Originally Posted by
MrsTortilla
Thanks for the thoughts on this. I can see why this kind of relationship is really tough in any circumstance. You can let the supervision get you so frustrated you become enraged and ultra strict or you can give in because it’s just easier. To your point, I’m already noticing flippant tendencies from my son; difficulty at kindergarten where he sometimes might just not take his teacher’s direction seriously and do what he wants instead.
At home I do generally try to be firm about boundaries and give both praise and consequences where appropriate and my SLI husband actually thinks I’m overly strict at times. He has such an easy relationship with our son and so I think he sees me as uptight and too rigid about certain things. To create consistency and do the kind of parenting that seems to come naturally to me, I have to fight against my husband in some respects. I try hard to get him to agree to uphold rules we set for our kids on a regular basis but he doesn’t always see the need. Can be really really frustrating!
A thought I had: maybe people with supervisee parents just act the way you’ve observed because they intrinsically don’t fully respect their primary caregiver, no matter what that caregiver tries to do in terms of a normal healthy parenting style. I’ll still try to be firm about the important things while giving him some freedom to supervise and be himself where I can. Just wondering whether it matters! Interesting and strange situation...