When Going to Grandma and Grandpa's House Unravels Everything: how to help your kid bounce back after time away

In today's episode, I welcome you into my real-time coaching session with a mom of a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old. This mom came home from her first week-long getaway with her husband only to be met with tantrums, sass, and a son who seemed to forget every rule he ever knew. Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each others' experiences and receive practical, high-structure, high-nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home. If you've ever returned home from a trip feeling like your vacation created more problems than it solved, this episode is for you.

But recently my husband and I went on a, a week-long vacation, just the two of us. Um, the kids, our kids, we have a 7-year-old daughter. And an almost 4-year-old son. They stayed back home with my in-laws, so their grandparents, and they continued their normal routine at our house, did everything as if typical for like school and daycare. This is the first time we've left for that long, uh, without them. We've been away from our daughter when she was younger for a few days, that's usually max. This is the first time we've left our son for this long. So I kind of expected there to be some, you know, post-vacation issues, like, you know, concerns after the fact. I had a good feeling that was going to happen, but I guess I didn't really expect it to be as hard as it was, especially with our 4— almost 4-year-old. He, he really kind of took a hard turn from what he, I would say, is typical of him. Our 7-year-old daughter, she She usually reacts to like hard situations or upsetting situations almost like in a sassy way, like she's giving you sass. And she was like that. We came back on a Friday. She had that type of behavior Saturday and Sunday. I finally had like a, you know, a sit-down talk with her on Sunday and she kind of gave me some information. I wouldn't say it was unloading a whole lot, but, you know, said it was different with Grandma and Grandpa here. You know, they're older. So in her words, she said they were lazy, but they were probably just tired, um, and she missed us. Uh, whereas our 4-year-old, he— it's like he forgot everything. Um, we went to the park one day, just me and him, on, uh, Monday, and, you know, give them the rules up front, like, hey, if— when the timer goes off, it's time to leave. Um, if you want to— you know, if you leave on time, we'll come back again on Friday. And he repeated it back to me, like everything. And he did not follow any of those rules. He tried running away from me. Anytime he was told no or like— and we don't say like just like no, you know, if he asks for something or it doesn't— it's not in line with what we're supposed to be doing, we will let him know in a kind way, not right now or no. And he was throwing himself on the floor, fake crying. I guess I'm curious, like, how, how to handle that next time, because, you know, I'm sure there'll be a next time. How could we better prepare them, or upfront, or even afterwards? Like, even with the grandparents, it's just so tricky. So I feel like the, the whole situation was kind of tricky, and how do we prepare or talk to everybody in the future, I suppose?

Thank you.

That was really helpful. And I hear what you're saying. You went on this lovely vacation and then you came back and you were like, was that vacation even worth it?

Yeah, absolutely. I almost said, I was like, a week is too much. I feel like at this point.

Yeah. And it certainly sounds like it makes sense why it would feel that way as opposed to you came back and everything was still running like the well-oiled machine that you've created, right? Exactly. Oh, we could do this again and again and again. So before we dive into the practical stuff of, you know, What can we do to prepare everybody differently for next time? And also what can we do today to make things a little bit easier to get back on track? I'm just curious, like, if you can tell me in just a few sentences, what, what do you think it is? Because moms know best, right? Dads know best. You know your kids. What is it? Is it that the structure goes out the window? Tell me what's on your mind.

I definitely think it's routine. Uh, they both do really good with with the routine, like knowing, and we're like very specific with routine. So I would say that, and also Grandma and Grandpa, I think, give them a little bit, they give them more leeway, you know. If they say, "Please, please," you know, they beg, they'll be like, "Okay, fine." Like that. I think it's just being with grandparents and getting what they want for a week. And then obviously the lack of routine and, you know, missing us. I know they both missed us and they told us that they cried a few times. So that's, that's what I'm gathering. That's what my guess is.

