MiL too involved?

[Dogtanian11]

First of all sorry for the long post but I really need to rant!
My MiL, nearly 80, still works in a school as a SenCo. Has two boys and lots of stories on how she used to make them do work during school holidays. My stance has always been that unless they are set homework then they don’t need to do extra ‘sit down’ work. I will get them to read road signs, calculate mileage and other road trip stealth learning.
My son is 10, year 6 and has dyslexia and processing issues, it takes him a while to understand the task he has been asked to do BUT once he understands it, there’s no stopping him. Because of this, it’s a constant battle to get him to do his homework, he thinks he can’t do it and we spend so long trying to convince him, ending up normally with tears (on both sides) and half the weekend wasted. He is due to sit his SATS after the holiday break.
So, the week before the holidays the MiL told me that the year 6 teacher in her school had given her a SATS revision book that he could work on over the holidays. I didn’t say anything as I’ve made her aware before that I don’t want work being done during holidays. Then a couple of days later, during a telephone call in loud speaker in the car, she mentioned the book again in the conversation to my partner (her son) again I didn’t say anything, the kids were in earshot and I didn’t want to talk about it in front of them. We made plans for her to have them a couple of times during the holidays. The first day they collected and took him off back to their house. I wasn’t home when he was returned but I noticed a white revision book on the table which i admittedly didn’t pay too much attention too. The following day the kids had a holiday club, they came home and watched a film and then they wanted to go swimming before their swim lessons so we left a little bit earlier than usual and arrived home about 7.45pm
the following day they were spending with their MiL. They came to collect them, I was packing up their bags and my 10yr old came in and told me that MiL had told him off for not doing the revision book and that he would have to do extra that day. I walked into the front room to hear my partner explaining to her that he’d had a busy day and that they’d gone swimming, her reaction was to say that we needed to get our priorities right! And that triggered me! I lost it, a very heated argument followed with me telling her that if she wants to make him do work at her house then she can but under my roof he does what I say and that means no work during school holidays, she angrily responded that she didn’t agree and that he needed the extra tuition. I replied that he is 10 years old and I want him to enjoy the holidays by having fun, she replied that I would because I am so domineering! I then pointed out that I don’t want to go through the screaming and shouting that we have with normal homework to which she said well that doesn’t happen! My partner actually stepped in then and said that actually it does, she then backed down. I told her to back off, stop over stepping the mark and then had to walk away. Meanwhile the kids had gone running off to their bedrooms in tears 😔
they packed up and took them back to their house. I apologised to the kids and my partner for shouting, my partner sat on the fence and said he could see from both sides that we both want the best for our son and that he didn’t mind him doing some work over the holiday.
they were dropped back that night, I didn’t see them but once again the revision book was on the table. My son then told me this, MiL had sat him down to have a serious conversation about doing extra work during the holidays, she told him a story about her other son, he has dyslexia and she used to make him do extra work and he hated it and would often tell her that he hated having a teacher as a mother but years later, when he moved away and married, he wrote her letter, thanking her for making him do the extra work.
So am I reading too much into this, even after me saying that I don’t want him doing extra work and asking her to step back, I feel that she is guilt tripping my son and still going against my wishes. Apparently my son has told her that he will do the work if he isnt too tired. I reluctantly asked him to do some work the following day he said he would but didn’t but I didn’t push it.
I don’t know where to go with this, it’s not the first time she has ignored me and my partner has admitted that she gets very anxious and he doesn’t want to upset her.
once again, sorry for the long post but I need to get my head round this 😖

The stealth learning that you do seems more likely to actually cement knowledge and build an inquisitive love of learning. Forcing your son to do extra of things he struggles at for the sake of an exam that in all honesty means nothing (who has ever been asked how they did on y6 sats?) Is more likely to make him feel worse about himself and hate learning. If MIL was such an amazing SENCO, surely she is a dabhand at designing stealth learning sessions?

I agree with your approach, focus on him having fun and feeling good about himself by doing extra of things he does well and hopefully the confidence from that will help him feel more able to try at the things he struggles with.

Either way, the decision should be made by parents and respected by grandparents.

Find other holiday childcare?

She is massively overstepping.

I don’t do homework with my kids during the holidays, it’s my time. I’ve given back holiday worksheets to the teacher telling them directly that we won’t do them and they’ll only get lost if we take them home. The teacher agreed with me and said that the government made her set it.

the fact is at 80, she’s an old granny and definitely an old teacher, she may well
be working with out of date methods and not up to date research on child development. But regardless undermining the way YOU want to raise your children is not acceptable. I’d be cutting right back on how much time she spends with them and not giving her the chance to manipulate them in this way. I’d be reminding her who’s children they are and if he ripping up the revision book.

Is finding other holiday childcare an option? She's overstepping, but I suspect won't chance, so I would start looking for other options

An almost 80 year old SENco?! How…..?!

Doesn't matter what her opinions are . They are your kids . But then you can't expect them to go to her house for childcare . At 80 she isn't going to change .

Stop unsupervised access, she can’t be trusted really, can she?

