Question
Hello,
I would like some advice regarding a difficult conversation with my 4 year old (recently turned 4) . It has become clear to my husband and I through a string of events that we should stop contact with my father. He was not a kind father to me, spanked with leather belts, was verbally and emotionally damaging and controlling. I have tried over the years to do my best to have a relationship with him, but he has repeatedly been manipulative and very harsh with his words to me (to put it very mildly). This past weekend he even went as far as to pull my husband aside at church to tell him all about me. It seemed he wanted to enlighten my husband about my "true nature" and expose what I am really like. My husband said is was pure character assassination. He had only terrible things to say about me.
Then he went on to attack how we parent. We have been using your methods since my oldest was 18 months with what we feel is great success. (we have a 4 year old and a 20 month old) However, my dad said what we do by putting our son in his room for extended periods is emotionally damaging. In truth, he rarely goes into his room for more that 15 minutes at a time as your methods work well! The long days or even 1/2 days in his room have largely ended and have happened no more than 10 times. He feels what our son needs is "ferocious spankings" and it would "straighten him out". Well, I had his spankings and could not sit comfortably for a few days after a few of them.
Anyway, all this is to bring context to my question: How do we tell my 4 year old son that he will not be seeing grandpa anymore? He loves his grandpa very much and thankfully we have been able to guard the relationship so he has not been hurt...yet. Now we feel that as he is getting older and testing grandpa more and how unpredictable my dad is getting again, that it is not wise to let a relationship continue. He did threaten to spank my son while babysitting recently, even though we have made it clear we are to be contacted when our kids act up and we will end our date immediately to come back. This time my mom even had to step in to stop things and told my son that he really does not want one of grandpas spankings. We heard nothing until we got home later that evening.
We don't want to lie to our son about the situation, but we don't know just what is age appropriate to tell him. He asks to see his grandpa often and loves him so much. But we know that the younger we do this,the better for all involved.
Any advice as to how to have this conversation and just what is wise to say at his tender age would be wonderful.
Thank you
