Oops

You are missing my point - I did keep them apart and made plans to do
So. But my sil allowed them
In the locked room with them and allowed them to go outside and chase and catch them round the garden. Am
I not allowed to
Say no this behavior?

The children are the parents responsibility

The dogs are yours

The dogs and the children are not to blame here

You are all adults, communicate and come to a better arrabgement between yourselves

What do you mean “ wanted to know what’s the rules as in disciplining grandchildren and putting foots down with them and somehow I ended up with my grandchild is a brat and my son in law saw my google search it”
You Googled ?
You’ve had children you’ve got grandchildren, whatever happened to common sense and life experience?
Dogs and toddlers should be kept apart on visits - safety gate or closed door for everybody’s safety. Yes children need to learn how to behave around dogs but unless they are used to each other, discretion is essential. 100%supervision may be enough with a staid, calm “bombproof” dog and an older child who leaves the dog alone, but I would never ever take risks.
And I don’t need to Google some imagined rules!

Exactly - I make arrangements to let the dogs sleep in a locked room
And go outside when my grandsons where inside. But my sil allowed them on the sleeping room and then chase them around the garden! I said constantly be careful but he thought it was fun! It was very stressful

Next time they come you say - very clearly - that you wish to keep the children and dogs apart and you have put them in a safe room and the children are not allowed in there. End of.

It is not about brats or faulty discipline; it is about these children being failed by the adults around them.

The children do not need the discipline - the adults do.

Yes my ‘common sense’ told me this but my sil saw no problem with letting the boys into their locked room and chase them around the garden. I just wanted thé visit to go well and didn’t want to have to be strict but I was so worried

Yes this!

Your daughter and son in law, might be thinking right now "why is she calling our children brats and googling how to discipline them?"

They cpuld be feeling like you don't like your grandchildren. You really need to fix that ASAP and communicate your boundaries with your dogs for the future.

If they can't respect them they can't stay. Or the dogs and the children are in a dangerous situation

I know / and I adore them I just got in a pickle of standing up to my sil and tell him to be careful around the dogs. I didn’t let them near the grandsons but he thought nothing of letting the boys near them 😳

A conversation explaining that you don't want your dog to snap at the children shouldn't be a problem, surely

Your grandsons are very little and it is up to the adults to keep them safe.
You also mention log burners and roads.
We have a log burner but would never have it burning when our little grandsons are here.
You also mention a busy road, you can't rely on teaching a 2 & 4 year old not to go on the road - you have to ensure they can't go anywhere near the road.
Same applies to dogs - keep dogs and children separate.
By all means start teaching them about the dangers, but don't expose them to those dangers, they are just too little.

Whoever is in the right or wrong, no matter that you consider your dogs to be gentle and harmless, the fact is that these children, your grandchildren, were put in danger.
I don’t think you should consider another visit until you have taken some practical steps to keep your dogs completely away from the children.
It’s a totally different scenario from the wood burner, it’s not going to leap up and burn them is it?

Well Adgm I still don’t think you get it
The dogs are your responsibility
The children are the parents responsibility
If you feel the son in law is being silly or irresponsible you tell HIM not the grandchildren that the dogs are not to be let outside and put the dogs in another room with door shut tight

Probably best to have the dogs away for a week while the children are with you, as it appears they don’t mix The children haven’t been brought up with dogs and don’t know how to behave around them, and the parents (neither of them) seem able to teach them, so best to remove the temptation for everyone’s sake.
You can’t be on both sides the dogs and the boys you need to concentrate on one or the other for this very short period of a week
Boys of 2 and 4, in a strange settings will be all over the place excited and probably a lot more of a handful than when there are in their routine at home.
They are not brats they don’t need you to discipline them they need temptation out of their way put your best glass vases out of reach when toddlers are arriving…. do the same with your dogs

It seems to me that the sil is the brat who needs to be disciplined.

Adgm

Yes my ‘common sense’ told me this but my sil saw no problem with letting the boys into their locked room and chase them around the garden. I just wanted thé visit to go well and didn’t want to have to be strict but I was so worried

I would have been worried too if I'd arranged separate spaces for the children and dogs and then the children's father had been so reckless. I think the "out of control" people here were the children's parents!

It may have been your son-in-law who was letting out the dogs/letting in the boys but why wasn't your daughter also anxious about this stupid behaviour? She should have put a stop to it even if he "thought it was fun" and you couldn't stop it.

I can see your predicament and think perhaps some comments above haven't fully understood that you have already taken steps to keep your pets and grandchildren apart.

