Wow! That's what I get for posting a thread topic and then being away from the boards for over 24 hours, huh?
The whole "religion" topic is what caused me to spend a few days phrasing my question before I even bothered to post. I REALLY did not want to veer off into where the thread derailed which is one reason I did not leave any specific examples with my original post.
That being said, I totally get that everyone has differing values and that it is healthy for kids to be exposed to differences in order to open dialogue as to what their beliefs/values are or should be. Totally get it. However, I wasn't really referring to that as much as this: Do you have certain things that you DO not compromise on when your kids are at family member's homes? What are the "no way, no how" areas? (I understand that this will be different for everyone.) If you do have these areas, HOW do you handle them? Do you reference the "rules" prior to the family get-together or do you find that addressing them as they come up works better? I can see problems with both-I do not want my daughter to offend the host(s) by stating something that might appear to be "judging" them nor do I want her to be exposed to things that we do not believe in.
Do you believe that consistency in your "family rules" outweighs the fact that you are together with family you do not see very often?
For example...My husbands' side of the family is very volatile and tends to be politically minded with every single one of the members of his family having a totally different political lean. This is ALWAYS discussed very heatedly at every get-together, and it is not pretty or constructive. Add to that fact that there is often heavy drinking and horribly offensive language being batted around in general...well, it makes me concerned about putting my daughter in that kind of environment...even for a short amount of time.
A totally different example from my side of the family: both of my sisters (one older, one younger) have preschool age kids. This past Christmas my older sister expressed concern about coming for Christmas dinner at my younger sister's house because my younger sister's daughter is not expected to sit at the table like her own children are. My niece has never been a good eater and so is often allowed to get down to play while we are eating. This was concerning to my older sister who said that this was a bad example to her own kids as they would rather be playing with their cousin instead of having to follow "the family rules" at the dinner.
As you can see, neither of these examples deals with religion so I hope we can steer the topic back on course.
Thanks! IVY