Reply from Claire Burgess, Family Consultant

This is a very common situation for many people who have family members providing childcare for them. When we have to raise any issues with those who care for our children it can be tricky, but when it is a family member this adds an additional layer of difficulty.  It is understandable that you do not want to upset your parents as ultimately you want to maintain a close and special relationship.  However, if you don’t raise the issues that you have, this will lead to you becoming more frustrated and only end up causing a more awkward and difficult situation between you all.  It is really important that you avoid getting to this stage!

Grandparents will always want to do the best for their children and their grandchildren, there will always be things that you do slightly differently and some things that you might not agree with. However it is finding what works for you all and working out which things are vital for you all to be on the same page with. This is also very important for the children as it creates a consistent approach regardless of who is caring for them. 

When we have to raise issues or concerns with a childminder, nanny, nursery staff or school teachers this is carried out as part of a professional relationship.  But when we have family members caring for our children it is difficult to approach concerns in the same professional, objective manner.  Many people find that that when they are raising the issues with family members they are met with responses like “I did an OK job with you didn’t I?”, “you turned out OK so I couldn’t have got it that wrong” which are all very challenging and emotional comments to respond to.   

In any situation when we have challenging things to discuss we need to maintain open lines of communication; honesty is the best way to approach this type of situation.  First of all you need to think about the key things that you find most frustrating, or those things that are having the most impact on you or your children.  You do need to appreciate that there are always going to be things that your mum or dad will do differently to you and so you need to ask yourself – does it really matter? Is it a real problem if they do this? If your answer is ‘no’, then you need to let those things go, but where you answer ‘yes’ these things need to be approached.  

When approaching the issues with your parents you need to make sure that you have the right approach.  Try to have chat when you are not in a rush or when it would be seen as family time e.g. a Sunday just before a big family lunch would not be ideal timing.  Start by explaining that you don’t want to cause any difficulties but you want to see if you could get on the same page with some of the approaches with the children and then explain why (for example that it is having an impact on the children’s routine or on their behaviour), then explain that you want the approaches to be consistent as this will help you all (and the children) in the long run.  

Only raise a maximum of three issues.  Any more than this and it could be overwhelming and could give the impression that you are not happy with anything they do; which of course is certainly something that you want to avoid.  If you have more issues than this then you could raise them at another time, but you would need to look at when this might be and also think about whether you are ever going to be truly happy with things if you have this number of things to bring up. It might be that as children get older you find that the set-up isn’t working as well and you might need to look at alternatives for childcare.  

One thing you don’t want to do is ruin your relationship with your parents, but also the grandparent/grandchild relationship for your children.  Make sure that you also give your parents the opportunity to give their thoughts and views as they might have some issues that they would like to talk through.  Giving explanations as to why you want to do things in a certain way is important in order to help your parents to understand, they might not have read the book that you have or be part of the group that you follow on social media which talks through the benefits of a certain approach.  If you are reading certain blogs or books which you find useful then it might also help your parents as they might gain a greater understanding of where you are coming from in relation to how you want to raise your children.

Try really hard not to let the conversation become heated as this won’t help.  It is also best to avoid talking about these things with the children around as this is not something that is appropriate for them to hear.  They might be a distraction as well and may lead to things not being discussed as openly or in as much detail.  You don’t want to come away from the discussion feeling that you haven’t been able to discuss all that you wanted to as this will leave you feeling even more frustrated whilst still being in the same situation.  

Try to come to an agreement with your parents that perhaps it would be good to have a regular (try and set a timescale for this) catch up over a coffee just to make sure that you are all happy with the way things are going.  Make sure that you get over that this is for everyone’s benefit.  As a final point, make sure that you show appreciation for what your parents are doing for you and the family, we can often get caught up in the everyday and the expectation that grandparents will provide this care, but they need to have the recognition of the contribution they are making to help raise your children. 

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