WEBVTT
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The relationship with your adult children is the most important relationship.
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So many grandmas go into their relationship with their grandchild and think, oh my god, this is so wonderful.
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I even made the mistake of rushing past my daughter one time when I went to visit.
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Remember to hug them first before you hug your grandchild.
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Hey everyone, welcome to Bite Your Tongue the Podcast.
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Join me, your host, Denise Gorin, as we explore the ins and outs of building healthy relationships with our adult children.
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Together we'll speak with experts, share heartfelt stories, and get timely advice, addressing topics that matter most to you.
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Get ready to dive deep and learn to build and nurture deep connections with our adult children.
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And of course, when to bite our tongues.
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So let's get started.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to a brand new episode of Bite Your Tongue the Podcast.
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You should know that lately our inbox has been buzzing with your questions, ideas, and lots of love.
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Thank you so much.
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We're already working on bringing some great new guests to answer all the things you care about most.
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But now before we begin, I have to give a little shout out.
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If you listeners out there are liking what you're hearing, we'd love your support.
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Just head to biteyourtonguepodcast.com, click the support tab, and for as little as five bucks, you can give us a nod.
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If everyone listening did that, we'd be golden.
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We might even be able to go to lunch.
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All right, let's get rolling.
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As some of you know, I just became a grandparent.
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And when today's guest reached out about grandparenting wisdom, I thought, let's do it.
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So today we're thrilled to welcome Donnie Davis, founder of the Gaga Sisterhood, an international membership organization for enthusiastic grandmas who want to connect, grow, learn, and share.
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Donnie launched the Gaga Sisterhood in 2003, shortly after the birth of her first grandchild.
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Like many new grandmas, she was completely gaga.
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And I have to say I'm a little gaga too.
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But she also realized she wasn't the only one navigating the joys and challenges of today's modern grandparenting.
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For the past 20 years, she's been inspiring grandmothers.
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She's the author of When Being a Grandmother Isn't So Grand: Four Keys to L-O-V-E, Your Grandparents' Parents, a practical guide to navigating the most common challenges in grandparent today.
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The book is available on Amazon, and we'll put a link to it in our episode notes.
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We're excited to dive into her wisdom on how to balance love, boundaries, and realistic expectations while building the kind of family and relationships we want.
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Welcome, Donnie.
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We're so glad to have you with us.
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I'm delighted to be here.
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Well, good.
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Let's start with your own story.
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What I love about having you on about the whole grandparent thing is you've been in the trenches for much longer than a lot of us newbies.
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So you're going to have a lot to offer.
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So what inspired you to create this whole grandparent, what do you call it?
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Supported organization.
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Yeah, organization.
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Organization.
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And what has surprised you the most of the two decades of leading it?
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Well, what surprised me the most is how universal the problems are for all grandmas, no matter where they're from, whether they're from another country, whether they're from a different background, it's always the same problems.
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Like the parenting rules are very different than when we were parents.
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The gifts, you got to be very careful of the gifts.
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Food is a big issue, sleep is different, and boundaries.
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They're all things that no matter who you are as a grandma, you're most likely going to experience these.
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And the other thing that was really surprising to me is that there's a difference between being a maternal grandma and being a paternal grandma.
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Now that's a generalization.
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I would love you to share a little more about that because I have a son and a daughter.
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My daughter's the one with the child.
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And I've said to people, I think it must be really different when it's your daughter versus your son.
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So share a little bit about that.
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The bond between the mother and daughter is very strong.
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I think that maternal grandmas do have some advantage in that respect.
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But if you get lucky and you're a paternal grandma and you have a wonderful daughter-in-law like I do, she includes you in everything and you feel like you have a good relationship.
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But often the daughter-in-laws can be really difficult.
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I just was responding to a grandma today who wrote to me, pouring her heart out about what a horrible daughter-in-law she has.
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And she says, you know, usually the jokes are about the mother-in-law, but she says this daughter-in-law is just cruel and mean and leaves her out.
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And there's often a lot you can't do about that.
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Yeah, you probably can't.
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I think everything I've learned from doing these interviews is you have to look inside yourself too.
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If you have this feeling that your daughter-in-law is being very cruel or keeping you out, you need to figure out what some of your actions are too.
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What could you be doing that could be contributing to this and trying to come to a uh middle ground, I guess.
