Charge's birthday and the grandparents are coming... VENT

[Anonymous]

Oy. My weekend charge has the most annoying and loud grandparents. All four are opinionated and pushy. They all talk to my charge at the same time and never let him just do what he wants to do. If he is playing with his little cars, one or all of them with start peppering him with questions and shoving other toys in his hands. If he wants to ride his little scooter, one or all of them will loudly tell him to try the bike or toy car, or try to push him when he clearly likes to do it himself. They keep calling his name for him to look at at them. When he crawls up on my lap for a story, they all sit in the same room with us talking to each other loudly.

I feel so sorry for the little guy. Sometimes he just hugs me and puts his head on my shoulder facing my neck for relief (not that that stops the grandparents from yammering at him).

It is going to be a long, loud weekend...

[Anonymous]

I am sorry OP. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Do the parents feel it is an issue? What do you think the grandparents' motivation is? E.g., I had one set of grandparents whose main goal with the grandkids was to have photo ops that they could show all their friends when they got back what loving and involved grandparents they were. So every day I had a few planned activities that were designed to look really good on camera and I would set them up and take lots of photos of them with the kids and talked about how much fun we were all having, which appeased them enough that they were able to let it go when I said "why don't you let me put him down for nap alone so he can relax after all this excitement?"

[Anonymous]

So sorry, OP. Grandparents are the worst.

[Anonymous]

Ugh I feel your anguish just reading this. I had one family that often had both sets up gps in town at the same time. I had to learn to laugh. I would pretend I was watching a sitcom on television and how nuts everyone seemed. Stepping back and doing this would relieve me of so much stress.

I still use the technique now whenever mb or db decides they are going to work from home or "be around". I used to get worked up knowing that my charges could do so much on their own or behave completely different with me when they aren't there but now I just fade into the background, watch the chaos unfold and chuckle to myself or even out loud.

[Anonymous]

I hate what visiting grandparents do to my charge. I feel so bad that you have to put up with two sets of grandparents at the same time.


Side note: I wish MBs and DBs knew how much their in-laws trashed them.