see why he wouldn't trust her enough to have a conversation and why he may have been inclined to overreact. Family is the people we trust to support us. When they start berating us for the sake of it, it's not something 11-year-old can overcome with reason. Locking himself in the bathroom and calling one person he can trust is normal threat response.

But I am also baffled as to why you set him up revision to "show you" that he's got it. Sounds like there isn't one person in your family who trusts your son with his learning. If you wanted to check that he got it, you could have simply asked him questions. Quite why he needed to do written exercises in his free time, I am not sure...

Is his handwriting actually readable by the average person in a reasonable amount of time? Because if it's not, she might have a point. Some children know all the stuff but if they can't write it down they can't pass tests/exams.

Sounds like he's under a lot of pressure from everyone!

Why did he need to do this at grandma's to prove to you he could do it? It's hard for us to comment on MILs comment without actually hearing what was said, a little nudge about his writing is one thing, a rant or telling off is another.

I think your MIL is criticising his hand writing because in her day this was relatively important. Now a days it really isn’t. My best friend is a teacher and GCSE exam marker. She told me not to to focus on hand writing as teachers are experts and with exams a lot is scanned by computers now. Your MIL was probably out of depth with the homework itself.

Aside from that I would support your DS nonetheless, he is a child, you gave him the phone so he could contact you and I would support him. You aren’t spoiling him as MIL says.

Of course they can.

My DS13's handwriting is appalling. Forcing cursive in primary has had a terrible effect on loads of kids, and it's really hard to unlearn.
Now he's in secondary, they've given him a laptop to do his work on and everything is fine. He gets his work done and everyone can read it.

I agree with this.

So it wasn't even set as school homework. He really didn't need to be doing it anyway and should just have been spending quality time with his grandma.

Why the need to set him this task? You don't need to be driving him on every moment like this.

Let the kid have a day off and just spend time at his Granny’s without having to think about school work.

If she made one passing comment about his handwriting and he ran off crying to the bathroom he sounds rather sensitive and over reactive.

When he doesn’t want to go to granny’s now you know why?

Have to agree with the comments questioning why he is even having to do this not-set-homework homework when he's with his GM...

I think handwriting was a big thing in the past. My son has absolutely awful handwriting and we think is probably dyspraxic but he has used computers for exams and they use mostly computers at his uni so its not an issue. I'd leave off taking homework that's none essential to his grandmas.

If gran is looking after him, why do you need to control what they do in that time? Plenty of opportunity to do homework at home, where it's meant to be done. You've set up situation where conflict is almost inevitable - you ask her to supervise then moan when she doesn't do it like you would!

Now I do have some sympathy with your child - my mum was always going on to my dd about her makeup or her clothes. All that happens is that kids stop wanting to visit so much, because they just feel criticised.
So it depends how her comments were made and whether they were just a passing remark or loaded with criticism.

Tell mil that you son knows his writing needs improvement and is working on it, so please be tactful. Tell your son that gran meant to help and that older generations were taught differently at school and are speaking as they were spoken to in an attempt to teach - there was no intention to be hurtful.

And chill with the extra unnecessary homework and let your kid be a kid on a visit to grandma!

Not every child gets a laptop due to bad writing and not every child succeeds in spite of handwriting problems. 🙄

I was an examiner for years and you would not believe how poor some of the writing was and if the writing is totally illegible despite your best efforts then they get zero marks.

Handwriting matters and you can't depend on getting a laptop (which is usually a disability adjustment) as an excuse for not working on it. I'm not talking about cursive and OP didn't seem to be either. I'm talking about putting letters on a page that others can read, as I stated in the post you quoted.

If granny is babysitting and it's her house then I'd say he needs to at least be polite. He has over reacted and been rude to her. Teach him about controlling what he can (ie his behaviour) rather than getting angry with what he can't. I think it's odd he is having to do this work at his granny's though. It sounds unnecessary for him to do it there if at all.

As a complete aside, I must say how nice it is that (on a thread mentioning MiLs) the comments aren't all immediately bashing the mil and demanding you go no contact! 🥳

Nothing in the OP suggests that the grandma was expected to supervise. He was just given work to do while he was there. I don't think OP should have given him work though. And grandma shouldn't just tell him his writing is "awful" and get angry. If she wants to help him improve his writing that's fine, but telling a child his writing is awful achieves nothing. It's not like he can just go "oh ok, I'll write better from now on, thanks for pointing that out".

I feel sorry for the kid. Mum is giving him unnecessary extra homework and granny is carping about his handwriting.

When your MIL was at school it was probably taken much more seriously, and she may have assumed he'd get in trouble for messy writing. Seems a small thing for him to get so upset about though, I think he must have been feeling down to start with and her comment put the tin lid on it. Basically a storm in a teacup OP, perhaps you and DS could visit and take a cake and talk it out?