Either suck it up or find other care

I would say she's trying to help, your boy has known difficulties which make it harder for him to keep up with the others. The usual way of resolving this is to give the child extra support, often 1:1, either within school or parents paying for extra tuition.

you might not like it, but education is her speciality, she's been through this or seen what happens to these children countless times before and she's trying to help prevent her grandson from falling further behind his peers and thereby reduce his options in life.
shes coming from a good kind place, i think you should have a bit more of a think about this, persuade your son to look at the bigger picture and do some revision/discover the gaps in his knowledge where he's not understood something in class and has fallen behind.

I don’t blame you at all but an 80 year old senco?!

When the schools were reorganised in my area everyone over 50 was made redundant and seen as ancient!

After your argument with your MIL, you made it very clear that you didn't wanted your son to be forced to do his revision exercises by your MIL and she then completely ignored your clearly stated wishes.

The only way you can stop this is by stopping allowing your MIL to have unsupervised access to your children.

She did exactly what she wanted with her own children but she isn't entitled to do exactly what she wants with her grandchildren against their mum's wishes.

I know! How do they afford her! My mother is 84 and could definitely still work if she wanted to, in that she’s fit as a butcher’s dog but she’s been retired for two decades now.

Anyway, your own fault here was losing it at her. She’s interfering though and I agree with you (I am a teacher) that year six children should not have to do SATS prep in the Easter holidays.

I would like to know what difference she thinks it will make if he is tutored through his SATs and does brilliantly. My own dd did OK in her SATS despite getting zero in the spelling but it just wasn’t a big thing for any of the actual kids.

She’s massively overstepping, how the hell is she a senco at 80?!

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, having such a violent argument and shouting at your children’s grandmother to the extent that they run away in tears is absolutely unacceptable.

@Dogtanian11
I think you are ina classic war with MIL - where it is about control over a child by mother vs input by in-laws (or grand parents). It is normally emotional and not about anything objective.

And usually in these cases you’ll be told that mothers know best.

Personally I don’t necessarily agree. Mothers have an experience of only having their own 1-2 kids. And they don’t always know best. We know our children and have strong emotions that cloud our judgement often.

In this specific case it is very clear. If you came on here with a post describing your son’s issues - dyslexia, slow processing, confidence issues about homework - and saying Senco Specialist A advised regular recision, etc, with some short but regular structured work over holidays (not everyday but enough to maintain skills) - vs Friend B saying let kids just be kids… Most people would say - Senco specialist knows better, and, more importantly - short and regular practice will help your kid build confidence that would help him. And skill loss during holidays is especially damaging in his situation.

But - as you are in a power struggle with your MIL about your role - where you seem to need to prove/defend your role _ you don’t see the forest behind the trees.

Finally - I’ll say to all of the people with ageist comments. Have you thought that the school may be keeping that woman on because she is a good Senco specialist? Or - being ageist is suddenly OK if it is directed to the universally hated MILs?

So short sighted. 50 is no age. State pension is 67 now. Throwing all that experience away is madness.

You should have addressed this when she first raised it. Instead, you ignored it and then had a totally inappropriate argument in front of your DC.

I do think that your wishes should be respected but if you want free childcare you also have to accept that some things are done differently at another house. Is your DS actually distressed at doing schoolwork with his grandmother? Or is he enjoying 1:1 time with her? My DGD doesn't want to do her actual homework with us but happily plays games which replicate the same learning.

Yes, we all know that. It’s the people running the academy chains and being paid two hundred thousand for three days a week who are making older staff members redundant. Not us.

I don't think you're in the wrong to not want your son to do work in the holidays but I don't think you handled the situation well. You should have spoken calmly to your MIL when she first raised the issue and made it clear what your expectations were. Instead you had a screaming row in front of the children which benefits nobody.

If I were you, I'd wait till everything has calmed down and then have a civil conversation with her - keeping in mind that she obviously loves her grandchildren and wants the best for them - it's a difference of opinion, that's all. The adults involved need to talk openly without insults and drama!

I agree with your MiL. He needs to do more out of school. He will slip further and further behind as a dyslexic if you don't have a concerted focus.

However, I absolutely support your position as his mother. If you don't want him to do it, he doesn't have to. And frankly, at her age, she's probably not going to be around to see him as an adult anyway so...

I love your idea of practical applications: speed of a car, mpg, how to work out journeys, whether a crocodile or a man swims faster. (😳)

Could your MIL support that sort of ‘development’ when your son is at her house?

I think she's coming from a good place tbh.

She must have seen thousands of children with learning difficulties in her time and knows it's very difficult for children to catch up in secondary if they haven't secured their primary knowledge

That said, if your son is doing well in school aside from the homework issue, then it's not necessary and she is overstepping.

Losing your rag with her was wrong though, but i think you know that

Your mother in law and you were shouting at each other in front of the kids so badly they went to their rooms crying.

Yeah she overstepped but you both reacted very badly.

I am a teacher and believe you are right. Sats are supposed to test the school not the child.

Too much pressure is going to make everything 10x worse! If she wants him to do extra take him to museums, teach him how to build models, paint, use clay. Take him out on hikes and go to woodwork clubs. There's so much mroe to life and if he struggles academically it's even more important to show him all of that.

SATS are there to rate what the school and the teachers have taught not what grandma has taught.

If Mil works in a school she should know this.

Ask her exactly what the difference is going to be between him getting a better mark and and a lesser mark

Absolutely nothing
Secondary schools set their own tests as usually they have a large intake and they need to separate out those pupils who for example are great at maths and those that are great at maths but only because they had been tutored for the test.