My wife and I have a 3 year old son (will be four in a few months), and he's the only grandkid on both sides. I knew he would be pretty spoiled by the grandparents but it's gotten ridiculous.They bought him presents for Thanksgiving. THANKSGIVING. He opened about $100 worth of presents yesterday.Christmas is ridiculous especially with my mother. My wife's parents have a huge extended family, so they at least set a limit. My mom though will spend up to $1000 on my son, and it's not big presents. Kid has had 20-25 things to open on Christmas morning just from her and "Santa."I've brought this up with her before and she gets really upset. Refuses to even hear the word "spoiled" and insists on using the word "blessed." "He's not being spoiled. He's being blessed!"We tried yesterday to tell the grandparents that we wanted to turn our money outwardly from our own homes and do nice things for others. Everyone was cool with it but said they wouldn't adjust their budgets for our son's Christmas gifts. When we said we wanted to teach him the value of giving and thinking of others and that doing so would involve not receiving so many gifts of his own, my mom got pissed and went right back into the "blessed" conversation. She thinks that because she and my father have worked hard and have money to spend that they should be able to "bless" him with things that "make him happy."I don't feel like I can say we aren't coming over for Christmas. Seems extreme and I'm not sure how my 3 year old would understand it. I've thought about telling my son that we'll all be giving X amount of our gifts away to those that are in need, but again, I don't know how much he'll understand. More importantly, it doesn't curtail the issue of Christmas day when everyone spends hours giving him things.This is more than Christmas though. We deal with this on his birthday and other holidays as per the earlier comment about Thanksgiving presents.Which his mother and I didn't know about. They just suddenly appeared.What might be worse though is the general behavior of both sets of parents when hanging out with him. Just to hit a few obnoxious highlights from yesterday:At the dinner table, my son started screaming "nya nya" over and over and banging his hands on the table. (Note - He's pretty advanced verbally. He was just doing this to be silly.) My wife and I started to put a halt to this and her dad said, "Oh it's fine! Nya nya!" And within seconds, five people at the table, four of which are over the age of 55, were banging on the table screaming "nya nya!""Nya nya" a little while later turned into "hoo loo loo!" with hands waving in the air. Grandparents encouraged and participated.My son finished his dinner early and asked to go play. He then came and started telling people to get up and play with him. Again, wife and I tried to tell him he needed to play by himself while we finished eating but then the grandparents said it was fine. He then found it hilarious to change quickly between who was being told to come play with him. Grandparents found this hilarious. Then they told him to bring his toys to the table and we finished Thanksgiving with a bunch of toys on the table. It's not so much the subversion of our discipline as it is the fact that they're willing to enjoy this kind of behavior from him that bothers me.When we were all parting, my son wanted a family hug. My wife and I channeled our inner-angsty-teenage souls that have been dormant for a while and stood back with our arms folded. The grandparents and my son did a big group hug in the driveway while yelling "aaawwww ooohhh hahahaha awaawwwwa" and spinning in a goddamn circle.It's like this ALL THE TIME. I'm so glad they are loving and involved grandparents. You might think they sound fun. They can be. It just never stops. I said I hit the highlights. There's more. They rarely talk about anything else besides the grandkid. They talk about his poop. What he said when he woke up in the morning. What he said when he was watching a TV show. The funny face he made.And it's not like we live far away. They see him regularly at least once a week.tl;dr - Grandparents are spoiling the shit out of my son with presents and attention. In addition to this, they've become so consumed and obsessed with him that they rarely act like adults around us and participate in behaviors that make me cringe up like a pissed off 13 year old. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2gcNaMg
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