Raising kids while dealing with delicate family relations can be a challenge.

In today’s story, a widowed man with two kids shares how he is trying to include his parents in his kids’ lives while making sure they don’t traumatize them like they did with him and his siblings.

So he made a legal ‘behavioral contract’.

Did he go too far? Or will he start a trend?

Let’s read the whole story and see what people are saying about it.

AITA for giving my parents a “behavioral contract”?

So, my parents were, to not mince words, very bad at raising children.

They’re careless, immature, do not understand the importance of parental engagement in a child’s life, and treated me and my siblings more like little servants for them.

They absolutely weren’t ready for it, and only chose to have them because of societal pressures.

He is determined to do things differently.

As a result, I’ve become extremely passionate about raising my own children to become healthy people in my adulthood.

My kids are a pair of 15-year-old brother/sister twins, and it’s just me in the picture since their mother died giving birth. I am 42.

He wants his kids to still see their grandparents, but he’s hesitant.

We often take trips to my parents about once a year or so, but I usually accompany them for the entirety of it.

This time, I was busy with work and could not be there for the ENTIRETY of it.

I was hesitant on letting them go because of this, but with a combination of both my children’s begging and theirs, I admitted defeat and let them go.

On one condition: they agree to sign a behavioral contract.

A real contract.

I had a friend of mine who deals with stuff like this draft up a legally binding contract dealing with some things that they absolutely SHOULD NOT do when caring for my children, these include:

-Respect their consent, no means no.

-Respect their hobbies and interests, don’t try and dunk on them for indulging themselves.

-Respect their autonomy, they are their own people and you do not own them.

-Don’t try and make them use AI/try and convince them why AI is good (my parents are big AI bros, while I’m staunchly against it and have raised my kids to believe as such).

The list also includes less specific items.

-Be thoughtful, actually listen to their words and not just hear them.

-If they pose a suggestion, actually take it into account instead of just ignoring it in favor of doing the thing you were gonna do in the first place.

-They know what’s best for themselves, if you see something in their routine or anything you don’t like, keep it to yourself.

It’s clearly worked for them so far.

He just wants to protect his kids, but other family members disagree with his approach.

These are all issues I struggled with when dealing with my parents at their age, so I wanna make sure my kids don’t fall into that same trap and get years of my parenting undone.

However, my parents seem to disagree, thinking they were nothing but amazing parents.

They say that “they own [my] kids,” because they’re their “elders,” “have the same blood in their veins,” and “don’t have to listen to me,” as if that’s not EXACTLY what I’m saying is wrong with their parenting.

They’ve now taken to my aunts and uncles, who share their same values, to put me on blast.

AITA?

His decision is unusual but understandable. However, teaching his kids critical thinking would probably protect them more than a contract.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

This person is a skeptic.

Here’s something to consider.

Another person thinks this was a bad idea.

Yikes.

It’s sad, indeed.

Food for thought.

If it works, it works!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.