{"id":885682,"date":"2026-09-06T15:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885682\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T15:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:58:09","slug":"parent-advice-my-young-granddaughter-wrote-a-cute-harmless-book-then-she-said-something-that-concerned-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885682\/","title":{"rendered":"Parent advice: My young granddaughter wrote a cute, harmless “book.” Then she said something that concerned me."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care and Feeding?\u00a0Submit it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dear Care and Feeding,<\/p>\n

I am a 68-year-old woman with a close relationship with my granddaughters, \u201cAnisa\u201d and \u201cKarina.\u201d With the start of the school year, I\u2019m now watching them twice a week after school, when my daughter, \u201cMelissa,\u201d has to work late. Anisa (age 8) recently showed me a book she wrote and illustrated herself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s written in crayon on standard printer paper (and very cute). I told her how much I liked it. Then she begged me not to tell her mother about it. I asked her why and didn\u2019t get a real answer\u2014but what I\u2019ve gathered, based on some of her vague responses (and I admit this is just my intuition and may not be true), is that it might have something to do with the portrayal of the main character, who is clearly meant to be Anisa herself: She has the same hair color and length that Anisa does, what she\u2019s wearing is an approximation of one of Anisa\u2019s favorite dresses, and the text mentions similar interests. Even the character\u2019s name is similar to Anisa\u2019s.<\/p>\n

In the story, the girl goes on an adventure to a faraway land and meets a princess. I\u2019m a bit concerned about this. When Karina (who is now 6) was born, Anisa and Karina\u2019s dad abandoned them. This was just before the pandemic, so it was a very stressful time for Melissa. During lockdown in 2020, Melissa confided in me that she was having trouble not taking some of her resentment out on Anisa, who, in appearance, very much takes after her father. But Melissa started seeing a therapist and, within a few months, told me that she no longer felt that way. And she has made a lot of progress where her ex-husband is concerned (it used to be difficult for her to even hear his name, but now she can talk about that era of her life quite easily). She has told me that she no longer thinks about her husband when she looks at Anisa, and from my outside perspective, she seems to love both her kids equally. However, as time passes, Anisa has only gotten to look more and more like her father and has begun to gravitate toward activities and hobbies (soccer, for instance) that her father particularly enjoyed. So I\u2019m still keeping an eye on Anisa and Melissa\u2019s relationship\u2014I can\u2019t help but be wary.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if that backstory is necessary for you to know. The bottom line is that I\u2019m just not sure where the boundary lies here. Do I tell Melissa about the book Anisa wrote, or honor Anisa\u2019s wishes and not tell her? Should I try to find out more about why Anisa doesn\u2019t want me to tell Melissa about her book? Can I do this without prying too much?<\/p>\n

\u2014Should I Keep A Secret from My Daughter?<\/p>\n

Dear Should I,<\/p>\n

I can understand your unease about Anisa\u2019s insistence that you keep the existence of her book a secret from her mother. You absolutely should not set a precedent for secrets between the two of you that are kept from her mom. That\u2019s a shortcut to a damaged relationship with your daughter (or worse).<\/p>\n

I do wonder if there was something about the book itself that alarmed you. Are you afraid Anisa is signaling that she means to run away \u201cto a faraway land\u201d? This seems unlikely to me. Children often place themselves at the center of a made-up story (so do adults, by the way). Was there something else in the contents of Anisa\u2019s (seemingly delightful, charming) \u201cbook\u201d that concerned you? Are you worried about her fantasy of meeting a princess? Or perhaps you\u2019re not worried about the contents of the book, but only that she wants to keep it hidden from her mother.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m going to focus on Anisa\u2019s desire to keep her book a secret. And that\u2019s where the backstory proves helpful. If Anisa still feels on uncertain footing with her mom, despite things between them being so much better now, she may fear her mother\u2019s response to the book she wrote, worried that she\u2019ll be mean, dismissive, or just unenthusiastic. She may be protecting herself in a way that makes complete sense to her. (Children who are mistreated when they are quite young do not just get over it. Many adults suffer decades later from mistreatment that occurred even before they were old enough to consciously remember it!) The route I\u2019d take with your granddaughter would be to ask her, very gently, what she imagines might happen if her mother knew about the story she wrote and illustrated and is so proud of. If she can\u2019t or won\u2019t answer this, I\u2019d take that line of questioning further: \u201cAre you afraid she won\u2019t like it?\u201d or maybe, \u201cAre you worried about what she might say about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

