Relationships between grandparents and SN kids- quick poll

[Anonymous]

8:54 - We, too, have grown children, and our youngest is out-of-school and resides with us. My parents are both 94 now and I will say we just had a family gathering while on vacation in Massachusetts with seven siblings, many of the 20 grandchildren (between ages 14-39) and the four great-grandchildren (our grandchildren), and I will say that my folks have always been accepting of the youngest. It was a complete surprise, and while educated, they probably did think that we could have done more on the speech. However, my Mother came to sit a couple of times while we took a vacation or they watched all three a few times over the years on our annual summer visit so that we might get away for a night or two. I think you need to remember that the older generation did not have the exposure in their early lives to individuals with disabilities and really just might now know how to react or think doing nothing or saying nothing is better for the parent then saying the wrong thing.

I think once out of school, it is important to maintain one's own life as an individual and couple, too, and find appropriate supports for the young adult to be able to work, volunteer or participate in an adult program that one would enjoy. If this is not possible due to the disability or the area one lives in, I would really encourage you to look for a college aged student to go on outings with an adult child. It is much easier in my experience if one does have a daughter, and you will find the age difference really does not matter much if you recruit the right student. Once you find one, it is often easy to get the next student via a sorority, service group, Christian group etc. list.serve with a posting. Our daughter continues to enjoy weekly outings with a student, and they find out a lot about the community in which they have gone to school, but never gone much beyond campus. We pay an hourly amount and all activity fees, but balance out ones which cost with those that are free. If you do have opportunities for respite use them so that you and DH can also get away and do things together, too.

I will say I am glad that I do not live too close to my parents as they age because I have always felt my first responsibility long-term would be for our daughter and knew that I had siblings who would be in the area to help my parents more directly. I would say it is important to consider Long Term Care Insurance so that as health issues might come up with one of you, one would get the supports or services in place early before something small went major and you had one looking after two adults needlessly. In our state we are one of I believe 10,000 on the waiting list for waiver support. The criteria is "level of criticality," which I equate to "level of calamity" and while long-term support for a full lifestyle for DD would be welcomes, not at the family cost of crisis...

[Anonymous]

My father died years ago and my mother only has my 2 kids as her actual grandchildren and then her husband has 3 kids who were all basically grown when they got married (maybe early 20's to around 30 at that point). They all 3 have some kids, but my Mom doesn't see them too much.

My NT kid is easy and adorable and a girl and just the sort of kid my mother can tolerate and even love. My mother completely favored her from a young age and that made sense.

My ASD (AS) kid is smart and clever and should be really interesting to my Mom and her husband but he's also difficult and can seem like a really badly behaved kids. He's made massive improvement and as a teenager is rarely a problem and when he is it's momentary. He does go to a funded SN school so that has really helped.

My Mom wouldn't know about his improvements. 5 years ago we were visiting and he had a really pretty mild meltdown and she screamed at him that she doesn't care how smart he is, doesn't care he has autism, he's an AWFUL person and she never wants to see him again. So she got her wish. Her loss completely. He was 9. What kind of a monster says that?!? I honestly wasn't all that surprised after my childhood, but then she said it again to my husband (who was out when it happened) the next morning. Now she denies ever saying it.

I've kept cordial with her because frankly it's harder not to and she lives on the West Coast so it's just phone calls. She maintains a loose relationship with my daughter who doesn't really know about it. My husband will have nothing to do with either my Mom or her husband now when previously we had a friendly relationship and enjoyed visits once a year or so. They used to visit Washington frequently when they first retired from here, but haven't in years.

Honestly, at this point, my therapist and I agree that I've put in 40-odd years, I'm not the kind of person who would just cut my Mom out altogether, she has no access to my son and has only seen my daughter for 1 visit in 5 years. I stand to inherit a reasonable amount of money that will probably make a huge difference in our ability to retire before we literally can't work anymore. I'll take it. Cordial phone calls. Don't get my son or my heart involved. I was a really loving kid to her through a lot of stuff and she just can't handle the fact that I have an imperfect kid who "ruins" my life. She will never, ever see him again unless he somehow requests it as an adult and she's still alive. And even then I'm not sure I would faciltate it.

OP, they probably just don't what questions to ask. You definitely have some room to work. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Does she ask to see your daughter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents didnt even want my special needs son coming to their house. "He might make a mess". When we went to visit them they wanted our typical kid to stay with them and me and SN kid in a hotel 5 miles away. Because I was so used to mother's abuse it didn't dawn on me until much later how awful that was.

Holy crap - yes, this is wrong and hateful.
How exactly are you going to explain this to your 'favored son?'
You cannot allow this stuff to happen

Question- she didn't want your child with SN to stay at her house, even if you were staying with him?? I could understand that she might be worried about it if she was managing on her own. If you were staying with him, I would end visits to grandma. She sucks.

