I started a vent in TAO, and am now thinking that I seriously need to be taking some parenting action. Here is the link to that thread:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=149613

Just to be clear, dh's parents are not in the slightest mean to ds. They obviously love him, and like seeing him. But SIL's dd is ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS) there, and they are very obvious in their attention to her vs. ds.

Ds is incredibly emotionally intuitive, and always has been. I could list the number of different emotional situations that he has picked up on and reacted to, but this post would be too long. He is not a perfect kid, but his strongest area is sharing and empathy. He always shares, is very kind and sensitive to other kids (especially younger ones), and will always offer them his toys or snacks, or let them take stuff from him if they are obviously babies.

With everyone except SIL's dd. He does a lot of "mine" when around her, doesn't want to play ball with her, etc. I've been wondering why, and I think it's because he's picked up on the fact that she is the golden grandchild.

So now that even he is noticing it, what do I do? Do I limit his exposure to his grandparents? Or does that make it worse? Is this just a life lesson he has to learn? Do I limit his exposure to SIL's dd (which would be very difficult)? Do I have dh talk to them?

I honestly have no idea.

I just posted on your other thread. But, what I do is encourage situations that the cousins are together and not competeing for grandmas attention or affection. Have them over for playtime, like you would a friend. Cousins can be a fun and rewarding relationship. I am close to my cousins into adulthood. My 7 yo would say her cousin is her best friend. They were in the same kindergarten and first grade class and frequently have sleep overs, etc. I avoid as often as possible the family gatherings where the favorrd cousins are with my kids and g-ma is in the mix. It is hard. Sometimes we will come early or late. That way "exposure " time is low. Sorry, I don't have better advice. Just telling you what I do. I confronted the MIL and she said I was paranoid and that I was wrong. She didn't acknowledge how I felt, say she would evaluate it or try to make sure that she didn't favor the other kids. So, ........ what'd ya do?

We had a similar issue start to emerge with my ILs. DH's brother's family lived with my IL's for the first two years or so of our niece's life. My ILs and BIL (and his wife) had a big falling out, moved out, and don't allow our niece to see her grandparents very often (for some good reasons, but that's a different story).

The last couple of times that we went down to visit, the ILs were okay with DD when we were alone. When BIL and family came over, it was as if Sarah no longer existed (or almost). Sarah was almost run over by her grandfather more than once when he was playing with our niece, and Sarah tried to engage her grandparents a couple of times and was pretty much ignored. Fortunately, Sarah's too young to REALLY notice (or at least it didn't seem to bother her this time).

DH sat down and talked to his parents to try to make sure that this doesn't become more of a problem. Rather than accusing them of actually playing favorites, he said something like "From Sarah's point of view, when you play with Vicky more than her, it seems as though you love her EXCEPT for when Vicky's around." FIL started to get a bit defensive, talking about how they'd just spent time with Sarah, but don't get to see Vicky very often. DH said that HE understood that, but from Sarah's point of view (and then repeated what he said earlier). He pointed out that if this continued, they risked alienating Sarah, and that he knew they didn't want to do this.

This seemed to get through, although we'll see how well it worked next time we're all together. It seemed to help to focus on concrete behaviors, rather than making the global judgment that they play favorites. You (or your DH) may want to say something like "When you took so may pictures of ______ and not of DS, DS might interpret that to mean that ________ is more important to you."

If this doesn't work, our next step will be to limit the time that the girls are together with their grandparents, and then to limit time with grandparents overall. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Good luck, and please let us know how it goes!