If Anisa is adamant about not answering\u2014and she very well may be (she might not know the answer. Her fear might be inchoate, based on a feeling that is tied to things she can barely remember, or isn\u2019t consciously aware of), I think it\u2019s OK to say, \u201cI won\u2019t tell Mom about your book if you don\u2019t want me to\u201d\u2014because your relationship with Anisa also needs nurturing and protecting\u2014\u201cand if there are other things you want or need to tell me but don\u2019t want me to tell anyone else, I\u2019ll respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please add this, though: \u201cBut I don\u2019t want to make a habit of you and me having secrets from your mom, sweetheart. Because, you know, your mom isn\u2019t just your and Karina\u2019s mom\u2014she\u2019s also my daughter, and I do my best to always be honest with her. That\u2019s the thing about mothers and daughters: They have to be able to trust each other.\u201d This may have the added benefit of opening up a further conversation with Anisa\u2014if not immediately, then later, after she\u2019s had the chance to turn it over in her mind\u2014in which she expresses more of what she\u2019s feeling and thinking about her mom. Perhaps you\u2019ll learn something that will help you navigate this intergenerational set of relationships going forward.<\/p>\n

\n Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don\u2018t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.\n <\/p>\n

Dear Care and Feeding,<\/p>\n

I have a 15-year-old daughter, \u201cNora.\u201d She has very beautiful and long hair, which during puberty turned from vaguely wavy to very thick and curly. Around four years ago, she wanted to cut her hair in a bob, which I obliged. I took her to a salon that assured me that they specialized in curly cuts. However, the stylist bluntly cut across Nora\u2019s wet hair, then straightened her hair (which was a shock to us; Nora had never used heat tools). When straightened, the bob looked sleek and amazing, but as soon as Nora washed her hair, it looked awful. And we are not a heat-tool family\u2014not to mention that she had liked having curly hair.<\/p>\n

She lived with the bad haircut; it eventually grew out. While it was short, she frequently complained that it wasn\u2019t long enough for a French braid, and that it didn\u2019t look good curly. Now that it\u2019s long again, I have been purchasing expensive, fragrance-free curl care products, and she has been receiving dry curl-specific trims from her grandmother, who is an amateur but does a good job. I don\u2019t have curly hair, but I love the way Nora looks with her natural curls. The problem is that Nora now wants to cut her hair again! Even though after the horrible salon experience, she begged me never to let her cut her hair again. She insisted she wanted to keep it super long once it grew back. I don\u2019t know what to do. (There is one organic hair salon in our area, but it doesn\u2019t specialize in curls.) Obviously, I want to support my daughter, but her hair has fully recovered from the bad cut, and it looks so nice. What should I do?<\/p>\n

\u2014Tangled<\/p>\n

Dear Tangled,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s her hair, and she\u2019s a teenager, not a child. What she told you when she was a child is not binding. Though feel free, if you haven\u2019t yet, to remind her of the promise she extracted from you, and tell her how uneasy it makes you to break that promise. Let her give you permission to break it and let you off the hook.<\/p>\n

But as a person with curly hair myself, who has been the recipient of both excellent and terrible haircuts, I sympathize with your plight around salons. (Also with the cost of fragrance-free hair products for curly hair!) It\u2019s worth traveling<\/a> for it if there\u2019s not a salon in your area that specifically designates itself as trained and expert<\/a> in cutting curly hair, which is indeed an art. (Both my curly-haired daughter and I have to travel to get our hair cut!) If there\u2019s nothing in reasonable driving distance, tell Nora that her only options are to take a chance at getting another bad haircut (I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve already reminded her how much she hated the last one) or let Grandma the amateur stylist take a whack at it (at least she knows that curls must be dry-cut!).<\/p>\n

Ever Gotten a Call From Human Resources?<\/p>\n

Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir want to hear about it\u2014and help you navigate your problems at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry?\u00a0Ask us your question here<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Dear Care and Feeding,<\/p>\n

