Grandparents and childcare

[Hungrycaterpillarsmummy]

Just looking for advice. Every Thursday my parents have our 3yr old son. Now the schools have Wed to Fri in service days they offered to have our 5yr old over these 3 days. Today is the only day where they had both children.
When I got home my mum said "I've got to tell you (my name), they haven't been the best behaved. (Said in a really condescending tone as if I was the one badly behaved!)
I said "oh right what happened? She told me ds5 was egging on DS3 to be naughty. They were running around in reception when told not to. I said "reception?"
"Yes well we had two appointments today so one of us took them to the shortest one and they were running around"
So I said well I'm not sure what to do. She said "give them a talking to".

I mean...we do but they are young kids not listening. Surely this is typical?! We do shout at them obviously we don't hit them and don't want to.
They, on the whole, are really well behaved. I'd say the last week the older one has been a bit more defiant with stuff but I assume kids go through phases?!

So in the end mum told me they won't have the two of them again.

Just feeling a bit lost and disappointed and sad

She isn't exasperated with me. She was absolutely fine with me when she left.

God, i absolutely hate the 'tired' excuse parents trot out when their kids misbehave.

To be fair, they tell me they are tired a lot! But they do loads so I'm not surprised :D

She had a crap day with them, she likely overestimated what she could handle which is fair, you don't know till it happens.
I'm sure she will calm down about it, perhaps send some flowers to smooth things over.

Your mum did the right thing. She didn't overstep and try and impose discipline that you may not have agreed with, she gave you, the person in charge, the information for you to decide how to manage it. Unfortunately it sounds as though you responded defensively and took no responsibility for suggesting a strategy for the future, other than a helpless, put up with it. If I were you I'd give some thought to how your children could be encouraged to do as your mum asks them. Because if she is unable to control them at all, then not only is it a struggle for her, but a potential hazard to them.

I suspect she wasn't that keen to have them in the first place.
Leave it.

Don't feel disappointed in your children OP. They are 3 and 5 and your parents are the adults. Why didn't they simply deal with the misbehaviour? We have grandchildren and while they are in our care, any high jinks are dealt with there and then and it's over, not mentioned again.

Well, she won’t be offering to have them both again so the problem won’t arise.

If you are genuinely worried that your boys won’t be experiencing things as brothers with their grandparents then invite your parents round for dinner regularly/go on holidays with them/suggest days out all together.

I presume your mum meant she didn’t want to do childcare for the two of them, not that they don’t want to see them together at all!

Kids have off days and this might have been a blip but regardless of that your mum has every right to say no to looking after both on her own. It’s best that she’s honest that she can’t cope with the boys on a bad day than her exploding at you or the boys later because she’d bottled her feelings in. She’s the grandparent so unlike a parent, has the luxury of looking after them with conditions.

Is it possible that your mum didn’t think that your telling off wasn’t good enough and her not having the boys together on her own is a knee jerk reaction to that ? I’m not suggesting something like smacking btw and I accept I wasn’t there so you might have done it properly.

The boys can still see their grandparents with you there. It might mean more of your free time being taken but that’s a small cost.

Im not sure what you want from this thread tbh. Your parents offered to have your D.C. They realised they took on a task that was too much for them and told you about a problem they encountered.

It isn’t your parents fault that your D.C. ran around (out of control?). It isn’t your D.C’s fault. They are young and haven’t been read the riot act yet.

I don’t expect my elderly parents to take on responsibility for my D.C. for more than an hour (if I need to see a dentist or doc without them or if they invite the D.C. to theirs for tea).

My DC have a fantastic relationship with both sets of grandparents. We have days out, together. We visit them, weekly, together. They visit us whenever they want. My DCs relationship with their grandparents has never relied on extended childcare.

People are being extra snarky tonight eh OP? It does seem a bit dramatic on their part, there are obviously ways that you can distract and control behaviour but maybe she doesn't know all the tricks as she's not used to having them together. If you feel sad about her never seeing them together maybe just arrange to do some things all together with you present?

I have grandson who is 5, if he misbehaved I would address it. I would only mention it to dd if it was pretty awful behaviour so I wonder whether, with your dm's reaction, it was more than the usual misbehaving? Give dm time to calm down before speaking with her. Words are said in the heat of the moment that you might not mean on reflection.

Although mine are younger, I quickly realised my parents couldn't manage my two together at 1.5 & 3.5, they just bickered and snatched things off each other.
So now it is rare they'll have them together. And def wouldn't have taken both of them out with just one grandparent!

But they get undisrupted 1:1 time with their grandparents.... which is more than they get with me!!

Same!

My parents are amazing with my 3.5 and 1.5yo, but would struggle to manage both of them on their own. My mum would suck it up in case of an emergency, but she wouldn’t want to in any other circumstance and I wouldn’t expect her to. My MIL can handle the older one on her own but is not physically up to having the youngest for longer periods (obviously they still need more practical help with nappies and mobility).

I think, OP, you have to accept your mum’s boundaries here.

I get where you're coming from. I think my feeling would be hurt too. As much as your mum had every right to tell you about their behaviour, they're your son's so your instinct is to defend them. And to punish you for this because that's how it must feel. If your parents brought you up why couldn't they discipline two small boys? To make you feel blame for that feels upsetting.

I don’t think it was really about the behaviour. I think they struggled to match the kids’ energy and found it a bit more tiring than they’d anticipated.

Perhaps if their behavior improved this would be possible. You need to teach them that this sort of thing is totally unacceptable in public. ‘Off day’ yeah right. By defending them and not your parents it is clear that your expectations of them are a bit lax.

They’re under no obligation to look after both of them. Accept that they found it too hard 🤷‍♀️

Ok, they didn’t listen to her when they were unruly . She had to tell you about it so as you could give them a talking to while you were at her place picking them up . This shows she has no control and they don’t respect her . I don’t blame her. When they are older and more respectful, she might change her mind .