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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP: Mom, that’s great that you found a Groupon for the water park. Let’s look at our calendars to see a good time for all 4 of us to go.

Grandmother: Okay. Then the girls can spend the night.

OP: No Mom, that’s not happening.

GM: But why? I told the girls that I’d take them to the water park if they spent the night.

OP: [b]You had no business connecting those two activities and saying that to them[/b]. We’re all happy to spend time with you at the water park. But the sleepover is not happening. The girls don’t want to, and I’m backing them on this.

Either GM will cancel water park or will go, but will sulk. She’ll live. [/quote]

This. And I’d first talk with my kids to tell them that grandma asked about going to a water park and that you were calling her to schedule a time for all
four of you to go. And you would make it clear with grandma that they would not be spending the night. I’d then say, “What’s your thinking about that?” And “What questions do you have?” 
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New poster. Both these posts above give you an excellent script, OP -- I'd use it. Especially see the sentence I bolded. Grandma is now trying bribery. "Mom, I know you told the girls the water park was contingent on their spending the night. But they don't want to sleep over, and connecting the water park trip to that makes it sound like you were trying to use the park outing to persuade them to spend the night. Either you do want to spend time with them or you don't, and I hope you understand that sleepovers are not happening, so surely you'd like to see them at the park anyway."  If she gets huffy, I'd tell her that though you're sure she didn't mean it that way, it's coming across as her trying to buy the girls' yes to a sleepover. Next time if it's not the water park, it will be some other desirable thing that she'll dangle in hopes they'll say yes.

I do agree with a PP who said for you to take the hit. There is nothing wrong with doing that for kids of 7 and 9 especially if your mom is becoming so persistent it is stressing out your kids -- and you said one DD is feeling very conflicted. Of course kids do need to learn to say no, but I would at this point step in and say they have gone off the idea of sleepovers and you are saying no too. After that, every time mom asks, just say that you're not doing sleepovers and leave it there. Does she try to go around you and contact your DDs directly somehow?? If so -- that needs to get nipped. At 7 and 9 they don't have phones or social media where she can reach them and do an end run around you, do they--?

Don't think that if you throw yourself under the bus here, your DDs will never learn to say no for themselves. They will. But they're at ages where I think it's OK both to tell them how to say no to an adult (and to roleplay that with them) and also to simultaneously be the bad guy on their behalf even as they also say no.

A word about your mom. She might be very lonely and clingy because she's lonely. If her boyfriend is cold (your description) he may be cold to her when no one's watching. If you think her relationships now are "all about him" rather than the rest of her family, well, that can be a red flag that he might be controlling and manipulative toward her and she's feeling so isolated that she's resorting to manipulation herself, maybe even unwittingly, to see your kids so she has something "of her own" if he's controlling everything else. It's something to consider. I would be as ticked off at her as you are but I also would wonder if maybe there is more going on with her that she's being so clingy and insistent. This is all NOT a reason to make your DDs do anything that remotely causes them stress! But it is a red flag that maybe this man is a bigger problem than just being cold.

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