sister and grandparents act entitled when it comes to my kids

[Anonymous]

Our kids, all under 10, have liked talking with my family once in a while. They've had nice phone calls and usually, after about 10-15 minutes, I take the smartphone away because i don't want my kids thinking my phone is for them. Same goes for my laptop and Zoom. After many months of this, the kids are starting to lose interest in talking with my sister and parents. They've started handing the phone to me to go play outside or watch a TV show after 5 minutes. I'm not going to force them to sit through the long, question-filled conversation my mom likes to foist on them. My oldest one, who is nine, is already complaining.

I've limited the calls to once every two weeks or so, but they'll still text asking to talk to the kids. I've tried to tell them nicely, the kids are doing school work, playing, running around outside, but my family is now getting indignant. They've always had big issues with boundaries and are now behaving as if they're entitled to long calls with my kids and if my kids don't want to participate in these calls, then I'm a mean person who doesn't enforce how important auntie and grandma are. And again, my kids are not using my phone as they see fit, and i'm not buying them one for this purpose, either. My own grandparents and other relatives were never like this. I don't know where my family gets this behavior from other than they're becoming increasingly entitled as they age. My in-laws don't behave this way. I really need them to pull back on this and they refuse to.

[Anonymous]

Yeah a lot of dysfunctional families pull this BS. This is where you have to have your own internal moral code. You do what you feel works for your family. You continue to have them zoom or whatever, but within limits and then don't give a shit what they think or say about you. You politely set your boundaries. They stomp on them. You remain calm and re-state your rules.

Every now and then though with boundary stopping, guilt tripping family, I like to throw the calm and polite out the window and I give a massive guilt trip right back. I throw the rules out the window and just give them just as much crazy right back... For example:

They say: "How dare you deprive your grandkids of more FaceTime with their loving grandparents"

You say: How dare you now allow these precious children to have time to play outside and get exercise. Only selfish person thinks their needs are more important than the well-being of a child. 20 minutes isn't enough for you???"

They say: "I read a study of how crucial aunts and grandparents are to childhood development. You really should have them talk to us more often."

You say:"I read that guilt tripping, emotional manipulation, and not respecting boundaries are considered signs of emotional abuse and dysfunction. You are lucky we are still maintaning a relationship, but if this continues and gets worse, we may need to protect our children by backing away. An attitude of gratitude is they way to go."

[Anonymous]

Ask yourself - how much did you rely on your sister and parents when those kids were born or in toddler age? If you used either of those groups as free babysitters, I can see why they're a little confused when suddenly you don't need their services you've decided to limit contact to biweekly calls and don't even want it to last 5 minutes.

[Anonymous]

So I understand your issues, but you also come across as a bit nutty/controlling with this idea that if your kids talk to their grandparents on *YOUR PHONE* for more than 10 minutes, they're going to become super entitled brats who think it's their phone. Somehow, before the age of cell phones, I was able to talk to my grandparents on the phone and still understand that the phone and landline belonged to my parents.

As the dad of three kids, what I would suggest from experience through 2020 is that you set up some sort of activity for the kids to do over the phone, or even better, FaceTime or Zoom, with the family members. My youngest reads books with Grandpa over Facetime several times a week (Grandpa is filling in where virtual schools aren't). This requires a little bit of pre-planning, in that we buy two copies of the book on Amazon and ship one to each.

They can do games, they can even just watch a show together. I'd also recommend that sometimes it be one on one. But the main idea is that they do some sort of shared experience, and get away from the series of endless question and one-word answers with which they've lately lost interest.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

The phone/laptop thing is weird OP. Your kids aren’t going to think they have open access to your devices even if you let them speak to grandma for an hour a day. Separate that it from this. The fact is, your kids are bored talking to relatives after a few minutes. So are mine. My inlaws call weekly and I make them each speak to them for a couple of minutes. My parents and my aunt each call every 10 days or so and I do the same with them. The kids don’t particularly enjoy the conversations but they know it is important to the relatives with whom they are speaking. So they suck it up and chat for a few minutes. I never, ever take the phone, it is always my child handing me the phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I understand your issues, but you also come across as a bit nutty/controlling with this idea that if your kids talk to their grandparents on *YOUR PHONE* for more than 10 minutes, they're going to become super entitled brats who think it's their phone. Somehow, before the age of cell phones, I was able to talk to my grandparents on the phone and still understand that the phone and landline belonged to my parents.

