Sustainable Parenting

67. Managing Family Visits with Grace and Authority

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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How can you keep your parenting style and family routines on track when you have house guests or are on vacation?

In this episode, we talked about how family visits and vacations can affect your parenting. We explored ways to be kind and firm when you have guests or are staying at someone else's house, making sure your family values are respected while also considering others' practices.

After listening, you'll learn:

  • How to make clear plans in advance to reduce stress and confusion.
  • Ways to keep family routines and values even in new environments.
  • Tips for turning hurtful comments from adults into positive messages for kids.


Also, you will discover how to mix kindness and firmness in different family situations, keep family routines steady, and help kids get back to normal after visiting relatives with different habits. 

✨Want more?

1) Use this link for a FREE 20 min clarity call with Sustainable Parenting.

2) Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen

Flora McCormick:

I'm listening to episode 67 of the sustainable parenting podcast with me, laura McCormick, licensed therapist and parenting expert of 15 years and a mom of eight and 10 year old myself. I'm really excited today to talk to you about how to parent your children when someone else is staying with you or at your house, or you're at their house. This is going on a lot this summer, right, visiting grandparents, aunts or uncles, and it can feel a little uncomfortable. What do I do? Do I allow grandparents to parent my children in ways that I don't approve of? Do I encourage my kids to be respectful to the grandparents and just do what they say, even if it's not how I would have liked them to handle it? What do I do, friend, we're going to answer this question really succinctly, straight to the point, to help your summer go easier.

Flora McCormick:

Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective. And for the week, who is Anna Barnard? Anna is an amazing woman who has a military husband and has dealt with several deployments, and I so admire her tenacity as a mama. And on the review for the podcast she said I love how real Flora is. She really gets what it's like to be a mom in a busy world and she sees how frustrated and tired you are and gives you validation. Her advice does not just give that great pal vibe but is backed by actual studies, her professional education and years and years of experience working with children, including her own. Flora breaks it down for you and gives you small tidbits that lead you to real, achievable goals. Her coaching motivates, encourages and gives you confidence to apply these skills right away. Thank you, flora, thanks so much, anna, and please reach out and let me know that you heard yourself being highlighted here and I'll be sending you a free copy of either our Stop Whining for Good or Getting Kids to Listen course and others. If you've been getting value out of the podcast, please remember it means the world to me to have you subscribe, download episodes, share them with friends and also leave a review, which can easily be done at the bottom of the show notes or description of this episode.

Flora McCormick:

So I want to help you today with some thoughts really clear on how you can manage these moments in a way that fits with your family values. I want to suggest to you just three quick ideas to keep in mind with your family if you're in their space or they're in your space, and how to parent in that scenario. First thing is I recommend saying things, agreements, in advance, just like we talk about with our kids. Say things out loud that are what your plans are in their space. I remember it totally transformed my feeling in my in-laws house from like oh gosh, I hope my kid is nice and good. And then he'd freak out. And then he'd be like, oh my God, now I'm embarrassed and I don't know what to do. And should I, am I going to look too harsh? Am I going to look too permissive? And so, instead of waiting until that ball dropped, I started making agreements in advance and speaking them out loud. So the moment we walked in the door at my in-laws house, if I said, you know so, just so you guys know. And I want to talk to Caleb, you know in front of you and just make sure we're all clear. Sometimes he needs some space to calm down If he's having a hard time with some big feelings, and so would it be okay if we use this space over here and they'd be like, yeah, totally, that works great. And then what worked really nicely for me is then, when the moment happened, I knew I could follow through without fear that they were going to be like why is she doing that? It's like I preemptively laid the stage for why I was doing that. It helped me follow through and it also helped them if they were kind of not sure if I had a plan, with him screaming and crying, that they didn't feel like they needed to just walk away and ghost the situation or overstep and handle it themselves. It's like I'm speaking out that I've got a plan for this, guys.

Flora McCormick:

Okay, so anything, you can make agreements in advance and voice it in that space. I encourage you to do so. Now, that can be hard. That takes humility. It takes, um. You know there's a lot of dynamics in what your relationship may be with your family members, so I can appreciate that. But whatever that can look like for you, even if it's just voicing it to your partner so that you're both on the same page, that this is what we're going to do, um, please do that Same thing If they're in your home, you can say just so you guys know, this is our plan of what we do during dinnertime. If they don't eat all of their food, like, this is how we handle it. Or just so you guys know. If you know, I can hear that he just asked you five times for the thing that you said no to. And this is this is what we generally do if that's going on. So anything that you want to voice ahead of time, voice it ahead of time.

