I've name changed for this as don't want it attached to my regular posting name. This is ridiculously long. Possibly it's purpose is mostly as a catharsis to me!
DH is close to her sister and I've grown close to her too, although we wouldn't otherwise be friends. Her DH is trickier and while I won't go into detail, we think he is emotionally abusive. Certainly she no longer has any friends. A few years ago he did appear to be trying to drive a wedge between her and us but that was a boundary she wouldn't let him cross.
Now they have DS. He is just 3 and a handful. And this is the part I'm concerned about. I feel like I'm being a bit drama-queen-like but it's really bothering me.
I won't deny DN is hard work. He's very high energy and while his speech is improving rapidly, he was definitely a child who developed physical skills long before he developed speech etc. The problem is that they seem incapable of parenting him and mostly shout at him or blame him for bad behaviour:
A few examples:
- Like most DC, being cooped up inside, especially with little attention, makes him antsy and increasingly badly behaved. But they are incapable of understanding this. So instead of finding ways to occupy him or planning activities/outings, they just get increasingly cross with him.
- They are frustrated that he doesn't "listen". eg BIL recently told me how frustrated he was that even though they've explained the stove is hot, DN still tries to touch it. In person, this leads to more shouting.
- In fact they shout at him such a lot that I am honestly not sure he understands that shouting is a BAD thing.
- He hits/throws things at people, particularly our DD, to get their attention. Again, they will shout at him but there are never actual consequences (he's three, so to my mind consequences are time out, removal from the event etc). The few times they have tried consequences it will be something weird like no IPAD that night. which clearly he doesn't understand.
- Nursery have asked them to implement certain strategies to encourage behaviour but they refuse.
- He eats well in the morning (when he's hungry) but unsurprisingly not during the day because they allow him to snack constantly. But you guessed it - they get cross and shout at him for this too.
- They take pictures of him being super cute etc, but I honestly never hear them say anything good about him except, occasionally, if they find him doing something like dancing to music or something.
- They put off potty training him for ages. At one point she claimed she wanted to do "baby led potty training" ie when he was ready. But it was increasingly clear that basically she didn't want the mess. They were more or less forced into it when nursery said he needed to be trained as he was ready. Needless to say, it was a struggle.
- I won't even go into the sleep issues in any detail. But I am constantly surprised at how unwilling they are to put him to bed even though he is clearly exhausted. They also used to arrive at our house regularly at 5pm until DH told them it had to stop as DN and our DC were tired and cranky and it was counter productive.
- On top of all this, they are the most paranoid people I've ever met. It is only in the last few months that they've stopped feeding him food that was pureed or cut so small because of the perceived choking risk. And DH and I regularly have to mildly tell them to please stop hounding our DC when they're doing perfectly normal things because SIL and BIL think it's dangerous (eg if DD is in the kitchen with me while I'm cooking they can't concentrate on anything and will constantly tell her to be careful. Even though I am right there and DD is older and perfectly aware of the stove).
I don't doubt their love for him. But I am worried about what they are doing. I'm not someone who tends to judge other parents as I tend to take the approach that we all screw up some of the time and that it's more important to look at the bigger picture. But... in this case, the bigger picture is worrying me.
Honestly, the only solution I've come up with is that I've decided even though actually DH and I are finding it harder and harder to spend time with them, we need to spend MORE time with them and when we do we need to focus on DN a lot more. Spend time with him, encourage him and at least try to show him that there's a different way. So I'm not sure why I'm posting this except I need to get it all off my chest.