Absolutely at my wits end my my parents. We have a 2.5yr old and a new born. We have just moved house and have had to move in with then for a month...I know this is suicide but here we are!
The thing is that my mother thinks she knows it all when it comes to kids and both she and my father chip away at us all the time with criticisms. Our toddler is a very active and happy little boy who does like to dictate what goes on and who goes where. He is also often bad mooded when he's tired and/or hungry BUT in general he's very obedient and as long as we keep his energy channeled in the right direction he's easy to look after and amuse. At the weekend he lost the plot over something silly (can't even remember what!) and whilst his tantrum was kicking off he bit me. I ignore his tantrums until he calms down and if he bites me I ignore that too generally because I've always found that withdrawing attention is the best method of regulating his behaviour but my Mum got involved and said that he needs to sit on a naughty step (like Supernanny) and then went on to say that she thinks we're scared of our son and he is running the house...he shouldn't be having tantrums like that and that she thinks he grizzles too much. My Father also commented this weekend on the fact that he's rather noisy and that he's worried about him going to a boys school...basically they seem to feel that their view is welcome on everything.
This time I stood up to my Mum and it resulted in an all out arguement. Since then she's been trying to be so nice but I can't bring myself to talk to her and I know that she is still bitching to my Dad about our parenting technique. We're stuck staying with them for the next 4 weeks and even when we're not it will eat away at me. My DP empathises with me but wants me to pretend nothing has happened to just make it pleasant again.
What can I do....how can I make them see that my son is normal and that our technique might not be televised but it works for us?