Reply to Estrangement. How to protect kids as they get older?

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[quote=Anonymous]For a ten year old, you control the communication flow with grandma. As he gets older, if he really wants to reach out to her, he will. Once he's a teenager, he'll know how to get around your parental controls, so be honest but don't be so authoritarian that he feels like he needs to hide things from you. Once he's an adult, it will be his call and you need to respect that.

I've been on the outside of other family members' drama, with others cutting each other off, CCing the entire extended family, and one thing I wish others would appreciate is that just because you have beef with some one, and even if you cutting this person off is totally justified, it doesn't automatically mean that I need to cut this person off as well in order to be supportive and understanding, with the exception of molestation or something like that. Sometimes crazy people are only crazy with certain people and are able to keep it together around the grandkids in a way that they can't keep it together around their own children. It's dysfunctional, but it's common. Just because the worst side of some one is triggered in one context doesn't mean that their better side has to be shunned in other contexts. In a lot of these family dramas, I am the "other context" and can knowingly engage with some one's better side, fully aware of the fact that there's a dark side. It's not out of disrespect for those who cut this person off that I chose to engage anyway; it's out of a sense of giving people second chances, acknowledging whatever good some one who is otherwise troubled might have. It's about me and the kind of person I want to be. It's not about you.

So anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there. Inform your son, protect him while he's still a child, then respect his decisions when they're his to make. [/quote]

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