worried about grandson’s change of feelings

Well, there you are.

I am not sure why you are worrying - he is 4, and it is not good for him or you that his feelings about you at any particular moment are treated with such importance.

I love all my DGC, but I am quite sure that there are a million things that they would rather be doing at any one time than coming to see their grandparents. Doesn't mean the don't love us - and like getting their birthday presents!

Chill!!

Thanks for the update jo.
Glad everything went well.

That's good news indeed.
See, you were worried over nothing.
We often Skype when one gs visits to talk to and see the other gs who lives in another part of the country .It is fun to watch the little ones aged 4 and 6 show each other cartwheels and football moves then they run off to get a new toy a d bring it to the phone to show their cousin . Sometimes they chat for 20 to 30 minutes and sometimes 30 seconds.

UPDATE. So we went to get our grandson yesterday and thank goodness everything was perfect as always. He jumped on me before I could even get into my wheelchair and hung on to me like a limpet. He wouldn’t actually speak to me for several minutes but he then looked at me and said to me “I lost you grandma” (he says lost when he misses something or can’t see something).

So thank you all so very very much for your replies, we are having a wonderful time with him, our son daughter and daughters in laws.
Thank you again everyone, I’m one very happy grandma xx

I hope the visit is going well and your little grandson is now enjoying the visit!

I find that DD would be doing something else (workwise on the computer) at the same time as skyping!
Now we usually chat on the phone instead - when I hear background noises I know she's cooking at the same time.
Multi-tasking!

We Skype with our grandchildren, although not on a daily basis. Mostly it's a matter of seeing them fleeing around in the background like whirling dervishes and in any case they don't want to see us, they want to see our cats. The record length of time before they asked to see our cats was a whole 66 seconds.

Oh, and one of my sons is terrible with positioning his phone and I've got to know his ceilings intimately over the years!

Nanabilly that's interesting. Although our DGS lives thousands of miles away and DD used to try to get him to interact on Skype, it proved impossible so we didn't persist with it. He always seemed pleased to see us and never seemed to forget us, just taking up where we left off the time before in a matter-of-fact way

sorry Bluebelle

Thanks Nanabilly I have often worried about this, however I have always made it really clear to my son and daughter in law that if he doesn’t want to have his story or speak to me that it really doesn’t matter. After all, if I’m completely honest it’s hard work for me as well!!. It can be difficult to be available for story time every day. I have already said that it is going to have to stop when he starts school in September because he is going to be shattered and with respect, probably fed up with learning new do’s and don’ts.

I think the problem here could be the daily skyping !
This is a true situation that my friend has to contend with regularly but not daily.
I have a very close friend who has a mil who skypes on a very strict schedule and insists on chatting to her 5 year old gs and he hates it . Just before the Skype session he gets grumpy ,he cries, he gets very naughty and then when the skyping begins he goes all silly and refuses to talk to nan. The father , if he is there gets cross with son for not talking to nan (his mother) and it always causes family ructions which of course nan does not know about because son will not tell his mother that her far too regular Skype sessions are unwelcome because they cause too much upset.
The poor 5year old gs has become stressed every day about the Skype he is forced to do with his nan who he really loves but hates skyping with because it's a chore. He does not know what to say ..It's a false situation to a 5 year old.
They should have the courage to tell mother or mil but they have not because ..
1...Nan will be upset
2... Nan will take the hump
3...Nah will wrongly think gs does not like her.

Bluebelle I will definitely join you, it’s so confusing ?
Oldmeg Thank you, I know you are right, I definitely feel better about it this morning. I’m sure tomorrow will be great xx

Yes, children go through phases. Don’t let it worry you unduly. I’ve had times when one of mine didn’t want to visit or stay overnight. Then a couple of week later they are on the phone asking to see us.

I m a great acronym hater so the more people who join me in actually writing the word and leaving off the ridiculous dear and darling the better I will feel

Stella1949, I couldn’t agree more with all the Ds Ddil etc, I much prefer to write the whole word but I was picked up on it by someone a few weeks ago saying it’s much easier to understand!!!. In future I’m going to write the whole word. Thanks very much for your reply, hubby said to me last night to stop worrying because by the time they are due to go home I will be desperate for a little bit of peace

agnurse , I think you are right about the anxiety separation, my daughter in law has said something very similar, she said that come Wednesday morning, she won’t Be able to control his excitement.

Melanieeastanglia, thanks for your reply, I have been thinking about this all night and know I’m over worrying, I need to just enjoy him, after all, I’m very lucky that we have a relationship with all of our children and grandson

By the time I've worked out the meanings of all the acronyms - picking up the DS, the DIL, the DGS from the DD....my head is spinning. Is it so hard to write the actual words ?

Re your grandson, don't worry about it. They are not little adults, they don't punish us . Just roll with the flow, both you and he will be fine. By the time he is 13 he won't want to know you at all, so just enjoy anything you get at the moment.

I suspect his "punishing" you might be due to separation anxiety. This is a very common response to separation in young children.

Being that he's 4 he might not be able to think far enough ahead to understand your coming to see him in a few days. As others have said, it's also possible that there are other things going on for him that are impacting this.

He is only four and children go through phases. He may well be completely different when you see him on Wednesday. I think children tend to live in the present moment. My children certainly did.

Jalima1108 Thank you, maybe punishing is too strong a word to use, children are funny little things aren’t they.
I’m sure all will be fine, and on Wednesday I will be wondering what on earth I was worrying about.

Thanks very much for commenting.

I think I know what you mean by punishing then, now you have explained it a bit more.
When DC2 arrived, DC1 was brought into the maternity home every day to see us but would walk straight past me, speak to the baby then gaze out of the window with her back to me!!

Thank you Bluebelle yes that is exactly right, it is quite a mouthful, I agree it’s using all the acronyms it confuses me writing them all.
You are also right, I do need to stop worrying myself about silly things. I think this is possibly because he is our first grandchild and it’s something that he hasn’t done before, but I really agree with you, I’m sure there will be more storms ahead ?? Thank you very much again, I really do appreciate it.

You haven’t said anything wrong Jo I think maybe there was confusion as they are a lot of relatives to get our heads around in a short paragraph
I think I ve got it your son, daughter in law and grandson are staying with your daughter and her female partner (wife) and you are picking them up to come to your house for a visit
I m afraid I blamed it all on these blxxxy acronyms

I really would stop worrying he will go through many more phases you have to get used to them all he may get moody, cross, defiant, at various times in his life and he won’t necessarily always be the loving little chap he is now you ll have all the angst and broodiness of teens then they up and go without a backward glance If his parents have noticed nothing wrong then relax there is nothing wrong

I wouldn't worry too much at four he can speak quite well and is able to say what he feels, what he doesn't have so much of is the ability to know what effect he will have when he says things. So if he is feeling grumpy he just says so. He will probably be fine when he actually sees you. Small children do get very engrossed sometimes with a particular toy or game so quite probably when you Skype sometimes he is just too busy, he is growing up fast.

Fennel I don’t understand what you mean? Our daughter is married to her long term partner who is our daughter in law, we are very close to both of them and always have been. I don’t understand what I have said wrong, I just said our daughter and her wife, which is exactly who I was on about. We are going on Wednesday to pick up our son, his wife and our grandson from our daughters, because they have been staying there for a few days as they don’t see see them very much either,

SueDonim. Yes we love spending time with Ds and Ddil . I’m sure it is just a phase, and you are right, thinking about it, as parents we do expect our Children just to go along with what we say.
Thank you so much for your comment