Flora McCormick:

Second thing that I want to say is, if it's not that big of a deal, it's okay to let it be different. So, meaning, if we're talking about a scenario where you are, um, let's say, with sitting with your child at the dinner table and the grandparent says you know, you've got to eat your peas in order to have dessert, and that's not generally how you handle things in your home, but you're at their home and this is what they say, my personal opinion is this is not going to make or break my child's connection to food. Whatever my values are and what we're consistently doing at home, it's okay for it to be a little different at grandparents' house If the grandparents say you know, here we eat our peas and then we get dessert. I'm like that's what grandma said, so that's what we do here or other grandma's house. In my family the in-laws it's more usually like there's a lot more treats that are given out and we generally only have desserts on the weekends. But if we're with family and it's not a weekend and grandma took extra time to make cookies and cake, I'm like it's up to grandma. Ask grandma if it's okay to have a piece.

Flora McCormick:

So if it's not something you feel is going to really make or break their overall big picture, I do think it's okay for things to be handled a little different in someone else's house, or even sometimes how they're speaking to them. Like I've had times where my mom will say things to my kids like that that you know, come on, you guys can do that for yourself, you can go over and get your own such and such, where I would otherwise just stand up and get it and I immediately kind of can feel prone to want to get defensive and say, no, mom, I'll just get it. Like don't, don't, don't, correct that. But sometimes it's a good reminder to me, like yes, they are more capable than I'm giving them credit, and I've fallen into some habits that I don't notice without some outside eyeballs kind of seeing it. So again, okay, this is a make or break. Like you're right, grandma's right, I'm going to sit back down and you guys can get those cups yourself. So it's not that big of a deal. It's okay to be open to a little different perspective.

Flora McCormick:

And third of all, though, I also want to just say that if you're the other person that you're in their space or they're in your space, handle something in a way that really bothered you, did not align at all with how you want something done, did not align at all with how you want something done, like one client told me once that the grandpa had said something that was kind of saying oh, that was a bad boy to do that to your sister. You really don't want to be such a bad boy. And those were words that were really important to her and were not how she chooses to speak. She let it go in the moment, let the authority of that adult be with that adult, and then to the side afterwards, when there was a quiet moment, had a conversation about it and I've certainly done this with my kids too and said something like you know I just want to comment for a sec.

Flora McCormick:

When Papa said that you know you shouldn't be a bad boy, um, let's just talk about that. You know, in our family you are always a good boy and we love you and we know. That's just who you are. And you know, when we talk to you we say that was like maybe a sad choice, and I think that's what Papa meant. He just used different words. But let me just kind of rephrase it for you what he meant was that that was not very wise choice or a very kind choice, but you're always a good boy. Okay, so you can kind of correct the overall value and that's one soft way I like to say.

Flora McCormick:

It is like I think what he meant was, and then I replace with the words that I think are a better way to convey what that adult was trying to convey. Or if they're an adult that really is hurtful for the sake of being hurtful, then you could say something about that. You know, I know that Papa said something to you that that might have really been confusing or hurt your feelings, and you know, papa has sometimes a hard time with um saying his kindest words and, um, that's something he's working on. You know, just like I'm always asking you to work on things, there are some grownups that are working on things, so that's one way that I like to handle that. So giving them a little bit of insight, um, into how nobody's perfect and people are growing and that you can re-script kind of the reality, though, but you are loved and you are wonderful, and I'm so sorry that that, that that you had to hear that and I bet that was hard to hear. Okay, so those are some guidelines around how to navigate life.

Flora McCormick:

If you're visiting a relative or they're visiting you, um, so that you can still stay true to your own values. You can always come back if you've done. If grandma, grandpa, handled things a little different while you're at their house, remember, when you come home, you can do a reset Like this is how things can go at our house, remember, I know it was a little different there, but let's just remind you, at our house, this is what the dinner routine looks like, or this is what bedtime routine looks like, and they can reset and get back and and, overall, that will be the primary message that they get and learn from you. I hope this helps you. If you have any follow-up questions on this, please feel free to reach out. I offer a free clarity call and the link for that is in the show description for this episode. And, friend, I hope this is a week where you feel empowered and equipped to be kind and firm at the same time and, for that reason, feel like parenting is more sustainable, enjoyable and something you look forward to Talk soon.