I'd say that any future visit you should do as others say and insist that the animals and children are kept apart and that the parents police this.
I would have a heart-to-heart with your daughter ans stress how anxious you were for both your grandchildren and your dogs.
Good luck.

You are irritated because you try to keep the dogs separate to avoid problems. Some how the children are left to chase the dogs when the opportunity arises. It sounds like the sil is provoking the situation to wind you up there needs to be a conversation with him and your daughter.

Hello Adgm. It appears from your posts that it's your s.i.l. whose the problem here, and possibly your D too if she says nothing when he's letting the children into a room where you've put your dogs, and does nothing when the children are chasing them around the garden etc.

I think Redhead's right that your s.i.l. is provoking this situation to wind you up and if he is, he needs to grow up and take his parental responsibilities seriously.

Children need to be taught as early as possible to treat animals with kindness and this doesn't seem to be the case with your GC.

This is your home and for me it has nothing to do with you prioritising your dogs over your GC. You took steps to keep both animals and children safe and this was undermined by your s.i.l.'s juvenile behaviour, which doesn't appear to have been challenged by your D.

A conversation needs to take place before the next visit in which as NotSpaghetti's posted includes you telling them how stressful and anxious you were, trying to keep the children and your dogs safe.

Before the next visit, tell them what arrangements will have been made for example, which room the dogs will be in which the children are not allowed to access. When the dogs are in the garden if the children wont stop chasing them, the children will have to stay indoors. If they pull their fur, ears, tail etc they are to be told firmly to stop.

Of course you love your GC but you love your dogs too and learning how to treat animals with respect and kindness is something all children need to be taught, whether there are pets at home and/or at grandma's or not.

Exactly this - thank you! People need to read posts properly before jumping in. Because my daughter knows the dogs so well she knows they would never do anything without provocation. However watching my sil allow the boys to chase and jump on the dogs was just terrifying for me and he didn’t seem to be able to control the boys to make them stop. Thank you

The only advice I will add is be careful how you start the conversation to avoid any falling out best wishes.

People need to read posts properly before jumping in.

Well - I think people did read your post properly. You did not say - "I am very angry with my SIL that he did not follow the steps I had taken to keep the children safe; perhaps I should have made the rules clearer."

You talked about needing to discipline the grandchildren; about them being brats; about them disrespecting your dogs; about them being allowed to run riot.

WE all responded accordingly.

Well the GC do need to be taught how to behave around and treat animals Luckygirl, treat the OP's dogs with kindness and respect and not be allowed to run riot.

That maybe acceptable to their parents in their own home, but wont necessarily be the case when they're not.

Adgm clearly regrets referring to the children as brats and it's not their fault that they're not being taught how to behave appropriately. The brat in this situation seems to be the s.i.l.

I understand that because your D knows your dogs she trust them Adgm, but being chased and jumped on is behaviour that could provoke a reaction, regardless of how gentle a dog is.

Adgm

My dogs slept in a separate room with a key lock or in the garden. My son in law thought nothing of it to let them in the room and then let them chase them round the garden. I was literally saying all the time let’s leave the dogs aloe but it was a fun game for them and I just do t see what I should have r allowed that! They literally didn’t want any part of it and there was no need to go near them!

So don't let your son in law have a key to the locked room. If the children go into the garden and the dogs are there put the dogs inside.
The dogs and gc HAVE to be kept apart. Yes they have to be taught about how to treat animals and how to keep themselves safe from lots of dangers, but they are just too little to do this for themselves yet.
Where is your daughter in all of this?

Adgm

My dogs slept in a separate room with a key lock or in the garden. My son in law thought nothing of it to let them in the room and then let them chase them round the garden. I was literally saying all the time let’s leave the dogs aloe but it was a fun game for them and I just do t see what I should have r allowed that! They literally didn’t want any part of it and there was no need to go near them!

So you should have said to your SIL "the children cannot do that because ....."" and then detail your concerns re risk to GC if dogs are provoked etc. Frankly the adults in this scenario need to communicate like adults!!!

I also suggest you take the advice that VioketSky gave in her first post upthread!

Your original post OP does put a different slant on things - including your feeling of guilt at referring to the “brats” and googling advice.
You can’t blame people for reacting to that. A locked room should stay precisely that and if you can’t stand up to your SIL in your own house then he is not showing proper manners or respect.
I too wonder where your D was in all this?

My comments above came over more harshly than intended in so far as...

*Yes children do need to be taught about dangers
*Your SIL is a big part of the problem

Which is why clear adult communication about what will and will not happen in your home needs to be had!

Explain the "brat" comment as suggested by others as part of of any discussions. Good luck