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I never think it's one-sided.
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And yet I'm sure in many instances it is.
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I would agree.
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A lot of times grandmas try their hardest, but they're just dealt a bad hand, like to say.
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Well, you talk in your book, and I mentioned your book in the intro, and I'll mention it again at the end, but getting off on the right foot.
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Your daughter or your son's about to have a baby, maybe it differs in each case.
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What are the steps a new grandparent should take to get off on the right foot?
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Remember that communication is the key.
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Learn how to be a good communicator and especially a good listener.
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So ideally, you would sit down before the new baby arrives and say, I'm so excited to become a grandma.
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And I'm just curious, like, how do you see me in this role?
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That would be the first thing.
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The second would be here's my expectations of what I would love.
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I would love to be able to visit once a week.
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I would love to babysit.
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I really want to be engaged and involved in your lives and start with that.
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And then what are your expectations?
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How do you see me being in this role?
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You know, yeah, the second person that said that, and I just want to discuss this a little bit, because I don't think the parents to be know exactly what they want.
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No.
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When you typically say, I'd like to be involved, the response tends to be, oh, we really want you involved.
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We can't wait for you to be involved.
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And all of a sudden you hear that and you act on it.
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It's like, whoa, you're here too much, or you're saying too much, or maybe you need to go home now.
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So I'm not 100% sure they know what they want.
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You're right.
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And they may want something and then change their mind because the whole process is just it's growth.
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Remember when you were a parent and you were so excited because you're in this rhythm and everything was going so well, and then all of a sudden it changed?
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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At three months, six months, nine months, and twelve months.
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Yeah.
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Everything changes.
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And the same thing happens with parents.
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They say, Oh, we don't want you around so much.
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And then all of a sudden it becomes overwhelming.
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They say, Well, you know, maybe we'd like you to babysit more often.
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Or it could go the other way, or they say, We're getting a little bit too much in our lives.
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I don't know, you know, if they would actually say that.
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But you have to really, I think, be such a good nuanced listener to pick up cues because a lot of times there's some unspoken stuff that is just too uncomfortable to say.
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And you have to watch for those cues.
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And I think, particularly in my situation and my parents' situation when my kids were young, they lived somewhere else.
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So when they came to visit, the time is so intense.
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And I think that's so much harder because you want to embrace this time, but you don't want to step on their toes.
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It's a very difficult kind of visit.
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Whereas if they can call, can you come over for an hour?
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It's a much more relaxed experience and relaxed relationship.
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It is.
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But you know, you make the best of what you have.
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That's what I say.
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Don't wish for something that you can't have.
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Yeah.
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Be happy with what you have and make the best of it and figure out what's the most creative way to spend this time.
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The thing that I think is hard is when the parents come to visit you and they want to see their old friends when they're visiting.
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And then you have to share them.
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That's challenging.
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Yeah, that's challenging too.
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I also wonder as we're talking about this, everyone talked about their parents when they had kids.
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I complained about my mother.
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I complained about my mother-in-law.
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But I look back and I think, gosh, they were actually pretty doggone good.
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I don't remember them ever saying, you should feed your baby this or you should put your baby down now.
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They didn't seem to struggle with these things like we do.
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Do you think because the changes are greater?
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Definitely.
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Definitely.
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Definitely.
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Because I think we were probably more similar to our parents in parenting styles than our children are.
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I was fascinated and a little judgmental when I became a grandma and I saw that my daughter was embracing this attachment parenting.
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And I had never heard of it before, but she was carrying the baby around 24-7 in a Moby wrap and sleeping with the baby.
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And I thought, oh my gosh, no wonder you're tired.
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But I didn't say anything.
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I was very good about trying not to be judgmental.
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What I tell parents is pretend you're an anthropologist and you're studying this new culture, and it's so fascinating to you because it's so different.
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And then ask questions in a curious but not judgmental way because a lot of it's going to be so different.
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I love this.
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So walk me through this.
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And I've talked to two different couples about this.
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One pediatrician says, the baby's in your room till six months, another pediatrician says, keep your baby in the room for a year.
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How would I approach this if I saw my daughter or my son-in-law or my son really tired?
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The baby's in the room all the time.
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They're not getting any time together.
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How would an anthropologist talk about this?
