Grandparents invalidating child’s feelings

[Orangepen13]

My in laws are full of love for my 2 yo daughter. We see them every couple of months as they live far away and usually are together for 3-4 days. They absolutely dote on her, and mostly I adore their relationship.

However, there are a couple of things that I really hate to see, and I wondered whether I should let it slide or bring it up with them.

Mainly, the family can not tolerate uncomfortable feelings at all. Anytime my daughter cries/gets cross they all jump to distract her, point to something, play with her. Alternatively, they give her want she wants (snacks usually) or completely ignore it (if she falls in particular, they make a big deal about not acknowledging it). They even seem proud of themselves by saying “ah the art of distraction! Never fails!” (To create emotionally repressed adults, i think to myself). I find this so invalidating and it is absolutely not how we respond to her feelings. (Note: we do use distraction before the feeling shows up if we can sense it, but never during)

The other is how they talk about bodies. They’ve mentioned her “fat tummy” a few times, compare how she was tubbier to her cousin, make fun of how people look on tv, talk about food as good/bad. We really try to be more neutral about food/bodies without ascribing value or virtue.

As we don’t see them that often, do I just let these slide as generational/parental styles and say nothing, or would you share that it doesn’t fit how you want to parent?

(Just to say as well, I’m not saying these things are wrong, they’re just ways that I didn’t want to parent because of my own experiences growing up - I don’t want her to feel the same way I did.)

My Aunty tried to stop my Daughter crying once and I responded 'she can cry if she wants to!' That shut her up

Yeah it's common and you can kind of use it as a learning point as long as it's not daily. IE wow grandma really doesn't like it when you are sad, she doesn't like to discuss it at all. Luckily if you are sad you can come to me and we can share the feeling, ok?
And as they get older you can turn the narrative into more questioning.
You can't protect your children from other people for ever so better to protect them from damaging amounts and then teach them to deal with the bits that happen outside if that.
You'll get it wrong too, quite often, so modelling how to repair/deal with mistakes etc is all part of it.
Good luck!

Sometimes kids just whine and whinge though and the best thing is to ignore it.

Thanks for your thoughts! I hadn’t really considered that I can’t protect her from everyone and it’s a useful reminder. I really like your advice @johnd2, think I’ll be taking that!

The body image stuff id have zero tolerance with and would address it with them directly. Highly inappropriate and even they allowing for different generations should know better.

The other stuff, I think there is a balance. Yes developing awareness of feelings and emotions, and how to manage these is important, but so is learning to sometimes get on with things and that whining relentlessly doesn't result in lots of attention discussing how you feel. It sounds like you're different ends of the spectrum, in some ways her experiencing a balance of both might not be a bad thing. Given she isn't spending huge amounts of time with them I wouldn't be inclined to address it particularly directly with them or with her. She needs to learn that people are different in the way they behave and react, she's going to encounter this throughout her life.