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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Actually I disagree.  If your sister can't tell you the truth (or even just her professional opinion) who can?  Seriously, are we never going to take advice from anyone ever?  Did giving birth make me suddenly infallible ?

This "mine your own business" contingent has gone way too far.  I would want to hear advice and opinion for other people.  In the end it is my decision, of course, on how I raise my child but I am not afraid of differing opinions and generally learn something from them.  [/quote]

I would agree with you if she had calmly told them her professional opinion from the get go.  Instead, she lost her sh*t on her SIL and has lost all credibility with them on this issue.  There is no way you can approach them about this at this point without putting them on the defensive, and I don't blame them.[/quote]

Well, that's exactly what she's asking for advice about. Given how close they are I don't think ALL credibility was lost, but it does make it a lot harder to broach. [/quote]

Yes, and almost everyone's advice is to MYOB even the blow up incident aside.[/quote]

everyone comes from their own place. I'm the PP who has a similar situation to PPs in my family, minus blowup. I think what a lot of respondents are totally missing is that PP has professional context for her "opinion."  People don't go into fields like school psychology unless they really care about helping children and families.  They then go to school for years and get thousands of hours of practice with actual people. It's one thing to MYOB when you are on the same footing as everyone else, as most PPs are--parent to parent, it's a wise parent who knows the limits of their knowledge and how to couch thing sin terms of their own experience or MYOB altogether.  That is not PP's situation. When, because of your profession, you have actual evidence of something being done in a sub-optimal way, "MYOB" is not the same kind of decision.

As I said, my parents are educators. I didn't say before, but I am a developmental neuroscientist (research, not patients) and my sister is a social worker in the foster care system. When you have clinical experience like PP and my family members, a bad idea like her SILs is not just an idea that sounds bad, as it is to us regular parents. It is a bad idea you have personally seen, and worked to counteract, the effects of--not just once, either, but dozens or hundreds of times. Your mind goes not to "what if it were my kid" as our normal-parent minds do, but to the faces of the many kids you've seen who were harmed by such approaches. PP is not objecting to daycare, as so many PPs think she is, but to the stated objective to "toughen up" a 2 year old boy who his parents think is too sensitive.

I'm going to restate my advice because I hope psychologist PP sees it as coming from someone who's been in (ok, near) her shoes. You have decades ahead with these family members who think this way and as you well know your blowup has hurt your ability to speak up.  Consider the question this way:  is the best you can do for your nephew to get yourself "on the record" on this particular issue at the possible expense of some closeness with the family?  Or are the long-term objectives better served by you continuing to be a close presence in his life?  It is going to be hard to watch these relatives make decision after decision that you disagree with and watch your nephew suffer. So you have to think about what good is actually within your reach to do here.  Changing their behavior is likely not within your reach. Giving your nephew a safe space with you, however, can be.

Either way you have to apologize.  I think you can humble yourself enough to someday be in a position where they will see you as a source for advice if they're having an issue. but that day may never come even if it needs to. [/quote]

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