Many people who have warm, uncomplicated memories of their own grandparents find that things get trickier when Mom and Dad become Grandma and Grandpa. If you're a new parent, it's easy to appreciate the unconditional love and free babysitting they bestow on your kids, not to mention the occasional financial help they may give you. What's harder is when they undermine your rules, offer unsolicited "observations" on your parenting style, shower the kids with apartment-cluttering gifts, and shower you with guilt over how they don't see their grandchildren enough—or how the other grandparents see them more. The fact is, neither parents nor grandparents always act the way they should. But in the end, figuring out who's right and who's wrong matters far less than making the relationship work. Here, parents, grandparents, and family experts weigh in on how to handle five different types of troublemakers.
Renegades
Some rules are made to be broken by grandparents, while others need to be respected: "If you're trying to establish good sleep patterns with a young child, consistency matters," says Arthur Kornhaber, a child psychiatrist and author of The Grandparent Solution. "Grandparents should stick to the regular bedtimes." And restrictions based on deep-seated principles should be adhered to: "If the family doesn't eat pork or meat on religious or moral grounds, grandparents should not subvert those rules," says Denver family therapist Susan Heitler.
But a lot of rules are pretty arbitrary, and grandparents who are more lenient than you about cookies, TV, or jumping on the couch aren't really hurting your kids. "Children can become 'bilingual,'" says Heitler. "They understand that there are different rules in different settings."
Grandparents who are a regular presence in their grandkids' lives, though, need to be more law-abiding. "The luxury of being a grandparent is that, for the most part, you can be the person who always says yes," says Phil Newfield, a grandfather of three who has been babysitting one of his grandsons regularly for five years. "But when you're the caretaker, in their house, you have to say no sometimes."
Meddlers
When it comes to giving advice, "you wait to be asked," says Shelley Harwayne, who retired from her job as a regional superintendent in the New York City public-school system to care for her grandchildren full-time. Newfield, who is a pediatrician, agrees: "I was up-front with my kids that if there was ever something I was really worried about medically, I would speak up. Otherwise, I'm not the kids' doctor, and I'm going to keep quiet unless someone asks what I think."
When dealing with a grandparent who doesn't have such admirable self-control, you have to muster some of your own. Even if unasked-for advice sounds like criticism, Heitler says, parents should "sort through the negative contamination and listen for something useful." The grandmother who nags you to get a second opinion about a child's medical condition may be onto something. But if you're getting grief about your approach to feeding, cosleeping, or another subject on which wisdom has shifted over the years, explain why you're doing things your way. If necessary, back yourself up with a current book or article.
