grandparent favoritism

[lindi]

Any advice about this? Its between cousins, not siblings, so a little more tricky. Basically DH's brother was favored growing up in very obvious ways, and now that translated to his son, DS's cousin. We are sick of DS not getting the same attention as cousin. DH is very sensitive to it, it kills him and I am worried about how it may affect DS once he started catching on as he gets older. Talking to the grandparents is not possible. It was tried by other siblings before us and met with adamant denial and refusal to even talk about it.

[nuthinbutpink]

Can you not say something to your DH's sister in law if it is that obvious and perhaps she can speak with the grandparents. I would think it would make her uncomfortable as well.

[shouldihope?]

We have that situation. DH mom prefers DS 2. It is obvious to everyone. We have talked to her about it and nothing changed. We eventually drasticly limited our time with, for other issues as well, but that was part of it. It was painful to watch her not even acknowledge our quiet shy oldest DS. Brought tears to my eyes and he was starting to ask. Unless it is a large family event (lots of distraction and other peoople) or a restaurant where we can limit our time we decline.

[lindi]

DH's sister in law has her own gripes with them which are, ironically, that they want to spend too much time with her son. However, she is wonderful, but the type of mom who needs a lot of time to herself, and so her son ends up at their house a LOT so she can have personal time... she doesn't see how she complains about how possessive they are of her son and how in fact she NEEDS them to spend a lot of time with him so she can maintain her sanity. I don't begrudge her spending little time with her son- she works full time and is genuinely someone who I think would not be a good parent if she devoted her nights and weekends to her kids. But I find it weird that she complains about how much they want to see him and what they do with him when he's with them and she doesn't see how she asks for it! So talking with her about the favoritism she would probably complain about it too but not want to do anything about it.
DH and I are contemplating seriously reducing to zero any time that DS spends with cousin, since cousin is starting to treat DS badly and DS, who is 2 1/2, and just IDOLIZES his older cousin, has started to say things that break my heart about how much he loves his cousin so much, but how his cousin is mean to him. I try to step in and stand up for DS but I am uncomfortable telling nephew how to bahve since he's not my kid so the best I can do is remove DS and tell DS things like "that wasn't OK for cousin to push you so I'm taking you somewhere safe" etc.
But its awful because any alone time DS has with grandparents sometimes they'll find a way to include cousin and I'm not around to stick up for DS.

[Hobbermittens]

My grandmother did this to my cousin. She didn't have a good relationship with my aunt, but my dad was her favorite; so she favored me and my siblings over my aunt's daughter. I remember her taking us aside and telling us that our cousin was a "bad seed", and being too young to really understand what my grandma meant by that. As it turned out, my cousin WAS a bad seed--she is now a drug addict, has a criminal record, abandoned her child, etc. Still, I think it was unfair of my grandmother to play favorites. It must have hurt my cousin a lot as a child.

My FIL favors my son, and to some degree, the baby. My oldest gets very little attention from him, and it really makes me angry. My DH hates it too, but he hasn't ever spoken to his father about it. At some point, I think the kids will notice, and it really bothers me.

[jude17]

We have had this problem in our family as well. My DH father very obviously favours his daughters son. It really hurt me when he would come over and all he would go on about was how great B****** was right in front of our older son. He is a nice man so there wasn't any mean intentions but it really annoyed me that he was so obvious about liking this other boy so much. This other boy is a very difficult child, his mother admits it freely. He was a shock to the system after their daughter who is a really easy child. I think her boy and DH father are very similar so he automatically just liked him so much. Once we were at this grandsons birthday party and he picked up a handful of gravel twice and through it straight into our little boys face (I think my boy was around 2 at the time). Our son cried and got gravel all through his eye. My husband told his nephew off and he responded by telling my DH to F*** OFF. When my son came running inside to me DH mum told me he needed to stop being a cry baby and harden up, but nothing was said to the other grandson when my husband told them what he said to him or what he had done to our son. I was so mad that it was put back onto my son and we were told he was cry baby. That nearly made me stop all contact with them. But there is really no way we could get away from them as we all live in the same town. So we just limited the time we spent with them and never let our son go without one of us to DH sisters house.