Yeah. So it's kind of like this unraveling from being thrown in totally different environments and then being expected to just adjust, right? It's almost like your first day back to work. After a really long vacation where you're just like, oh my gosh, I got to get my mind back into this. Where, right, for an adult it would take probably a couple hours. A kid, it could take days, weeks, right? It's like, oh my gosh, I gotta get back to this. My whole equilibrium, my whole system was thrown off balance. So it sounds to me that that's kind of what it is based on your description. It doesn't sound to me like there's anything alarming that needs to be discussed or talked about with the grandparents specifically? Because when you tell me, you know, I want to know what I could do for everybody before the next time this happens, I'm just curious if there's anything, you know, deep down that would be like, this kind of warrants a conversation with grandparents as well, where maybe they're undermining you or something you specifically asked them to do and they're not doing it. Is there anything like that where you feel disrespected or like you're totally not being heard?

Uh, not necessarily. I mean, I, I think that we give there's so much to a whole week with both of them, and we know we detailed literally every single thing for them. I think in general, whenever I give them our like rules or how things work, usually the response I get is, "We've had kids before, we know how it goes." So that's kind of the overall of usually how I get. They're like, "We'll survive." So That kind of bothers me, but also I'm like, you kept my kids alive. Like, that was the goal, you know? So I don't push too hard on like, you have to do it this specific way. I do as much as I can upfront, and I think they do veer a bit, um, which is understandable. I don't expect them to do it exactly the way we do. But no, nothing alarming. It's more of just they're probably trying to do what's going to be easiest for them, which I understand. They're a lot older, so, but nothing alarming though.

Okay, that leads into my next question of, did they have a hard time with your kids in any moments?

No, I even specifically asked them. They said no, they were great.

That's great, because I just want to check that out of the way too, because, you know, typically it's like, they're giving me a hard time with this. Well, maybe we need to give Grandma and Grandpa some tools. But it sounds to me like you have a very respectful relationship. It sounds like you respect what they're doing. You're very emotionally mature. I could tell just in the way that you're talking about it. You're like, they're helping me.

Right.

Doing anything to harm my kids. They're not doing anything that's really detrimental. It's just what you're facing right now. Yeah. It's totally like a your family thing where you're like, I want to know how to lead them through this. So thank you for clearing that up. That was very—

sure. Mm-hmm. For sure.

Let's dive into what's actually happening. So you got some information from your 7-year-old, right? You have a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old. So you got some information from her about what's been going on with her behavior and why it's been so difficult. And what did she share with you?

I asked her if there was anything that was like, you know, anything happened. Is anything bothering you? Were you upset about like the fact that things were different? And she said no, everything was good. She mostly just mentioned that she said they were lazy. And, you know, I just— in her mind, she probably thought that, but I'm guessing they were just tired. So I'm sure they usually were out with them a lot. We go outside and we play. We're very— interactive with them. We usually do like the 10 Minute Miracle, the quiet time with each of them at night. And she said they didn't really do that, they did it more of like a combined thing. So that was different. And I know they both cherish that specifically. Um, so I think it's— it was just more of a— things were a little bit different. But that's all that she gave me. She's like, everything's fine other than that.

So yeah, and it's helpful, right? You're just hearing what she's feeling inside and you're like, okay, makes sense. The way I see it is that Even though your trip was great and for the most part everything went great, well, I, I'm sure you enjoyed your trip and your kids were doing fine at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was what I like to call like the point of rupture, right? It's the thing that drew the line in the ground and cracked it in half. And so what's happening is that you're getting these big behaviors now because there's an adjustment period and something going on where your kids are just feeling maybe a little emotionally disconnected. They're feeling the physical adjustment of now we're doing all these things and we're back into the routine. And I missed a lot of one-on-one time with mom and dad. The big thing that's underlying all of this is that this is just a period of them needing reconnection, right? They haven't regressed. They just need to reconnect with you. They know all the things, even though it feels like they forgot all the things.

They're there.

