My House Rules Are Being Flaunted

I

have many married children, baruch Hashem, and one of my top priorities is maintaining a good relationship with them, supporting them in their decisions and respecting them as parents and as adults. This approach has stood me well for many years, but I’m faced now with a situation that’s rapidly spiraling out of control.

One of my daughters-in-law is a big advocate of gentle parenting. She and my son don’t believe in strong discipline or punishments. In general, they have very few consequences for bad behavior, but instead try to draw the children into discussions and understanding with love.

While I’m not condoning or condemning the approach, I’m having an issue with one of their daughters who’s very belligerent and bullying — toward her own siblings and her cousins. When I’m at their house, it’s hard to see this child act aggressively, often hurting her siblings physically, without any repercussions from her parents.

But the situation gets even harder when this granddaughter is in my home, disregarding my house rules and terrorizing the other visiting cousins. While her parents seem to understand that I need to enforce my house rules, they don’t extend that understanding when I try to place boundaries regarding interactions between this child and her cousins. They insist that I should leave “the chinuch” to them. Yet, how can I, when they aren’t managing to keep the situation under control?