Talking to older children about gaslighting - VLC

[wesorya]

My kids and I have extremely minimal contact with my uNPD Mum, enDad, and BPDsis, but the recent run of birthdays has resulted in birthday cards, which contain gaslighting/covert manipulative messages in them. They are subtle enough, and parents are disordered enough that I know there is absolutely no point addressing it with parents, but I would like to have some kind of a, not too heavy chat with my older two kids (12 and 14). Perhaps along the lines of people being able to make choices/communicate directly? I'm wary of overstepping the line and not making it about "Grandma/Grandad *should* have said/done xyz". In the past, before finding this site, when things were very difficult with them, I had told some anecdotes of things my parents had done when I was younger that upset me/humiliated me/hurt me.
I think the kids sense that it's a sore spot, as they don't ask much about what's going on.
The gist of what was written in the birthday cards was: we love and miss you so much, how quickly time has passed, we are always thinking of you, we wish we knew you better but the last two years have been so difficult.
Messages written by uNMum, who has not made any attempts at contact with any of us for over 8 months. The last time we were meant to see them was Easter Sunday, but the lunch was cancelled because my GC sister decided not to go, after I discussed with her my discomfort that in addition to not asking about or discussing my separation and divorce, which she responded to by saying that she felt that anything that occurred in my marriage was none of her business.
Apparently in her mind, that meant that she did not need to provide me any emotional or practical support, despite the fact that I'm her sister, and my ex was an alcoholic, there was a restraining order in place against him, and I had 100% care of a 3, 10 and 12 yr old during a pandemic, and even though I had provided emotional support to her when she had confided in me several years earlier when she was distraught about her husband exploring adult sites.

Anyway...tips about big picture discussion of unhealthy behaviours/healthy behaviours that could be used in their place?
The insinuation is clearly that there are good reasons why they haven't made contact with the kids, ie. it's my fault because I've made it difficult/made her feel unwelcome/she is busy being such a good person (paraphrased actual reasons given).

[hhaw]

I've had good luck asking my children what they think about a particular topic, person, etc.

Sometimes they're way ahead of where I thought they were in figuring difficult people out.  Truly, kids pick up on things even when we aren't aware thyr'e doing it, IME. 

Listening, validating their feelings, explaining good, better,best choices.... happy choices vs sad choices.....asking them what choices they would make in a similar situation WHILE DROPPING  all expectation. 

Just listening to what they have to say.... without waiting to speak again.  I have to make a definitive shift into BEING very curious, bc I noticed I have a pattern of jumping in to save/fix and mitigate suffering. It's one of my coping strategies and their stuff rubs up against my stuff, then I'm reacting and lose focus on what my intentions were..... to connect and attune with my children so we both understand more.

  To attune, to validate.....means I have pay attention to what I'm feeling/doing, kwim?  I have to find the edges of my own boundaries and get very still and curious about what the other person is going to say.

Accepting other people will suffer.......and I can't fix it....... is a lesson for me.

Accepting their feeligns around it....just as they are.... is a lesson for me.

Validating their feelings, helping them explore them, instead of shifting into fixer/teacher mode.... is a lesson for me.

My relaionship with my grown children improves when I put appropriate boundaries in place and I'm still learning what they are and how to do that.  I 'm more aware of my patterns and what shifts me into survival mode/reactivity.... I'm better prepared to avoid reactivity..... still practicing though.

So...without judgment of your mother.... who I invite you to always speak about with compassion.....  ask your kids for their POV. Validate.  Answer their questions while resisting defensiveness, if you can.  It's difficult, IME.  I try to remember I'm modeling how to handle difficult emotions for my children.  How to teach non judgmental, compassionate exploration of difficult to understand people and situations while encouraging acceptance of things we can't change.  Sometimes things will never make sense and get to make friends with that.  I don't have to figure everything out or understand they WHY of it.

Esp if they miss their Grandparents and that connection..... helping them understand seems very wise.

what a good parent you are to think about helping them understand, even though it's painful for you.

Finding a way to remain calm helps you be responsive..... able to respond to your children, IME.

That's a super thing to model for children.

[Cat of the Canals]

Listening, validating their feelings, explaining good, better,best choices.... happy choices vs sad choices.....asking them what choices they would make in a similar situation WHILE DROPPING  all expectation. 

Just listening to what they have to say.... without waiting to speak again.  I have to make a definitive shift into BEING very curious, bc I noticed I have a pattern of jumping in to save/fix and mitigate suffering. It's one of my coping strategies and their stuff rubs up against my stuff, then I'm reacting and lose focus on what my intentions were..... to connect and attune with my children so we both understand more.

  To attune, to validate.....means I have pay attention to what I'm feeling/doing, kwim?  I have to find the edges of my own boundaries and get very still and curious about what the other person is going to say.

Accepting other people will suffer.......and I can't fix it....... is a lesson for me.

Accepting their feeligns around it....just as they are.... is a lesson for me.

Validating their feelings, helping them explore them, instead of shifting into fixer/teacher mode.... is a lesson for me.

I love this. Thank you for sharing it.

[hhaw]

 

[wesorya]

Thank you hhaw - very insightful and helpful and true for me also. So much we can learn on this parenting journey <3

I actually overheard just a little snippet of conversation from my 12yo yesterday facetiming with a friend. She was saying something along the lines of: my grandma isn't that nice, but she wants me to like her, so she gives me things (I think most likely in reference to $50 cash given for birthday very recently. They sure do pick up on things, don't they!

They fortunately don't really miss a connection with their grandparents, as there never really was one. My daughter was the only one to have something approaching a relationship with my mother, as she was being groomed as a GC. I had a few conversations with her about why grandma only spent time with her, and how she thought her brothers might feel about the fact that grandma chose not to spend time with/talk to/have a relationship with them. Having seen the damage wreaked on my entire family by this type of behaviour, I wasn't willing to risk having my daughter influenced by it without my presence. Refusing to give nMum one-on-one access to my daughter is what has set off a massive chain of nastiness.

Just reading through those points that you made about your lessons and they really ring so true. Going into fix-it mode is one of my big lessons also, and being able to sit with my difficult feelings, and the difficult feelings of others. I'm going to write myself a few dot points as reminders for the next time I chat to them

Thanks so much for sharing, and for your kind words. It means so much xx

[hhaw]

You're welcome, wesayro:

Kids are perceptive, aren't they?

When my oldest DD was about 7 or 8 I saw her reading visitation e mails on my computer.  She wanted to know the truth...and she sought it out for herself, bc there was so much chaos, lying and gaslighting going on during visits with paternal side of her family.

I applaud you for refusing unsupervised visits between your mother and DD.

It doesn't take much for a toxic person's whispers and lies to do a lot of harm to a child....behind closed doors.  In private.   IME, all visitation, if there's going to be any, should always be supervised.

My children are grown now, but the damage my MIL did, in a very short amount of time, still echoes and bangs around in our our lives. 

I wouldn't allow a moment's unsupervised visitation if I could go back and change it.