They just need to reconnect. So how do we actually do that? Well, we're going to look at it through a lens, as always, of structure and nurture, and then we'll talk about some prep stuff for next time. So when we go into the structure part of things, the best thing that you can possibly do right now is don't soften your limits. And it sounds to me like you're not, right? The playground time is still over. And when I say it's time to go, it's time to go. Even if there's a tantrum or big feelings or a big meltdown, it doesn't matter. You have to keep strong in your firmness and your kindness and show you can be upset. I am not changing my answer. I am right here. And the reason I say that first and foremost is because this really pulls on our heartstrings when our kids are battling with something and you know it's not them and you're like, oh my gosh, something's wrong. Sometimes, and I don't know if this is true for you, you can share after I finish the sentence, but Sometimes we overindulge and we give so much attention, like, hey, sit with me. I want to talk about what's going on. Let's— I know something's different with you. Is something bothering you? And we pry and we dig and we pry and we dig. And our kids start registering this as attention, whether it's good or bad. They're like, ooh, this is a new way to get mom's connection and attention. So I'm going to keep this going. So unknowingly, right? And certainly unintentionally, we can be perpetuating this ongoing adjustment period. So I'm curious to know how that feels to hear and if you think there's maybe any of that going on.

Uh, yeah, I mean, definitely. I think with— at the beginning, like when we first got back, I would say that that definitely was happening. I mean, for me specifically. I mean, my husband, I would say he's, he's more of like go with the flow, and I was definitely more of like, is Is there something going on? Like, especially with our 4-year-old, like, are you, are you mad? Is there something happening? And, you know, he's 4, he's like, no, it's like, I'm okay. Like, he's not there yet. Where is our— I did the same thing with our 7-year-old, maybe a little bit less because she's more vocal. But, um, yes, I do think at the beginning of us returning that I probably was doing a little bit too much, but not as much right now. We've been home for a week and a half, so— but yes, at first, probably.

Okay. Yeah. And that's helpful because that's human, right? That's like very human of you to be like, oh my gosh, I need to figure out if something's wrong with my kids first. And sometimes we don't realize in the way that we're approaching them or the energy we're giving off is that we're making this last. So the thing, the reason I mentioned that is just to stay firm, to stay rooted in your structure and to try not to overindulge in those moments where you feel you're getting that from them in the moments where they're tantruming or having these meltdowns where you're like, who is that kid? Just remember to stay quiet and stay present. We don't want to feed moments like that with words. We want to just feed moments like that with our presence and say, I'll wait until I see that your ears are ready to listen. I'll be right here, and then we can chat. But they know that this isn't gonna work, quote unquote work, right, to get me attention from mom. And then just a little bit into the deep dive for, you know, from a social-emotional perspective, from a nervous system perspective, did you carry any sort of guilt from leaving your children? I know you haven't done this really often. So I'm wondering, you know, was there something playing there too of like, my kids are so upset, I'm a terrible mom, I left for a whole week, I feel awful, I ruined everything. Was there that?

Absolutely. I mean, there's no doubt. I, I didn't— I wanted to go, but I didn't want to leave them that long. So I tried my best to not express that to either of them before we left. I let them know that I was going to miss them and we talked to them a lot throughout the trip. But yeah, I would say afterwards, I— after it was happening, I was like, we shouldn't have gone for a week. Like, I, I still feel like it was too long. Um, so I do think that played a little bit of a role in it for sure.

Yeah, I appreciate your transparency because it's just— it makes so much sense. It's like, of course you felt that way.

You—

these are normal feelings. And then when we see our kids not themselves, we always look for the reason, right? Like, let's find the reason. Why are they like this? Oh, if I wouldn't have done this, this— they wouldn't be in this boat right now. We wouldn't be here right now. They would have been right. And I need to leave them for less time. And that is just so authentic of you to have those thoughts and reflective of you and aware of you. And the reason I bring it to the spotlight is because this is not your fault. This is nervous system science. This is just what happens. And the beautiful thing is that in life, they are going to experience other ruptures. And why we're here today is because you want to have practical skills to prepare them for it. So what we're going to do now is look forward, but I think it's important to kind of acknowledge that too.

Right?

That's a really human part of this whole thing.

For sure.

So now, in terms of the nurture piece, during the tantrums, quiet, right? Don't feed with attention, don't feed with words. Just wash your hands, stay nearby, fold a blanket, don't leave the room that they're in, but tell them that you're ready when they're ready to talk. Let them recognize mom's not going anywhere. However, she is only going to pour into me when I am showing my listening ears, when I am more regulated. And we'll slowly start to reshape those habits if we've created any and start to get them back on track out of this tough transition period. So we want to try and find as many moments as we can of them acting the right ways and really, really productive ways and really helpful ways and kind ways and regulated ways, we want to pour ourselves into them when they are that. And we want to minimize ourselves a little bit in the room, get small when they aren't.

