As a parent, the biggest grandparent issue that I've run into, and it is one that I confront at least once a week, is the issue of setting boundaries that my parents or in-laws will agree to respect. As an example, my parents recently surprised my 2 1/2 year old daughter (and us) with a wildly inappropriate toy. The toy is an inflatable "Air Bouncer" which is like a trampoline. The toy is extremely extravagant and really inappropriate since it is designed for children between the ages of 6 and 12. My daughter is so excited by it, but my husband is incredibly nervous and has said repeatedly that he doesn't want our daughter to have a trampoline. (My parents argue that this isn't a trampoline and that my husband is being paranoid... They don't think that it was an extravagant gift because my mother got it from a friend of hers for less than half price.)

I'd like to come to an agreement with our parents about gifts before this gets completely out of hand. Our daughter is the only granddaughter on one side and the only local grandchild on the other. We love having our parents so close and so involved in her life.

I really have two basic requests. 1.) Tell me *BEFORE* you give her something that may represent a problem. 2.) When in doubt, err on the side of caution.

How do other families handle this?

I would agree with you there. Parents are #1 in line when it comes to the decisions on parenting. The grandparents are there to spoil the children, but they do have to go through the parents to verify what is appropriate.

Even though the occasional surprise should be ok, in general there should be no doubt in the childs mind who is in charge, and the less people are in charge - the better.

Originally Posted by Shelly

Even though the occasional surprise should be ok,

I agree 100%, but if a surprise needs its own zipcode, maybe the parents shouldn't be on the receiving end of the surprise. It just produces too much stress.

This is a big issue for us with one child, but not for another. Setting boundaries for grandparents with my step-son has been an uphill battle.

My step-son lives in the same city as my husband's parents but we do not live there so he sees them often.

We have, on more than one occassion, suggested that they need to be parental figures to him when he goes there for a visit because he sees them so much. Of course, they want to enjoy being grandparents and spoil him but we feel that they also need to help correct any inappropriate behvior. We also need them to understand that when we are there with him we are the ones in charge and need to yeah or nay a request....weird situation I guess.

Fortunately when it comes to our little girl things are much easier.

They also asked what she needed for her birthday and took our suggestion (we know they are willing to spend a little more money than we have so we try to request something in a reasonable price range but something we will not be able to buy right away). This year for her first birthday she got a lovely wagon....a very appropriate and useful gift.

There should be definite boundaries on what grandparents can and can't do. If the grandparents don't respect mommy and daddy's authority, they'll learn that maybe they don't need to either. My wife's mom used to get deeply involved in the discipline of our son and we had one very emotionally traumatic day talking about it and setting the limits. However, everything has been awesome ever since and my mother in law knows she needs to respect certain boundaries.

My mother and I lock horns on boundary issuses sometimes. But she lives in SC and I live in Ohio so its not that much of a big deal. If she was up here I think we might have problems.

My brother-in-laws has set boundaries tin that only he and his wife are allowed to punish the kids, that means that if they are with any other family memeber the family mamber has to put up with whatever the kids do. That is kind of unfair in my opinion.

My mother wants to tell my sister and I how to raise our kids all of the time. If we tell her we dont agree with something, her standard response is "I did it with you all the time." I dont have to deal with it too much, I live a couple hours away. But my sister lives in the same town. I get lots of phone calls.

So far my parents have been pretty good about this. They spoil my daughter but within reason.

What I ended up doing was telling the grands to either get a gift certificate and I would get something for my sons, or to get approval before they actually gave something to them. This meant that if a package was wrapped when they brought it, it was unwrapped by the time my sons got it, because I looked the toy over. i never allowed things to be given directly to my sons where there had been issues before.