[Anonymous]

My mother tries hard and mostly does very well. She takes DC to therapies and doesn't really understand the larger scale impacts of my kid's challenges with low tone, motor planning and sensory processing. She thinks they're the same thing as having a hard time doing a sit up or being overwhelmed in a shopping mall.

I think she tries to minimize things and relate, but it comes off as being kind of insulting. That said, where it counts, she comes through. She understands that certain things are harder for DC than other kids. She understands that DC is more easily injured because of her limitations. And she is matter of fact about it and doesn't act like it's anything out of the ordinary.

In comparison, the other grandmother engages in A LOT of magical thinking -- that it's just going to get better or that the grandchild with autism or the one with food allergies will just magically get over it one day. Her inability to face the very real day to day impacts of her grandchildren's differences make it difficult for me to trust her with DC if I'm not there. Not because she'll be willfully cruel, but because she is so far into denial as to not understand the unique needs of each of the kids.

But both grandmothers are loving and enjoy playing with their grandchildren. The grandfathers... well they don't get it at all because the kids don't fit in their molds. To me, then, it becomes about expectations. Despite what one grandmother thinks, it's probably not safe for that grandchild to be alone with her because she isn't capable of dealing with the food allergies or behavioral or physical limitations. I can't expect that to be a safe situation, so I have to decide how to mitigate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does she ask to see your daughter?

Sort of. She'll offer to get us both plane tickets to see her occasionally. So we went once. Then another time she asked me to come just me. She's never liked kids much and really shouldn't have had them herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My father died years ago and my mother only has my 2 kids as her actual grandchildren and then her husband has 3 kids who were all basically grown when they got married (maybe early 20's to around 30 at that point). They all 3 have some kids, but my Mom doesn't see them too much.

My NT kid is easy and adorable and a girl and just the sort of kid my mother can tolerate and even love. My mother completely favored her from a young age and that made sense.

My ASD (AS) kid is smart and clever and should be really interesting to my Mom and her husband but he's also difficult and can seem like a really badly behaved kids. He's made massive improvement and as a teenager is rarely a problem and when he is it's momentary. He does go to a funded SN school so that has really helped.

My Mom wouldn't know about his improvements. 5 years ago we were visiting and he had a really pretty mild meltdown and she screamed at him that she doesn't care how smart he is, doesn't care he has autism, he's an AWFUL person and she never wants to see him again. So she got her wish. Her loss completely. He was 9. What kind of a monster says that?!? I honestly wasn't all that surprised after my childhood, but then she said it again to my husband (who was out when it happened) the next morning. Now she denies ever saying it.

I've kept cordial with her because frankly it's harder not to and she lives on the West Coast so it's just phone calls. She maintains a loose relationship with my daughter who doesn't really know about it. My husband will have nothing to do with either my Mom or her husband now when previously we had a friendly relationship and enjoyed visits once a year or so. They used to visit Washington frequently when they first retired from here, but haven't in years.

Honestly, at this point, my therapist and I agree that I've put in 40-odd years, I'm not the kind of person who would just cut my Mom out altogether, she has no access to my son and has only seen my daughter for 1 visit in 5 years. I stand to inherit a reasonable amount of money that will probably make a huge difference in our ability to retire before we literally can't work anymore. I'll take it. Cordial phone calls. Don't get my son or my heart involved. I was a really loving kid to her through a lot of stuff and she just can't handle the fact that I have an imperfect kid who "ruins" my life. She will never, ever see him again unless he somehow requests it as an adult and she's still alive. And even then I'm not sure I would faciltate it.

OP, they probably just don't what questions to ask. You definitely have some room to work. Good luck!

You sound awful. Wow just wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My father died years ago and my mother only has my 2 kids as her actual grandchildren and then her husband has 3 kids who were all basically grown when they got married (maybe early 20's to around 30 at that point). They all 3 have some kids, but my Mom doesn't see them too much.

My NT kid is easy and adorable and a girl and just the sort of kid my mother can tolerate and even love. My mother completely favored her from a young age and that made sense.

My ASD (AS) kid is smart and clever and should be really interesting to my Mom and her husband but he's also difficult and can seem like a really badly behaved kids. He's made massive improvement and as a teenager is rarely a problem and when he is it's momentary. He does go to a funded SN school so that has really helped.

My Mom wouldn't know about his improvements. 5 years ago we were visiting and he had a really pretty mild meltdown and she screamed at him that she doesn't care how smart he is, doesn't care he has autism, he's an AWFUL person and she never wants to see him again. So she got her wish. Her loss completely. He was 9. What kind of a monster says that?!? I honestly wasn't all that surprised after my childhood, but then she said it again to my husband (who was out when it happened) the next morning. Now she denies ever saying it.

I've kept cordial with her because frankly it's harder not to and she lives on the West Coast so it's just phone calls. She maintains a loose relationship with my daughter who doesn't really know about it. My husband will have nothing to do with either my Mom or her husband now when previously we had a friendly relationship and enjoyed visits once a year or so. They used to visit Washington frequently when they first retired from here, but haven't in years.