We try very hard at doing that all the time. Obviously, I feel like sometimes we veer from that. I actually have a question about that because that's one of the things we've been struggling with since being back is With our 4-year-old, we see the same thing. Like, we're here, we're quiet, and I usually let him know, hey, when your body is quiet— because he's still trying to understand, like, what regulating mean. Every time I say regulate, I don't know if he fully registers what that means. But when your body is quiet and calm, then we'll move forward, we'll keep talking, and he will reel it in. He will calm himself. And then when he says, "Mom, I'm ready," I will say, "Okay," and I will say something to him, and then he will start all over again. Or if I don't interact with him, he's like, he feels like I'm ignoring him. And so like, in those moments, I'm like, do I just still keep being quiet? Like, I don't know at what point do I just, just stay there. Do I ever say like, "Hey, I'm here," because I'll do that sometimes, but is that still engaging? Like, "Hey," Buddy, I'm still here when your body is quiet. Is that still okay to engage like that, or do you just stop saying anything?

Yeah, that's a great question. So remember, we don't want to remove the humanness and the love from these moments. We just want to show our kids that when your body is like that, it's not a productive time to have a conversation or move forward. What I mean by that is they can't get what they want as a result of acting that way. So I'll wait until you're calm and then we can talk about going to ride our bike, or then we can talk about going outside or whatever caused the breakdown in the first place. Or when you're calm, then we could talk about maybe staying at the playground an extra 2 minutes, but I can't help you unless I can hear you asking for that nicely. And when you're like this, I can't hear you asking anything. So kind of like that kind of energy that you want to bring to the table. It is totally fine to sit on the floor and open your arms really big and be extremely quiet and rock your child until they— their body calms down. Our kids need co-regulation. That is not, you know, moving the moment along. That's just being there as a calm presence. And the reason I say that strategy is because your son is 4. Under the age of 5, our kids need a totally different approach as kids that are over the age of 5. Under the age of 5, our kids, they just need positivity and love and moving forward and redirection. Positivity, love, redirection. Positivity, love, redirection. Just over and over again. So no matter what, even if they're pushing all the buttons, they're doing what they know they shouldn't be, it's just, "Ooh, I'm here if you need me. I'll wait." Sometimes, and this works really great for 4-year-olds, as they're in their moment of dysregulation, if you sit near them or you open your arms up for a hug and you say, "I'll wait until your body's calmer." And then you can always leave them on a cliffhanger and say something very neutral and quick, like, I have something to tell you that I think you're going to love, and just quiet down and wait, right? And you're gonna see really quickly that if their body is actually really stuck in this feeling, they will mute out what you just said. They won't even hear you. But if their body is kind of like doing this for attention or trying to get extra stuff out of you, they're gonna be like, oh, mom just said she has something really cool to tell me, I'm gonna stop. Stop. I gotta listen to this. And then we're gonna know if the tantrum is true, true dysregulation, where it's something that is out of their control and they need your closeness and your body and your rocking to help them, or if it's just they don't know what else to do. That'll kind of help us decipher in those moments what is actually going on.

That definitely helps. Thank you.

