Grandparents cannot stand being around their granddaughter
Dear Carolyn: My husband and I really cannot stand our grandchild. The child is loud, intrusive, screams, runs, climbs on the furniture, demands attention, interrupts, cannot sit still ... and she’s A GIRL !!!! Usually this behavior is associated with ADHD boys. We find even 20-minute video chats exhausting. All we want are two-minute videos and still photos, and to send checks for birthdays and Christmas. The other grandparents seem to be just fine with, and perhaps even adore and encourage, the child’s behavior and so we’re glad to defer all the holidays to them.
Can you suggest a tactful way for us to keep our sanity? It’s possible she’ll improve with time or medication, so we don’t want to shut the door completely. — Can’t Stand Our
Grandchild
Can’t Stand Our Grandchild:
Oh this just hurts my heart.
I appreciate your honesty. But all of those
“ADHD boys” — and! girls! — or just energetic kids, or otherwise quirky kids of all kinds, need to be looked upon with love by the world just as badly as calmer kids do.
More so, I’d argue, when they’re not as easy to be around. The love of their people is an essential counterweight to generally unwelcoming messages from many parts of society — especially given the anxiety and depression and other comorbidities non-neurotypical kids deal with. Strangers tsk-tsk their parents; teachers sigh and send these kids into the hallway; peers drift away from what they don’t understand.
It’s not all dreary, of course — there are environments where these kids excel. Often their minds are as sharp and crazyinteresting as the bodies they’re in. But the dedication of people in the inner circle is still important.
So while I sympathize, I beg you to find ways to meet this grandchild where she is. Get the show out of confined, sit-still places and take it on the road to play gyms, parks, hiking trails, climbing gyms, whatever you can find that allows gross-motor release.
Then, delight in this child’s joyful movement. Then, delight in a calmer, well-exercised child.
Trust me on this.