Honestly, at this point, my therapist and I agree that I've put in 40-odd years, I'm not the kind of person who would just cut my Mom out altogether, she has no access to my son and has only seen my daughter for 1 visit in 5 years. I stand to inherit a reasonable amount of money that will probably make a huge difference in our ability to retire before we literally can't work anymore. I'll take it. Cordial phone calls. Don't get my son or my heart involved. I was a really loving kid to her through a lot of stuff and she just can't handle the fact that I have an imperfect kid who "ruins" my life. She will never, ever see him again unless he somehow requests it as an adult and she's still alive. And even then I'm not sure I would faciltate it.

OP, they probably just don't what questions to ask. You definitely have some room to work. Good luck!

You sound awful. Wow just wow.

New poster and wow right back at you. I'm another SN Mom whose mother/kid's grandmother takes the attitude that the SN kid has ruined her life. You have no idea how painful it is to have to push your own mother to the boundaries of your life because her attitude is toxic to your beloved child. When grandparents don't bond with a kid and view you, the parent, as somehow "put upon" by this child, it's a chilling situation. It's the reverse of what life is supposed to be. How would you like to have to constantly have to forcefully tell your own mother (in front of her own grandchild, no less) "No mother, Larla is not too much for me. No mother, Larla is not straining my back. No mother, Larla is not making me ill with her secretions. No mother, Larla is not preventing me and DH from having a social life. No, mother, Larla is not preventing me from exercising. No mother, Larla is not preventing me from eating my meal." Can you imagine a grandmother taking this attitude? Would you want this for your kid?

Walk a mile in our shoes and then call someone awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My father died years ago and my mother only has my 2 kids as her actual grandchildren and then her husband has 3 kids who were all basically grown when they got married (maybe early 20's to around 30 at that point). They all 3 have some kids, but my Mom doesn't see them too much.

My NT kid is easy and adorable and a girl and just the sort of kid my mother can tolerate and even love. My mother completely favored her from a young age and that made sense.

My ASD (AS) kid is smart and clever and should be really interesting to my Mom and her husband but he's also difficult and can seem like a really badly behaved kids. He's made massive improvement and as a teenager is rarely a problem and when he is it's momentary. He does go to a funded SN school so that has really helped.

My Mom wouldn't know about his improvements. 5 years ago we were visiting and he had a really pretty mild meltdown and she screamed at him that she doesn't care how smart he is, doesn't care he has autism, he's an AWFUL person and she never wants to see him again. So she got her wish. Her loss completely. He was 9. What kind of a monster says that?!? I honestly wasn't all that surprised after my childhood, but then she said it again to my husband (who was out when it happened) the next morning. Now she denies ever saying it.

I've kept cordial with her because frankly it's harder not to and she lives on the West Coast so it's just phone calls. She maintains a loose relationship with my daughter who doesn't really know about it. My husband will have nothing to do with either my Mom or her husband now when previously we had a friendly relationship and enjoyed visits once a year or so. They used to visit Washington frequently when they first retired from here, but haven't in years.

Honestly, at this point, my therapist and I agree that I've put in 40-odd years, I'm not the kind of person who would just cut my Mom out altogether, she has no access to my son and has only seen my daughter for 1 visit in 5 years. I stand to inherit a reasonable amount of money that will probably make a huge difference in our ability to retire before we literally can't work anymore. I'll take it. Cordial phone calls. Don't get my son or my heart involved. I was a really loving kid to her through a lot of stuff and she just can't handle the fact that I have an imperfect kid who "ruins" my life. She will never, ever see him again unless he somehow requests it as an adult and she's still alive. And even then I'm not sure I would faciltate it.

OP, they probably just don't what questions to ask. You definitely have some room to work. Good luck!

You sound awful. Wow just wow.

New poster and wow right back at you. I'm another SN Mom whose mother/kid's grandmother takes the attitude that the SN kid has ruined her life. You have no idea how painful it is to have to push your own mother to the boundaries of your life because her attitude is toxic to your beloved child. When grandparents don't bond with a kid and view you, the parent, as somehow "put upon" by this child, it's a chilling situation. It's the reverse of what life is supposed to be. How would you like to have to constantly have to forcefully tell your own mother (in front of her own grandchild, no less) "No mother, Larla is not too much for me. No mother, Larla is not straining my back. No mother, Larla is not making me ill with her secretions. No mother, Larla is not preventing me and DH from having a social life. No, mother, Larla is not preventing me from exercising. No mother, Larla is not preventing me from eating my meal." Can you imagine a grandmother taking this attitude? Would you want this for your kid?

Walk a mile in our shoes and then call someone awful.

Np here. +1 with feeling. Since when it is awful to protect yourself and your family from an abusive, toxic relationship? I would rather spend our time as a family investing in healthy relationships with understanding, loving family and friends, and that is what I want to model for my SN DS as well. Embrace the relationships that bring happiness. The others? That is what boundaries are for.