In an ideal world, grandparents listen to their children and respect their views on raising their grandchildren. But we live in the real world, and here the older generation often “keeps secrets” with the younger. And at best it’s “I’ll give you a chocolate bar, but don’t tell your mom, otherwise she’ll scold” (although that’s not good either). And in the worst case, grandparents drag their grandchildren into personal intrigues, manipulations, etc. Now let's talk about everything in order. What are grandmothers capable of and why are “secrets” dangerous? Let’s start with the latter. Seemingly innocent violations of diet or daily routine are dangerous for at least three reasons: All this undermines the authority of the parent. The grandmother or grandfather instills in the child: “Mom and dad can be deceived, the main thing is not to tell them anything.” The child develops a distorted idea of ​​who can be relied on and who cannot. Does grandma give you unlimited amounts of chocolate? She is good, I will come to her more often. Do your parents limit your sweets intake? They are bad. The child finds himself in a difficult situation, faced with a difficult choice. It will take him time to get used to the idea that his parents can be deceived, and at first it will be very difficult for him to choose between his beloved parents and his beloved grandmother. But in fact, this is what they offer him, giving him something forbidden and seasoning it with the sauce “Just don’t tell mom.” Well, needless to say that some actions of “loving” grandmothers can be dangerous for the child. For example: a child is allergic to a certain product or it is simply poorly digested, causing overexcitation and other problems, and the grandmother gives this product in unlimited quantities. Or the child needs medication for health reasons, but the grandmother skips taking it (“Folk remedies are better, you’ll be stuffing yourself with pills”). Or, on the contrary, it “treats for prevention” a healthy child. A separate “form of art” is traumatic “secrets”. For example: “Mom loves you so much now. It’s even hard to imagine that she wanted to have an abortion. Oh, just don’t tell her that I told you this.” Or initiation into the intimate and personal details of the life of the grandmother or grandfather himself. And also requests to keep silent about situations that are dangerous for the child, for example: “Don’t say that grandpa got drunk today and hit you, otherwise mom will be upset.” Other traumatic situations: “You ask mom to take me to the seaside, just don’t say what did I tell you? And say: “Grandma is so tired, Mommy, take her to the sea””; “Don’t tell your mom that your dad came here today, it will upset her” (situation when the parents are divorced and the man is not allowed to see the child); “Don’t tell your mom that I say that about your dad (she said something unflattering )" and so on. Depending on the "secrets", the consequences for the child can be different, but there are also common for all children who keep small and seemingly harmless secrets or terrible and maximally toxic secrets: feelings of guilt and shame, fear, chronic tension, trust problems, weak internal support. And all this can carry over into adult life, and even with problems stuck on top. Just imagine the choice a child faces: if you tell your parents, you’ll be guilty before your grandmother; if you don’t tell your parents, you’ll be guilty of them. And you constantly think about what to do or not do and what to say or not say in order to keep the secret. Have you noticed how many double messages, that is, contradictory attitudes, there are in this? Do you remember the dangers of educating with double messages? It makes you go into a world of fantasy, and in some cases can cause schizophrenia. Why do grandmothers behave this way? They want to feel important, better, all-knowing and take advantage of the child’s natural weakness. In the case of pronounced toxicity, we can also talk about disorders, about the grandmother’s competition with her children, the desire to harm them, etc. It also happens that toxic grandmothers take it out on their grandchildren, but this is about completely terrible things. If we talk about the common “I pamper💔