Handling Grandparents that Play Favorites

Grandparents playing favorites is an especially hard pill to swallow for parents. The situation is especially hard when it's your own parents that are committing the offense. As children, bonded by trust, we were guided through life by our parents; but as parents ourselves, it is our responsibility to protect our children from harm even if the person harming your child is the same people that made you the person that you are.

Children are highly perceptive. When a child recognizes that their grandparents have a favorite sibling, there can be a sense of rejection and diminished self-worth for the child. You may first try to talk to the grandparents explaining to them that they can have a favorite, but they may not demonstrate favoritism in front of your children. Remember, you can't change how people feel, you can only control much you will allow it to affect your children. Some parents choose to deny the grandparent's access to all of the children if they can't treat them all equally although, in the eyes of the favorite, this is equally unfair.

Your children's exposure to the grandparent's behavior can be kept to a minimum by allowing the grandparents to take the favorite grandchild away from the other sibling(s). Should you allow the favorite child to continue reaping the benefits of their grandparents playing favorites, you should arrange for fun things to do with the other sibling(s) while the favorite is off visiting the grandparents. The grandparents may find that the favorite grandchild will choose to play favorites of their own by wanting to spend time with their parents and other sibling(s), rather than their grandparents. Life often rewards bad behavior in this way.