The kid is looked after mostly his mother > grandad > me (uncle) because the father lives far away due to work. I will have to look after him for a duration of 2 to 8 hours depending on the day.
When I look after him, he seems alright. There are difficulties at time but it is never too bad.
When he is with the other two he turns into a tantrum demon. He likes these two folks more than he does me so maybe he feels safer to be himself around them. Or maybe not. I don't know. With the mother I noticed that the tantrums increase but it is still within the realm of what I think to be normal or acceptable. With the grandad however shit becomes so fucking bad. The grandad has a habit of acquiescing to every demand the kid makes and I feel he has learnt to take advantage of this feature/bug because the kid will start making demands as soon as he sees the grandad. Some things he often asks for:
- playing with the garden hose. He will cry when he is asked/made to come back.
- playing with the tube of moisturiser. The kid likes to eat moisturiser for some reason. He will demand that the grandad give him the tube when it is kept out of reach. He wil cry when the tube is taken away from him.
- this is the worst of all. He wants to watch YouTube Shorts on his grandad's phone. He doesn't ask for anyone else's phone, probably because no one else lets him pilot his phone by himself. When watching the shorts he will swipe up and down like a zombie. The grandad is impressed because he thinks the kid has learnt to operate a smartphone. To me it is a sight that is preposterous and horrifying beyond desription.
I don't want to say too much because I don't get along with the rest of my family and I don't want this to turn into a venting session.
I just want to hear if anyone here has experience with this or something like this.
What is the amount you interact with the kid, compared to the grandparent? I'm recently learning through my wife via still trying to tackle gentle parenting, that often times, kids will act out for attention. If the grandparent is using YouTube as a babysitter and not engaging meaningfully with them, this might be part of the problem.
These days it is about the same but in the first year and the half after he was born, the grandad would look after him in the mornings when the mother was off to work (after the six month maternity leave lapsed).
I think attention is definitely a factor. The grandad has a bad habit of doing stupid shit like reading the newspaper or watching stock market channels on TV when the kid is around. The weird thing though is that the kid has started demanding for phone even when he has the grandad'a undivided attention. It is baffling. I have noticed that the tantrum intensity is correlated with how hungry he is but when he descends into his tantrum it becomes difficult to feed him.