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[quote=Anonymous]I grew up with difficult grandmothers. (Grandfathers were deceased before I was born.) One was immature and self absorbed. The other had a personality disorder. My parents were overly deferential toward both grandmothers, and I internalized that it was my responsibility to keep unstable people on an even keel—to be a people pleaser. I also saw explosive family arguments and witnessed rather offensive statements from my maternal grandmother. But everyone would remain for dinner through the tense atmosphere. That really normalized dysfunction for me, and I carried that into my young adult relationships. I didn’t be enfir much from these relationships, as they seemed to be mostly obligation based, and the relationships with my grandmothers only made maladaptive behaviors I learned from my parents worse.

Given my experiences, I believe strongly in limiting contact. To the extent that you do have contact, contextualize the grandparents behavior in child-appropriate ways, e.g. “Grandma has strong reactions to noise from video games. While we also like you to use headphones, we don’t agree with her choice to shout about it.”[/quote]

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