I've often noticed my son is a bit "incoherent" and "hyper" around my dad...all the while, he's looking at him like he's thinking, "Am I getting grandpa's attention?" He's definitely different at home. I suppose I'm seeing some social awkwardness emerging in my son at this point.
I like the idea of leaving folks together to develop a relationship, and had to do this with DH and DS, DS and my parents,DS and my inlaws
- but, if your dad really is
that poor in social skill that your son is feeling basically the same way you have come to feel about interacting with your dad: that Dad isn't interested and somehow this is your own fault - then I'm not so enthusiastic about the idea.
I want to be really sure that we aren't asking our children to fix, on some level, problems that we have given up trying to fix.
Is you mom the kind of person who could help you think this through? If you printed out these posts and showed them to her, would she be offended or helpful? Does your dad have a best friend who he looks to for guidance in general?
A bit of a tangent
I 'love' the stories about the wife who tries to communicate to he husband that the child is gifted and has special educational needs and the DH doesn't seem able to hear it until the golfing buddy opens up about his parenting journey. Then the DH comes home guns blazing announcing that X or Y needs to happen now. And the DW learns the true meaning of 'bite your tongue.' It seems to be a feature of humans that we need to hear the same message from multiple sources before we can believe it. I haven't had this exact scenario, but my DH really loves and trust our pediatrician, whom we know socially (or anyone in an authority position, actually) so, when possible, I just request that our Ped 'make a suggestion' in the near future and avoid whatever ugly scenes might have occurred if I had been 'the messenger.'
Good luck!
Grinity
