parenting

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2.5 years old child is fine when he is with me but turns into a demon when he is with his mother or grandad (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml to c/parenting@hexbear.net

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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.

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[–] Jabril@hexbear.net 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If it's the grandad's account and not a children's account it's almost guaranteed that they are seeing content that is not age appropriate. Even YT for kids has issues with groomers and such.

Aside from that, screen time for that age in general is setting that kid up to fail. This is the most crucial development period for this persons life and they are being mentally destroyed by screen time. I would say literally any screen time at that age is a mistake, but scrolling short form content is insane. I know many many educators and screen kids are kind of fucked, it's a huge problem.

The grandparent is unfit to watch the kid unless boundaries are imposed and maintained, imo. Not your kid so it probably isn't worth pushing if it won't get anywhere but I would bring it up at least.

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah I only have experience watching after one child (this one) but I have come to strongly believe that kids this young should be kept away from screens (at home) at all costs. This also means not proactively watching something on a screen yourself when the child is around too.

I have hated excessive obsession with TVs and phones long before he was born in part because I hate big tech. And I never let the TV run or use my phone (more than a little bit) when I am looking after him. The problem is that the grandparents love their TV and YouTube because both provide a relentless barrage of fascist demagoguery that both of them love marinating themselves in in all their free time. They probably see their devices as good or neutral and we don't get along well enough that I can change the way they think. The grandpa used to feed the kid when he was much younger. He "needed" to have TV running in the background for watching stock market cable TV channels which he is obsessed with for some reason. (The mother has also asked him to not watch political content in front of the child that he thankfully agreed with.) Fast foward to today and the kid needs to have cartoons on otherwise he won't eat. I ended up setting up a Jellyfin server so that he could watch cartoons like Puffin Rock, Bluey, Sarah & Duck, etc. instead of some crack-cocaine-tier shit like Cocomelon on YouTube that the grandad would have inevitably shown him while being nudged ever so slightly by The Algorithm.

I might be preaching to the choir for the most part but I urge readers to keep children away from screens. I know this is difficult for some people but the best effort should be made. Do not ever let young children (say, younger than 5, but I'm just guessing) operate smartphones. There is absolutely no need for it and absolutely no good comes out of it.

[–] roux@hexbear.net 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 months ago

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.