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[quote=Anonymous]My family (parents and sibling) openly have criticized my parenting. It came to a head awhile back when my DC had some moments of very mild misbehavior, but still age appropriate and they were corrected in the moment. I’ve been told that I’m too lax as a parent and don’t discipline DC. Without going into all of the details, I’d say on a scale of 1-10 (10 being awful), the behavior was like a 2. My parents raised me in a very authoritarian way, my sibling is raising their kids similarly. I don’t parent that way, but I wouldn’t go as far to say I’m gentle parenting. There are consequences for poor behavior, but we do talk through feelings and I try hard to not raise my voice and when I do, I apologize. (My parents were big yellers and I hated it.)

That criticism has slowly morphed into criticizing a lot of DC’s behavior… little jabs in front of them, more blatant complaints to just me. Again, absolutely nothing is egregious on DC’s end. I’m on edge when we are altogether. Also I’m finding I am now more apt to jump on DC for smaller missteps.

DC is very involved in an extracurricular activity and we spend many hours a week at this activity, so I’ve gotten to know DC’s peers’ moms well. I don’t think I realized how much my family’s view of DC has colored my view of DC until spending time with the others moms. They mention often how well behaved DC is and complement their behavior and maturity. I always deflect kind of like “haha, are we talking about MY kid?!” Also I have very high expectations on how DC behaves at this activity.

One of the moms actually gently called me out on it recently and it’s stuck with me. She reiterated what a good kid DC is and suggested I may be a bit hard on DC. Another mom nodded in agreement. It was validating to hear that not everyone views my child and some poorly behaved kid, but I was kind of taken aback. DC always gets good feedback at school, but the insinuations from my family were that it was more in social settings where DC had the issue.

I’m kind of ashamed I’ve let my family’s thoughts affect my perspective. Trying to figure out how best to set boundaries with my family moving forward?[/quote]

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