Parenting/God-mother

[mandy2]

Hi everyone, my heart is heavy right now, and I’d love help here.
My sister and her daughter (who is my God-daughter) live at home with my family and I. My God-daughter is 2 years old and very intelligent and a joy. I notice that she is usually really good, until my sister comes home. I know this is normal, but I am just wondering if this could have a correlation with their relationship.
My sister works everyday 10:00-6:30. So my niece is only with her in the mornings and nights. My heart is just heavy because all they do is watch t.v. Immediately when my niece wakes up, my sister asks her what she wants to watch. Same thing goes for the nighttime. I honestly wish I saw my sister take more action with her by doing actual things, like reading books or playing…anything.
As a God-mother, I want better for my niece. I want her to learn that there is more to being home than the couch. Even during meals, she wants to sit in front of the t.v. and my sister allows it for every meal.
How can I even approach something like this? How does one do this without making the other person feel like they are being a “bad mom.” Also, she is a single mom.

 

[Gliggle]

From my perspective as a working mother (and I only work part time) I would guess she is probably simply too tired to do more than this. I suggest you be there for your God daughter and do some activities with her yourself if you long this for her. While her mother is working like this, it is too much to expect her to initiate too many activities. Also she may start to join in a bit if she doesn’t have to initiate it. She probably doesn’t have the energy to even think of anything or start anything, but it all becomes easier when more than one is involved. I bet you can really help here! That’s what Aunties are for, for fun

 

[amrin]

Being a single mom can be a hard. She works all day, gets home and probably just wants to rest. Since she lives with you and your family, it’s probably a good opportunity for you to enjoy your God daughter and let your sister rest a bit. They will probably not live with you forever, so play with her, take her to the park, teach her new things, spoil her rotten. Be glad she is there with you at such a cute age! I don’t think watching a bit of tv in the evening with her mom is an awful thing if mom is just tired… I do that with my son as well sometimes.

 

[UbiCaritas]

Being a single mom can be a hard. She works all day, gets home and probably just wants to rest. Since she lives with you and your family, it’s probably a good opportunity for you to enjoy your God daughter and let your sister rest a bit. They will probably not live with you forever, so play with her, take her to the park, teach her new things, spoil her rotten. Be glad she is there with you at such a cute age! I don’t think watching a bit of tv in the evening with her mom is an awful thing if mom is just tired… I do that with my son as well sometimes.

This. Heck, being a mom is hard, especially when the only kid is too young to really have any kind of more adult interaction. DD’s father, my DH, is a wonderful husband and father, but he’s working all day. After a few hours of babywrangling with no adult interaction, I am emotionally and psychologically drained.

Having company, though, makes a HUGE difference! Taking DD to the park by myself can be rather boring, though I’ll do it because she enjoys it. Taking DD to the park with an adult friend or DH? Very fun! We can talk, we can play with DD and both enjoy watching her have fun, and so on.

Why not take your goddaughter to the park some evenings during the week, but also ask her mom if she’d like to come or if she’d like to stay home and get some “me time”? Either option may be very rejuvenating for her, and that, in turn, will help her engage with her daughter more actively because she’ll have more emotional energy to do so.

 

[Gliggle]

There are some really great points here, especially about offering to accompany both of them to the park. It’s so much more fun when my husband joins us for outings! When its’ just my daughter and I (who is also two - tomorrow) it can be very exhausting and a little boring. When you have adult company you get the double benefit of having someone to share your joy with when she does something cute or funny or crazy.

 

[Anglewannabe]

Immediately when my niece wakes up, my sister asks her what she wants to watch. Same thing goes for the nighttime. I honestly wish I saw my sister take more action with her by doing actual things, like reading books or playing…anything. .

You need to give credit where credit is due. Your sister let’s her daughter choose the show. A selfish woman would sit by herself choosing HER shows with no consideration to what the kid wants

Now, if you feel it is too much TV in your home, you are free to make a house rule ‘No eating in front of the TV’. But you can NOT tell your sister what to do with her kid