So when you are going away next time, even— I wouldn't even wait for a big vacation. I would wait for, like, even if you're leaving them with Grandma and Grandpa for the We wanna be able to like prep them for these moments as often as they come up so they can recognize them, become aware of them, and move through them with, you know, resilience. So when you're actually faced with these moments, days ahead of the trip, discuss it, show them a calendar. That's not rubbing it in their face like, ooh, we're leaving for vacation and you're not coming. That's like helping them be aware, take the emotions out of it. In 5 days, Mommy and Daddy will be leaving and you will be with dinner, you know, and have one of them cross off a day every day of the week. That way, if feelings do come up, you can address them beforehand. And you can say things like, we will be away. You might feel like you miss us, and I might feel like I miss you. So I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do while I'm gone. I have a picture of you on my phone that I always look at, and I love looking at it. It makes me smile, and I love having it close to me. So that I always feel like you're nearby. Now, is there something that you have that you can look at while I'm gone or sleep with while you're in bed that will make you feel like I'm close? And in those moments, they start to realize you're normalizing that it's okay to be sad. It's okay to say this is going to be fun. And at the same time, this can also be hard. So we're kind of just getting it all out there. Another thing you might want to do is go through the exact specifics with them about what is different about Grandma and Grandpa's routine and what is different about home routine. Because like you said at the beginning of this call, you're not going to be able to change them or what they do, but what we can do is prepare our kids for it. Just like when we're going into school and we're like, you need to make sure that you're listening to the teacher and you're quiet and you're following the rules and playing nicely with others, the same thing goes for Grandma and Grandpa's house. In Grandma and Grandpa's house, they might wanna sit more than Mommy and Daddy, and that's okay. They might just want to watch you more than instead of being involved in your game, and so that's okay. What are some things that we can come up with that you and Brother can play together without adults? Let's make a list of 3 things. And so what you're actually doing is you're preparing them for the routine. You're not trying to change it. You're not trying to make it seem like it's a terrible thing. Like, oh, I know it's not that fun there. Something that flagged my interest was when your daughter said it's lazy, they're lazy, right? And so that's telling you something. And that's a perfect point to address with her. Maybe we don't want to call people lazy. Maybe they just have a different way of wanting to be involved, and this is how they choose to be involved, and this is how we choose to be involved, and it's different, and it's okay to like one more than the other, but it's different. And kind of getting the language down for her to recognize that, okay, my mom gets it. Because more than anything in our job as parents is that we don't need to fix these things. We just need to show our kids that we get it We get it, we understand, and we know it better than anybody else, so they could come to us and talk about it at any time.

I think that's really good. I, I tried to communicate with them beforehand, but it wasn't necessarily about like, oh yeah, it will be different. Um, I was more worried about making sure that the grandparents knew how to do things and when to do things, and I think that we probably spent more time communicating with them about everything instead of properly or extensively communicating with the kids about, yes, it might be different. Like you said, it's okay. We've like, we've even been there before. We've spent time with grandparents in the past and for weeks. So yeah, I think we need to do better about that next time. And yeah, shorter stays even, because it can get, it can get kind of wild after even Grandma and Grandpa being there for a day or a weekend. So yeah, I think we need to work more on that, but I definitely think it would help them for what to expect when we're gone. So I think that works really good.

I really appreciate you saying that, that you prepared the grandparents more than you prepared your kids, because I think so many of us fall into that boat, right, of like, make sure you do this with my kid and make sure you know what she needs and make sure— and then we're like, oh my gosh, I never equipped my child with what to expect or what to say when. And so many of those little tools that we give them, they feel so confident, right? Going into it, they're like, my mom prepared me for this. And they kind of gain that little suit of armor when we do that for them. And I think it goes a really long way, but baby steps, right? Little short moments with grandma and grandpa will lead up and build to bigger moments like this so that it will help ease those transitions that are inevitable, that are going to continue to happen for the rest of their lives.

Absolutely. For sure. I think you pretty much nailed it on the head. I appreciate that. Just knowing what to do better next time, I think will greatly help us for our future nights out or vacation. So I really appreciate that.

As we wrap up, remember this: your child hasn't regressed and you didn't ruin anything. What you're seeing after time away isn't a setback. It's a child trying to find their way back to connection, and routine with you. The big behaviors, the meltdowns, the clinginess, those are just the only language they have right now to say, "I missed you and my whole world felt different." Your job isn't to fix it fast. It's to stay steady, warm, and let them find their footing again because they will. Thank you for joining me in the Parent Coaching Chair. Keep leading your home with high structure and high nurture. And I'll meet you back here next week. Please know that your experience here matters to me. Your ratings and reviews help this podcast reach more parents who need this message. If this episode helped you, please leave a rating or review, and please follow my show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps. If you're looking for more support, you'll find classes and practical guides over at my website, website, www.transformingparenthood.com. And podcast listeners can use the code PODCAST15 at checkout for 15% off my Mastering High Structure, High Nurture course, my signature systematic approach to raising cooperative and emotionally skilled kids.