Background - I have 2 DCs (DS 5 and DD 2). I am separated from their father but the children have shared residence with both their father and me.
My parents live 150 miles away so when they come to visit, they always stay.
My relationship with my parents is strained at best. My mother is very controlling and disapproves of me in just about every way imaginable.
This is about the way she is with the kids, tho. She can't cope with their behaviour at all (and their behaviour is far from awful). She rises to every single situation and gets very stressed by them. My father is also very short with them and calls DD 'child', rather than her proper name.
When they come to stay, I find it very stressful, not least because I hear my mum talking to the children, mainly DS at the moment but I can see it starting with DD also, in the same tone that she used with me. When I was growing up, I was always a 'horrid child', 'stupid', 'retarded, 'the worst thing that happened' to her. She 'rued the day I was born', wished she had never had me etc etc. And of course this has left me with woeful self esteem and an inability to form a real bond with another adult.
I am desperate to protect my children from this and go over the top (probably) to make sure they never have anything negative said about them. I still discipline their behaviour, with time-out / warnings and withdrawal of privileges etc. But it is their behaviour which is horrid or naughty, not them, and I am very clear about that.
So when my mum comes and starts saying to my son 'you are a nasty horrid little boy', I want to scream at her. But I don't.
I can't tackle her about this as she has only just started talking to me again after I went to court in the summer over residence of the kids - it didn't go the way she thought was best and she withdrew all contact with me for 4 months after the court ruling. If I try to say anything to her, she will just stop talking to me again, which is fine but then the kids miss out on seeing them altogether. The kids still ask to see their GPs so I know the relationship is important to my kids.
So am I right to just ignore what she says? I end up so stressed when she is here, because every time the kids get over-excited and start to play up, I worry she is going to start saying hateful things to them. As a result, I can't leave them on their own with her and my dad. I have tried to go for a run (for 40 minutes) while they are staying, but when I get home, usually one, and sometimes both, of the children is upstairs in its bedroom screaming because it is in trouble for something and has been sent to bed. My mother has a tendency to scream like a banshee and I cannot bear the thought that she might do this to my kids.