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Parent Emeritus
How to detach when grandkids are involved.
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 632282" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>I think that instinct is very strong in parents, and perhaps even stronger for a father with a daughter. I understand that. As I've said many times, we have to fight those natural instincts to protect and nurture because we are dealing with a different situation and the old parenting rules don't apply here. That is what is so hard to digest for us, we have to step back, out of the fray and reassess. </p><p></p><p>I don't think it is that either /or,...... help or throw them to the lions, that kind of black and white thinking is what keeps us stuck in the old patterns. What had to happen for me, is I had to begin to understand the grey area in between those thoughts. That is what is the most difficult, to understand that it isn't either support them no matter what or throw them to the wolves, there is an entire very wide opening in the middle of that thinking, and that is what we need to explore. It will put you through a lot of soul searching, as a Dad, as a man, as a parent, but it is well worth the experience to open your mind, just a little bit, to the possibility that a another way does in fact exist. You will free yourself and free your daughter from the tyranny you both presently live within. What you are doing is not healthy for either of you. That is where therapy or counseling comes in, to disrupt that either/or thinking just enough for a new possibility to be born. Otherwise, you can argue for your limitations until the cows come home and nothing will change except your level of bitterness and disappointment, that will get bigger.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 632282, member: 13542"] I think that instinct is very strong in parents, and perhaps even stronger for a father with a daughter. I understand that. As I've said many times, we have to fight those natural instincts to protect and nurture because we are dealing with a different situation and the old parenting rules don't apply here. That is what is so hard to digest for us, we have to step back, out of the fray and reassess. I don't think it is that either /or,...... help or throw them to the lions, that kind of black and white thinking is what keeps us stuck in the old patterns. What had to happen for me, is I had to begin to understand the grey area in between those thoughts. That is what is the most difficult, to understand that it isn't either support them no matter what or throw them to the wolves, there is an entire very wide opening in the middle of that thinking, and that is what we need to explore. It will put you through a lot of soul searching, as a Dad, as a man, as a parent, but it is well worth the experience to open your mind, just a little bit, to the possibility that a another way does in fact exist. You will free yourself and free your daughter from the tyranny you both presently live within. What you are doing is not healthy for either of you. That is where therapy or counseling comes in, to disrupt that either/or thinking just enough for a new possibility to be born. Otherwise, you can argue for your limitations until the cows come home and nothing will change except your level of bitterness and disappointment, that will get bigger. [/QUOTE]
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How to detach when grandkids are involved.
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