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Grandparents and secrets - Page 2

post #21 of 27

In theory, I agree that the word "secret" can raise a red flag, and I'm normally on board with the "surprises are okay, secrets are not" thinking. But really, I guess it depends on your relationship with the grandparents in question, and your level of trust with them. I trust my mom and my ILs completely, and both have done the, "Don't tell mom you got an extra cookie!" thing, and it hasn't bothered me a bit. For one thing, they've done it right in front of me, within earshot, while looking at me to make sure I heard, so it's obvious that it's a joke. But maybe they've done it when they're alone with my kids too, but it's not at all an authoritative, "You will NOT tell your mother about this extra cookie!" thing, it's a silly, conspiratorial joke, and my kids seem to get that. 


Theoretically, I understand crunchy_mommy's point, and agree with a lot of it, but in practice, at least with my kids' grandparents, it just has never raised even the slightest red flag for me to hear them joking around with my kids about stuff like that. 

post #22 of 27
Thread Starter 

Thanks for all the replies. This response from crunchy mommy says it best for what I was trying to get at. I had to set some ground rules ... again! I HATE that they keep making me out to be the bad guy who won't let them have fun with the grandkids but they just won't stop pushing the boundaries of what I feel comfortable with. 





Originally Posted by crunchy_mommy View Post

Privacy, yes. Child asking grandma to keep a secret, yes (within reason, using good judgement). Grandma asking child to keep secret? No, that's an unfair burden to the child, and would cause me to seriously question the safety of the grandparent involved.
See, a reasonable parent will not mind if the kid has ice cream before dinner on a special occasion, and won't micromanage your time. But what is the secrecy around it for?? To me it undermines the parents. It shows poor communication & questionable judgement. It teaches the child that if she's doing something mom won't approve of, she better not tell. What happens when something serious comes up, and this is the attitude the child has internalized? What happens when she's 16 & pregnant? Don't tell! Mom won't be OK with it, Mom can't handle even small breaches of the ice cream rules so she DEFINITELY won't be OK with this... Children need to learn that there are different rules with different adults and their parents can be OK with that. They need to see that they can break certain rules and the parents will still love them, & be glad they told. They need to enjoy their ice cream cone, not be in fear that mom or dad will find out & somehow "punish" them, or with guilt for going against Mom's wishes (because if it wasn't that bad, Grandma wouldn't say, "Don't tell!") Why not just say, "Hey, let's have a special treat, we'll have ice cream before dinner!" and leave out the "Don't tell!" part??? Why not enforce for the kid that she can tell any of the trusted adults in her life ANYTHING she wants or needs to, and they will always be there for her?
post #23 of 27

What a shame you're still dealing with this. Is it possible to be (politely) blunt with your mil? Can you communicate those same points to her?  She has to know that earning your trust must come first. For the sake of making a concrete point, you might inform (warn) her that she's on notice.


She sounds childish. Does she hide or lie about other things? Hopefully she won't value 'getting her way' or getting away with it, over her grand daughter.


And where is your dh in this? Is he going to object if you insist his mom behave? Is he on the same page with you, so he can tell her the same thing? 

post #24 of 27
Originally Posted by ilovemygirl View Post







This is a red flag (among many others that pp have already commented on). They don't care about your silly rules. They don't care what boundaries you've put up. They just want you out of the picture so they can take your kids and do as they please.  If this is what they do right in front of you what are they telling/ doing with your kids when you are not around?  It's undermining your parenting, shoving you aside as if your preferences don't matter, and doing whatever they please. It could all be relatively harmless. Or it could not.  I wouldn't trust them a bit until they can show you that they respect your authority. 


I no longer trust the IL's to watch our children.  It was nothing major, just little things. The straw that broke the camels back was when they stayed over at MIL and FIL's house for two nights.  When I went to pick them up, I find out that they stayed one night at MIL and FIL's and one night at SIL and BIL's.  No one ever bothered to tell me, let alone ask.  I wouldn't have minded if they had asked, that wasn't the issue.  It was the fact that they didn't feel I needed to know where my kids were.  I also suspect they didn't think I would agree to it, so they just went ahead and did it anyways. That crap doesn't fly with me.


