How do you deal with the utter frustration at the way the closest people to your kids relate to them?
Firstly DH, my mum, my aunt, are NOT on a deschooling journey. My family do alot of interrupting, prompting, praising, insincere doting, etc. Dont get me wrong they can be authentic and wonderful, but they do this stuff and argh I have given them articles to read, spoken at length about it, prompted them, but often I make remarks that express frustration and annoyance. I do have times when I just defend their right to undisturbed concentration on something 'meaningless' or defend their right to whinge or cry (could do it to myself a bit more !) but I get sick of them not getting it.

I suppose trying to empower the kids to see through adult stuff is important. Like a friend came around and DS was charming and so hospitable and then the 4 kids all sat down to eat, and my 2 eldest started a screaming game. you know cover your ears and scream as loud as you can. SO my friend says 'DS please dont do that. It is too loud and I don't like it' (ok Im fine with that) ' if you do that I wont come and visit you again' WHAT???
I didnt stand up for him. grrrr. I do but sometimes, like then, I just dont have the strength or words...but later that night I asked him what he thought aboutr her saying that and he said 'she was being mean'...so we talked about the fact it was a threat etc. So I felt like it was a good way to help him deal with adults coercive tricks...

but my family are the people who so kindly give me a break and look after all 3 kids when I am studying and come and support me when DS is having an asthma attack and I cant be home to put the girls to bed cos Im at the hospy, so they are soo loving and giving, they just find it so hard to stop that way of dealing with kids.

What do you do in these kindsa situations, I mean I cant make them change BUT I have a duty to my kids.

that's hard gumtree
I think as long as you keep advocating for your kids most of the time, and parent them authentically, they wont be too damaged by other people's issues. they'll see right through that crap.

thanks for starting this thread, it is something we struggle with too. Listening to responses

Wow, it is tough.
I agree with MF the only thing you can really do is perservere with your ideals and hope that they can cope with others.
I often get shirty at people here not really approaching DD with patience, but then I have trouble with that too! I would maybe suggest just relax and trust your children's intellegence and do what you did anyway, talk to them about what's really going on when people say these sort of things.

i totally get you Gumtree. I am surrounded by so many people who don't think about how they relate to the kids. It is very frustrating. Sometimes I try to explain to them that what they are saying isn't really respectful to the child and sometimes I explain later to the child about the adults behaviour.
I guess if we treat them well then they will have the inner strength to not lt others affect them as much as it might Although maybe I'm just hoping this is the case.

And while we are on the subject....now DS has a very outgoing and confident social manner and strikes up conversations with complete strangers and aquaintances (sometimes I admit about mundane stuff) people will often ignore him completely, or the content of his words and speak over him about the usual patronising kiddie talk rubbish. And dont get me started on restaurants...
I suppose what has been said is basically the Empower of Naomi Aldort's SALVE (which I have been visitin alot lately due to GDDH linking to it, thanks so much)... I avoid certain families/people and just have to work on MY ability to deal with confronting people's disrespect too (but I am a good girl and really don't find it easy to displease people by advocating for my kids at the expense of being an adult cohort in the superiority games they play. I am trying though)
And of course there is always the thing with the rellies and DH where they see you doing parenting less than authenically (well screaming in my case at times ) and then think I am a hypocrite for asking them to be respectful to the kids souls...so not only is there no support for parenting in a way that doesnt come that naurally, I feel like I have to lead by example or no one else can step in an parent for me when i am incapable of doing it respectfully, and they may take it as 'permission' by me to disrespect my kids cos I did it, so I feel so much more pressure to do it right. Sorry for blabbing.

oh gumtree, i know what you mean.
The other day i was trying to talk to dp about respecting the kids and he says "yeah, but you yelled at them yesterday"
Yeah, well I did yell at them but I'm not perfect and at least I try

Oh how i empathise, my children are not allowed to sit on chairs or touch anything at grandma's house "because grandma works hard to buy nice things for her house and those are the rules." So we have not gone back for a visit and that last visit was 3 weeks ago now.

It must be hard when your partner and co parent see you respond like that and see it as permission for not trying to parent with respect and in partnership. Instead of empathising and initiating a convo about what triggered your response and being there for you. I think that spending as much time with other like minded families would be a great thing. Also to see that we other mamas are human and we also have our moments of not so great parenting and that is OK.

I agree. Its good if you can talk to your kids liked you did and so they can understand to some small degree why people act the way they do.