Grandmothers and grandfathers represent a central figure in each person’s family history. Complicit, wise, patient and sometimes even more challenging than children, they respond to parenting models that probably do not coincide with those that their children practice when they become fathers and mothers.
This generational clash can unleash conflicts around the bond between grandparents, children and grandchildren. Who sets the parenting guidelines? Should everyone adhere to them? Who is harmed by these disagreements? Once again, dialogue appears as the fundamental tool.
Conflicts between grandfathers and grandmothers around the education and care of their grandchildren are very common and frequent, anticipates parenting psychologist Deborah Bellota. “When we become parents for the first time, we relive our own childhood. In my role as a mother, memories, affections or emotions arise about how I was raised by my mother and also in my own role as a mother, memories and emotions arise that are linked to how my mother treated me when I was little,” she explained. she. This thus influences the way of parenting of each new father or mother.
To avoid this type of dispute (or at least, its escalation), there is no more secret than dialogue. The psychologist (on Instagram, @maternidad_crianza_familia) highlighted that it is important to make it clear that it will always be each father and / or mother who sets the parenting guidelines for her child. “I evaluate, investigate and define the way I am going to raise together with my partner, together with the father or mother of our children. Grandparents must play the role of grandparents, which has nothing to do with parenting, but with support from the parents themselves,” she maintains. These talks, she clarifies, must take place between the adults involved, without the presence of the children: “It is neither convenient nor advisable to talk about children in front of children, since they cannot process that type of information.”
What do you remember about your grandparents? Some readers mentioned: “the most delicious gnocchi in the world”, “the sleepovers at their house”, “when they took me on horseback rides”, “the walks in the square”, “their endless anecdotes”. The mark they leave is very significant and Bellota mentions a series of benefits that arise from the bond between grandparents and grandchildren:
“To be a father or mother you have to stop being a son. It is an unconscious psychological movement and process. “First-time parents, when they have not resolved their own ties with their fathers or mothers, cannot stop playing the role of children,” the psychologist clarified to then explain some of the most frequent conflicts.