My dad\u2019s idea of humor with kids is to physically tease and roughhouse with them. He\u2019ll try to sneak in a poke or a tickle, reach a hand around to tweak their ear, walk his hand across the table to steal fries off their plate\u2014stuff like that. He\u2019ll do the big scary monster face and lumber around trying to catch them. He\u2019ll pick the little ones up suddenly and threaten something silly, like to body-slam them or drop them in the toilet. My 6-year-old daughter, \u201cJane,\u201d does not find any of this funny AT ALL. She\u2019s never been a kid who likes to wrestle or be chased, and she isn\u2019t ticklish. The result is that she\u2019s started avoiding her grandfather. She won\u2019t sit next to him at the table or on the couch. We\u2019re at the point where she won\u2019t even talk to him. When he approaches, she shouts things like, \u201cDon\u2019t touch me!\u201d or \u201cLeave me alone!\u201d Today she simply left the room when he came in.<\/p>\n

My mother and I have both told my father to lay off the teasing, telling him that Jane doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s funny and that it\u2019s really bothering her, but he just doubles down (even though I can tell that it bothers him that she\u2019s avoiding him). At most, he\u2019ll say, \u201cI\u2019m just playing, all right?\u201d while trying to poke her or pick her up.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all suggested to Dad that he just talk to her instead of being physical, because Jane likes jokes and funny stories, but he hasn\u2019t listened. It\u2019s like he doesn\u2019t know how else to be around little kids. He was exactly the same when I was Jane\u2019s age. He did stop roughhousing with my older children as they got bigger, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair for Jane to have to put up with this for years to come. I want them to have a good relationship. What can I do?<\/p>\n

\u2014Adult Daughter of A Tickle Monster<\/p>\n

Dear Adult,<\/p>\n

Good for Jane! There aren\u2019t many 6-year-olds (there aren\u2019t nearly as many anything-year-olds as I wish there were) who can so unequivocally stand up for themselves.<\/p>\n

I completely understand your desire that your dad and your daughter have a good relationship. He is making that impossible. That you might\u2019ve welcomed his \u201cteasing\u201d in your childhood (you don\u2019t say), that your older children endured it too, does not make what he\u2019s doing now\u2014ignoring your daughter\u2019s refusals and crossing her boundaries\u2014OK.<\/p>\n


\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

My Possessive Stepmom Has Forced My Dad to End Some of His Oldest Friendships. She\u2019s Not Going to Like What I Have Planned.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


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I Went to a Risqu\u00e9 Place With My Husband. What Happened There Has Him Fuming\u2014and Me Confused.
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I\u2019m Figuring Out How to Get My Kids Through the Divorce. But One Part Haunts Me.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My Young Granddaughter Wrote a Cute, Harmless \u201cBook.\u201d Then She Said Something That Concerned Me.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Jane needs and deserves you to back her up. Talking to him about his behavior has gotten you (and your mother) nowhere, so stop talking and take action. Stop bringing Jane around. Tell him calmly why you\u2019re doing this. The responsibility for his having a \u201cgood relationship\u201d with his youngest granddaughter is his. His behavior has to change. Tell him that.<\/p>\n

If he won\u2019t or can\u2019t change his behavior, you\u2019re going to have to find a way to live with his not having any relationship at all with your youngest. Your priority needs to be that she feels safe, that she can trust you to protect her (no matter who it is she needs to be protected from), and that she should be proud\u2014not in the least ashamed\u2014of making her feelings known, speaking up, and setting boundaries. Your own relationship with your father may take a hit\u2014and, for all I know, your older children, who may have hated their grandfather\u2019s \u201cteasing\u201d just as much as Jane does, but did not feel empowered to speak up as she has, may be resentful that you didn\u2019t step in for them. You may have to tell them, \u201cI wish I had. I didn\u2019t realize how hard it was on you. It took Jane saying so for me to see it. I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to your dad: It\u2019s about time someone stood up to him. Maybe this will wake him up.<\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle<\/p>\n

More Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

For the first time in my 10 years of being a parent, I am really struggling\u2014for real. My husband and I have one son, Evan, and we both have excellent relationships with him, but I have reached a roadblock I am not sure how to get around. Without knowing us, you would never put my husband and me together\u2014he is a jock, super social, loves and plays sports, a real \u201cguys\u2019 guy.\u201d I am an introvert and artist and have never played or watched a sport in my life. But he\u2019s my best friend, and we just get each other; I wouldn\u2019t trade my relationship with him for anything. Our son is just like him, and I couldn\u2019t be prouder. But I struggle.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1129,49,48,75,852,5377,11261],"class_list":["post-885682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-advice","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-family","tag-kids","tag-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}