Over Christmas, we were eating dinner and MIL has this annoying habit of making sure everyone has everything they need at dinner. We're all adults, we're capable of finding what we need, and ensuring our children have what they need. MIL asks if DS would like some oyster crackers.  I said "he's fine, no thanks".  FIL takes it upon himself to grab a handful of the crackers and set it on his tray. I promptly picked them back up and tossed them on the floor to the dogs. Again, it's not that the oyster crackers were a big deal, it was the fact that I had said no and they did not respect my authority.

post #25 of 27
I can see silly "Don't tell mom I gave you an extra cookie" secrets being fun for everyone, but giving kids something food or otherwise you've said no to explicitly? That's about their lack of respect for you and would make me furious. It's ok if they think you are being overprotective, it is completely unacceptable for them to ignore your rules for your kids, they are your kids! I'm glad you had a talk with them, but I'd be on high alert for repeat behavior and if they can't respect your wishes, I wouldn't leave kids alone with them. Sorry you are having to deal with this!
post #26 of 27

I must say that I agree with Mamarhu. It is all about whether you truly trust the grandparents or not. If you really trust and believe that they would not go against your wishes and would not cause harm to your child I feel that a secret between grandmother and grandchild would be ok. However, I do understand the posts that are against children keeping secrets from their parents. Unbeknownst to me until later, my mother had been keeping destructive secrets with my daughter that caused a rift between she and I. So I truly understand the fear that parents have of not wanting their children to keep secrets from them. Also, I know that some people want to keep secrets for the wrong reason.


Also, I agree that small children may not know what is a ok or bad secret to keep. Again, it all depends on how much you trust the person that keeps your child. If you don't trust them they should not be allowed to keep your child in the first place. As parents we want to know everything that goes on with our children, but realistically that is not going to happen. In addition, at times children have to have other adults that they can talk to about their problems. So if they have a grand parent that you know you can trust let them feel free to talk to them, because they might not always come to you. I know that sucks but it is true. Wouldn't you rather they talk to your trustworthy parent than their friends. Especially, when you know that if it was a serious secret that could cause harm your parent would let you know or encourage the child to go and talk with you about it.


Generally, my children tell me most things; however, at times I have found out things that I would not have known if a trustworthy adult had not been in their life that they could secretly confide in. They have came and talked to me about difficult situations after being encouraged by a trustworthy adult to do so. My children are all grown now and I am a grandmother. Last year, my 5 year old grand daughter  broke the spaghetti strap on her new dress and started distressing over it saying that her she was going to be in trouble when her mother found out. I quickly sewed the strap back on and told her to calm down it was our secret. When my daughter came over to get her my grand daughter said "Meme and I have a secret" and my daughter quickly told her you don't keep secrets from me.


Recently, my granddaughter was visiting and I passed gas, and I told her that she had better not tell anyone. A few days later, my daughter told me that my grand had told her and I said she wasn't supposed to tell anyone. My daughter quickly replied we don't keep secrets. My point in telling this is that all secrets are not bad, harmful, or malicious. Some are just silly little secrets between grandchild and grandparent. Now my grand is afraid to keep even a silly secret from her mom. I love my grandchild more that life itself I would never harm her, keep anything from my daughter that was important, or go against my daughter to form an alliance between my grandchild and I.  When we really trust a grand parent we have to really trust them!

post #27 of 27


Originally Posted by mamarhu View Post

If grandparents are safe, trusted folks, then they get 100% freedom. Even if they would make some decisions differently than I do, I trust that they would not harm my child. I am all for fun, secretive, sneaky, get-away-with-it games with Grandma. I think privacy with a trusted adult is a bridge to independence.


These grandparents are specifically asking the child to keep secrets about things they know the parents don't allow. Teaching a child that it's okay to break the rules and then lie about it is a really awful life lesson. Even if, before this, they had 100% trust (something, frankly, that I don't believe in and consider to be dangerous)- that trust would be lost after this.  I can understand why this is an appropriate response if you only read the title, but I really don't understand how you think grandparents explicitly doing things the parents aren't okay with them doing (such as giving a vegetarian child hot dogs, as per your example) and then asking the children to lie about it is acceptable.


I also disagree that secrets=privacy. Children making their own judgement calls about what they should or shouldn't tell their parents is a bridge to independence. Telling a child to keep a secret from their parents, unless it's a temporary secret, doesn't teach them independence, it teaches them to distance themselves from their parents. It makes me very uncomfortable and would have made me uncomfortable as a child as well. No adult ever told me to keep a secret from my parents, and that's the way it should be. Some people have listed the silly secrets games, but they describe games where it's not actually meant to be kept secret and that's part of the game.


I simply cannot think of anything where it'd be appropriate for a 4 year old to know but not for the parents to know. The only exception is if the parents are abusive. If the child finds out something they shouldn't have known, that makes it complicated, but it doesn't sound like that's what's going on here.

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