We now have another boy and I was really worried about having another second class boy but it all seems to have settle down now that the favoured grandson is getting older. This grandson can also be quite mean to other kids and it breaks my heart when the grandparents take our older son to his house and our son comes come saying that B***** was hitting him. It has made us really limited the time that we spend with DH sister and her kids and we would never let the grandparents take our son to DH sisters house without us when he was younger. Man it really annoys me when people play favourites I just don't understand this at all?

[lindi]

I think that grandparents do connect better with some grandchildren, but they really need to understand its not good for the favored one or the unfavored. I am so lost about what to do.

[atomic sagebrush]

DH's sister in law has her own gripes with them which are, ironically, that they want to spend too much time with her son. However, she is wonderful, but the type of mom who needs a lot of time to herself, and so her son ends up at their house a LOT so she can have personal time... she doesn't see how she complains about how possessive they are of her son and how in fact she NEEDS them to spend a lot of time with him so she can maintain her sanity. I don't begrudge her spending little time with her son- she works full time and is genuinely someone who I think would not be a good parent if she devoted her nights and weekends to her kids. But I find it weird that she complains about how much they want to see him and what they do with him when he's with them and she doesn't see how she asks for it! So talking with her about the favoritism she would probably complain about it too but not want to do anything about it.
DH and I are contemplating seriously reducing to zero any time that DS spends with cousin, since cousin is starting to treat DS badly and DS, who is 2 1/2, and just IDOLIZES his older cousin, has started to say things that break my heart about how much he loves his cousin so much, but how his cousin is mean to him. I try to step in and stand up for DS but I am uncomfortable telling nephew how to bahve since he's not my kid so the best I can do is remove DS and tell DS things like "that wasn't OK for cousin to push you so I'm taking you somewhere safe" etc.
But its awful because any alone time DS has with grandparents sometimes they'll find a way to include cousin and I'm not around to stick up for DS.

I have nothing to add regarding the grandparent favortism because we have the same issue in our family too (even amongst just MY kids, which is a whole nother level of awkward.) But I did want to mention that older kids being "mean" to younger kids is really super common and they do tend to work it out over time. My experience has been that intervening too much (barring any physical confrontation, of course) kinda aggravates it. Firstly because it makes it seem to both kids like, "the adults are getting involved, this must be a big deal" which feeds your cousin's sense of power and also your son's sense that his cousin is doing him wrong and encourages him to play up being a victim. And secondly because it takes away the opportunity for both kids to work it out between themselves. By keeping them apart or constantly intervening, you prevent your nephew from practicing empathy and also your son from learning to stick up for himself, both of which are pretty valuable life lessons.

I hope that doesn't offend you, believe me, I never could have stood by without intervening with my DS 1 either, I'm just sharing my personal experience from raising my first set of boys - the less I intervened, the better they got along!!

[shouldihope?]

I think AS may be on to something. My older 2 tend to get into a victim/ perpetrator pattern if we get involved too much. Sometimes you have to get involved obviously other times I tell them to work it out. I have never tried it in non-sibling situations.

[lindi]

Atomic you make a good point. However, cousin is 3 years older than DS (5 vs. 2) so when he pushes him (which he does a lot) it can be a safety issue, and my hunch is that it's best for my son to know I won't put him in an unsafe situation. If they were closer in age, or even both older, I am all for letting them work it out.
I think cousin thinks its OK to boss around DS (I know this happens all the time with older kids to younger kids)...but thinks it's OK because cousin and DH's stepdad kind of gang up on DS together. Not to sound annoying (but who doesn't think their kid is so amazing?) but DS is, and is often noted by friends, other relatives, to be an incredibly unique child- his verbal skills are incredibly advanced and he is very talkative and curious and retains ALOT of information so it can be very amusing/amazing to be having a conversation about pretty complex ideas with him. He is also super outgoing, so it's not hard for him to seem like an impressive kid pretty fast to people, and I think in a way cousin and grandparents know this, (they talk about it a lot) and like to sort of "knock him down" whenever they can. DH's sister also pointed out she thinks they like to knock him down too, because he is different. Ugh. It breaks my heart.
I know I sound like some annoying "my kid is so great and they can't appreciate it!" but I honestly think he is different in some pretty clear ways and this contributes to how they feel it's OK to belittle him when they can and how they probably think it's not harmful to him, because mentally he seems much older than he is.
I never had a close relationship with grandparents, and I was really looking forward to DS having this, but I'm not sure the benefit outweighs the potential stress of being knocked down- literally and figuratively- all the time!