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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My father is bipolar and interacts with our daughter in an extremely manic way. He acts like a child and does things like repeat odd phrases and cackle maniacally to get a reaction from her or fake crying after some small slight. He also misses social cues so parenting her around him is difficult. For example when we are trying to get her to play by herself after dinner while everyone else eats at the table, he'll keep engaging with her if she comes over to the table.

She is 3.5 and is very social and we are trying to teach her how to interact appropriately with others. She gets really wound up because of how he acts, mostly while he's here but I'm worried it'll start spilling over into her regular behavior (she sometimes cackles with other kids). After seeing her interact with her other grandparents I realized this isn't an "excited about grandparents" thing. They act like adults and she stays calm.

The current family dynamic is that he comes over to our house once a week for about 3 hours to visit and have dinner. I've told him repeatedly to stop winding her up, he doesn't see his behavior as out of the ordinary and will also make snide comments when I point it out. Clearly he's not going to change.

Should I be concerned about this or deal with it? My ideas are limit how often we see him or maybe start seeing him only in public because I don't think he'll act as strangely.[/quote]
Same odd, selfish behavior from my FIL too. My kids are Pk and early ES and now get annoyed but don’t know how to say Pls leave me alone.

In our case they live far away and come stay for a few weeks so there is no respite. He also has untreated ADD so has issues listening, remembering, or seeing danger. For ex he almost backed the van over the 3 yo twice at his house not noticing the 3 yo followed him outside when they had first been playing.

I make sure I am around as much as possible, I am not afraid to speak up about our house rules or safety issues, and we limit exposures to 1-2 hours. mIl also tries to take the older child away if she sees she’s getting pestered by or anxious from FIL too long. He has been this way his whole life— it is not demonetized or old age- my husband said that growing up they took to just ignoring his and his outlandish behavior or comments. 
I wish MiL had got them all treated.

[/quote]
It's not really selfish if he has untreated ADD.  I mean, of course, keep your kids safe (!) but maybe you can view him in a better light if you realize it's the way his brain is wired and would be incredibly difficult to act differently.[/quote]

His parents should have got him treated.
His wife should have got him treated.
His adult children should have got him treated.

Now the DIL is supposed to? Sounds like a bunch of mental people in denial. Can’t be pleasant. [/quote]

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