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Again, lead with curiosity.
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Wow, you know, you look exhausted.
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How are you sleeping?
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And then wait to see what they say.
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Oh my God, the baby in our room is just getting really old.
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Oh, what makes you think you need to keep the baby in the room?
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What are your parenting theories on that?
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Listen to what they have to say, but don't say, Oh, yeah, you know, you should follow that theory.
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Right.
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I think you just have to refrain from offering advice and they have to figure it out themselves.
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I call them the team captains.
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They set the rules, you respect them.
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If they don't seem to look like they're doing well, well, sometimes you just have to let them suffer the consequences.
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I really think that's better than saying, Oh, have you thought about moving the baby into their own room?
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How about when they get older and their little brats come over, they have no manners, they're talking back to their parents, they're yelling at their parents, you don't say a word.
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You say, Oh, I love having them.
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I think that when they're in your house, that you can say, you know what, in grandma's house, we don't touch things that are on the shelves.
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Or in grandma's house, we sit quietly at the table.
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If you're visiting their house, so you're from out of town and you're visiting their house and you see this disarray of you just have to zip it.
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I think so.
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You can certainly try, see what happens.
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Well, I don't think you should try.
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You may never be invited back.
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So I'm not sure that's the best.
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Maybe in the backyard when you're with the child by themselves, you can sit down.
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Oh, yeah.
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My mother used to do the best job.
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We'd sit at the table, and it was kind of her thing to do manners with the kids.
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And it was so great.
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And they think back and they remember Nana saying, strong and able, no elbow.
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I love that she just took over and did it because they listened to her more than they were going to listen to me.
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When it comes to manners, hopefully you have them in your house, and then you can say, these are the ways that we like to sit at the table.
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We like to keep our elbows off the table, or we like to use this spoon, or we don't have our hands in the food.
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You can do all that when they get a little bit older.
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You know what?
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Be a good role model.
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And then I always say, if you catch them doing something that you think is right, oh, I love the way you're just sitting so quietly at the table.
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If someone has a meltdown, the four-year-old has a meltdown, you don't say anything, you let the parent handle it, I would assume.
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Unless the parent really looks like they're struggling, and you could say, I'm here if you need me.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
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Offer your help and say, I'm here if you need me.
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You know, another thing would be to say, maybe afterward, wow, that looks so hard.
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What is that like for you?
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Parents love to vent.
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They don't want your advice, they just want you to hear them.
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They want you to hear the suffering.
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That's why I say it's so important to listen to what parents have to say and to say, oh gosh, that wow, that meltdown.
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How do you that's so hard to handle?
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What do you do in that situation?
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Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea too.
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I would be more apt to say, you handled that so well.
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Yeah.
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You know, because I feel like anytime you give a compliment, oh, what a great job.
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And I think the compliments should be very specific.
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Like, I really love the way you picked up the baby and soothed her when she was having such a hard time.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Rather than just you did a good job.
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I loved how much love you were able to give that baby.
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That's really important.
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That's really important.
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Observe and and then reflect.
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Right.
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Now, one thing I really want to get into, and you brought this up at the beginning, is the overgiving.
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Every day a package arrives from grandma and grandpa, you show up with all this stuff.
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What's your advice on that?
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That's part of the conversation in the beginning.
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This is what I would say.
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I've heard that a lot of grandparents give the wrong gifts.
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I don't want to be guilty of that.
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What's your thinking on what do you want me to give?
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Experiences or certain kinds of toys or nothing at all?
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Give me a list or tell me what's the best way to give my grandchild presents.
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Yeah, I love that.
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And that's kind of what I've been doing.
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But I'll be in a store and I'll see the cutest little sweater and I'll say, Oh, this would look so cute on him.
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And then I think, well, you know what?
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I don't want it to go to waste.
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Sometimes I'll take a picture and say, Is this something that seems cute to you?
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But yeah, that's good.
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I feel like my hands are tied to have any fun.
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Does that make sense?
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Well, how old is your grandson?
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My grandson's only five months old.
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Okay.
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Yes.
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Fun hasn't even started.
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I know, I know.
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But I just mean one.
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It's the first time I can walk into a baby store for so many years and look at cute things.
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That kind of fun.
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Recently I had a conversation about how would you feel if I got them a good winter snowsuits?