Question
My husband and I have an almost three and a half year old son. We follow Dr. Rosemond's guidelines with expected behavior and discipline closely. Yet we still have a child that frequently is disrespectful, doesn't listen, and hits. We think that his persistent brattiness is due primarily to his maternal grandpa & maternal step-grandma over-spoiling him, as well as a few other family members that do so occasionally too. I stay at home with our son, and work anywhere from zero to eight hours a week outside the home. He has a nanny watch him or family that observes discipline when I work. However he spends the night or has a day visit with his maternal grandpa and step-grandma nearly once a week. My husband and I are not generally present for these visits as my dad/stepmom want quality alone time with our son. When our son has these visits he is waited on hand over foot, he is given new, grandiose toys with at least half of the visits, and he spends time with an undisciplined step-cousin that is one year younger. We have discussed our expectations with them to no avail. We also have kept our son and stopped the overnight visits, and been present for the day visits for a month. This helps his behavior quite a bit, but he still retains a good deal of his bratty behavior. Then we cave in to the pleas from the grandparents to have him stay over night again after a few weeks and the cycle continues. Would an almost weekly session of spoiling be enough to produce a LOT of bratty daily behaviors in our son that undermine our parenting? How do we make sure our son sees his grandparents without being spoiled too much? How do we hold our feet down with this situation?
