How a lot visiting is an excessive amount of, parenting recommendation from Care and Feeding.

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Pricey Care and Feeding,

My niece lately began faculty near the place I dwell. Her household lives in a special state. She requested to remain over one weekend, early on, and I gladly hosted her. Then the requests to remain for a weekend grew to become extra frequent. She has roommates in her tiny dorm room, and he or she enjoys having a room to herself and good meals when she stays over. I really like my niece, however I additionally love my alone time. I’ve a really demanding job, and I want time to recharge on weekends. I’m an introvert, which doesn’t assist.

After all, I don’t need to harm my niece, and I need to be supportive of her—I do know being away from residence for school could be difficult. What do I do? I don’t thoughts internet hosting maybe one weekend a month. How can I share my emotions about this together with her? I would like her to know I care about her, however that there’s a restrict to how a lot time I can spend together with her, for my very own sake.

— Want My Alone Time

Pricey Want My Alone Time,

Simply inform her every part you’ve advised me. By no means underestimate the facility of pure, easy honesty. Should you actually do suppose you possibly can deal with one weekend a month, inform her that too. Put it on the calendar, the one weekend each month that she’ll spend with you. And by the way in which, {dollars} to donuts, as soon as she actually settles in and finds her place socially in school—like, by subsequent autumn on the newest, I’ll hazard a guess—her visits will dwindle. You might discover by her senior 12 months that you just really feel she’s neglecting you. You may have that to stay up for.

— Michelle

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We have now a fourth grader who is usually a straightforward child, well-behaved, and actually enjoyable. She does, nevertheless, prefer to sneak snacks. She is given a snack, like apple slices and peanut butter, after faculty and is allowed to look at TV for a short while. My husband and I are residence on a regular basis, however for us to note that she’s grabbing a sleeve of cookies or additional granola bars, we must be within the kitchen, and we’re not all the time there. We’ve tried speaking to her and grounding her; nothing works. Yesterday my husband agreed that she might have one breakfast bar as a snack and found out that she grabbed three …