As the dad of three kids, what I would suggest from experience through 2020 is that you set up some sort of activity for the kids to do over the phone, or even better, FaceTime or Zoom, with the family members. My youngest reads books with Grandpa over Facetime several times a week (Grandpa is filling in where virtual schools aren't). This requires a little bit of pre-planning, in that we buy two copies of the book on Amazon and ship one to each.

They can do games, they can even just watch a show together. I'd also recommend that sometimes it be one on one. But the main idea is that they do some sort of shared experience, and get away from the series of endless question and one-word answers with which they've lately lost interest.

Good luck.

Can you tell me more about the book thing? How old are your kids? Hoping this might work for us!

[Anonymous]

I’m so confused, OP. You limit your kids on calls that they have liked, then wonder why they don’t like them? Has it occurred to you that it’s because you’re probably hovering and stressed about the calls every time they have them? That the calls are unpleasant and they’ve lost interest due to your conditioning of them?

[Anonymous]

Kind of weird about "your phone." I mean I feel like since there aren't landlines like we grew up with, you should allow your kids phone use. Were you using both your phone and ipad at that moment? All the 10 year olds I know have phones and text friends.

But I completely agree that if your kids don't want to talk they should have to. My kids absolutely refuse to facetime and I'm not forcing it (they're little, but even the 4 year old can't stand it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I understand your issues, but you also come across as a bit nutty/controlling with this idea that if your kids talk to their grandparents on *YOUR PHONE* for more than 10 minutes, they're going to become super entitled brats who think it's their phone. Somehow, before the age of cell phones, I was able to talk to my grandparents on the phone and still understand that the phone and landline belonged to my parents.

As the dad of three kids, what I would suggest from experience through 2020 is that you set up some sort of activity for the kids to do over the phone, or even better, FaceTime or Zoom, with the family members. My youngest reads books with Grandpa over Facetime several times a week (Grandpa is filling in where virtual schools aren't). This requires a little bit of pre-planning, in that we buy two copies of the book on Amazon and ship one to each.

They can do games, they can even just watch a show together. I'd also recommend that sometimes it be one on one. But the main idea is that they do some sort of shared experience, and get away from the series of endless question and one-word answers with which they've lately lost interest.

Good luck.

Can you tell me more about the book thing? How old are your kids? Hoping this might work for us!

this one is 8. just do different books, read a couple chapters at a time. check for understanding, maybe do some short writing assignments related to it. whatever you want.

[Anonymous]

Phone = Love
Have your kids express some affection in another way, then.

[Anonymous]

I can't imagine saying these things about my parents, especially when they've basically been stuck at home since March. Most of us have lost our social connection opportunities and I think you can be a little more gracious towards this issue.

[Anonymous]

You sound like you have priorities backward. You can let them talk to them at least weekly. School is an excuse, other things are not. Sounds like you just want to get rid of the kids outside and not deal with them.

[Anonymous]

My mom forced phone conversations with my aunts and we all loathed it. That was their love language but not ours. I don’t force my kids to do it but we connect other ways. We travel to see them occasionally. We write letters, we send pictures and videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I understand your issues, but you also come across as a bit nutty/controlling with this idea that if your kids talk to their grandparents on *YOUR PHONE* for more than 10 minutes, they're going to become super entitled brats who think it's their phone. Somehow, before the age of cell phones, I was able to talk to my grandparents on the phone and still understand that the phone and landline belonged to my parents.

As the dad of three kids, what I would suggest from experience through 2020 is that you set up some sort of activity for the kids to do over the phone, or even better, FaceTime or Zoom, with the family members. My youngest reads books with Grandpa over Facetime several times a week (Grandpa is filling in where virtual schools aren't). This requires a little bit of pre-planning, in that we buy two copies of the book on Amazon and ship one to each.

They can do games, they can even just watch a show together. I'd also recommend that sometimes it be one on one. But the main idea is that they do some sort of shared experience, and get away from the series of endless question and one-word answers with which they've lately lost interest.

Good luck.

Good ideas!

[Anonymous]

OP I’m all for keeping boundaries but you sound a bit psychotic about your phone. How else are they going to talk?