In this episode of Modern Grandparenting, we discuss all things child care. When it comes to who’s watching the baby either every once in awhile or every day when Mom and Dad are at work, there’s lots to think about and discuss with the parents.
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As a grandparent, are you ready to be a child care provider if you are asked? Times have changed. In the last few decades, it’s been much more prevalent to see both parents keeping their jobs and putting their children in child care.
This comes with a heavy expense as well as heavy hearts. Trusting your infant or older child with a stranger is difficult to do, so it seems that the pendulum is swinging the other way, and new, working parents are now hoping that their parents will babysit.
Some babysitting is just on an occasional night out or maybe for the weekend, but some is complete child care while they still go to work. Regardless of how long you will be providing that care, we’re discussing how to think ahead and prepare.
Show Notes
0:47 – How our Words to our younger girls took us by surprise
2:26 – How we became AJ’s child care provider
5:52 – The first year of a baby’s life and how scary it can be
7:07 – How our view of retirement had to change (especially about money)
10:17 – Difficulties arise
11:28 – Getting on the same page as Mom and Dad
15:00 – Embracing the new parenting strategies
17:13 – The Big Conversation and working out the details to satisfy all parties involved
20:28 – Getting Paid?
24:50- Some tips for being a great child care provider
32:48 – Some advice to make everyone a little happier
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Full Transcript of Show
Jim 0:06
Hello, and welcome to our weekly podcast modern grandparenting, where we discuss issues that grandparents must deal with in this changing world, by maintaining the best relationships with both our children and our grandchildren, to giving you all kinds of ideas of what to do all year long, and hopefully making memories that will last a lifetime. In this episode, we
Corinne 0:25
talked about grandparents be the childcare provider for their grandchildren, and how to make sure that you, the parents, and the children are getting the most value out of the entire deal. Well,
Unknown Speaker 0:36
we didn’t really ever expect to be grandparents, let alone childcare providers for our grandchild. That just kind of came to us. All of a sudden,
Corinne 0:47
serendipitously Yeah, we had it. And sometimes as a parent, your advice maybe kicks you in the butt. As the girls, we had two girls. So what’s one of the worries that parents have as girls, they are worried about their kids getting pregnant, right? And, and or even older, and not being ready to take care of the kids or having to having a boyfriend or spouse that’s going to take care of the kids or whatever. I mean, it’s a worry, you can’t help but have it. It’s what you do if you’re the parent. So the whole time The girls were growing up, we sort of debt, we didn’t necessarily downplay being a parent, but we just kind of drilled it into their heads that they needed to have their education first. And, you know, we used every career, have a career, all of these things are important, as important as being a parent. And they interpreted that as we didn’t want them to have children, which was not the case at all. But apparently, that’s what we were achieving. Because both definitely, like I said, we are not having children. And so we sort of accepted the fact that we were never going to be grandparents. Luckily, that changed.
Unknown Speaker 1:56
Well, and they also both went into careers where they were dealing with high needs children, which was another factor. I think that that kind of swayed them to not having children,
Corinne 2:10
it was definitely a deterrent. Yeah. And right now, only one of them has children as a child. So we’ll see what happens with that. But it still came out of the blue. When this happened two years ago, right? We were in we were living in Japan, and I had decided to retire. But I had retired yet, or how did I know? You were gonna retire? I was retiring. And Erica and her husband, Michael, and one of her friends came to visit us. And while they were there, we were just sitting around having a great time. We just got out to dinner, and we were having some really good conversation. We’re laughing and joking. And just, it was one
Unknown Speaker 2:54
of those perfect moments. And I think I said something to Erica, like in an aside saying, Well, you know, this is one of the reasons why I’m kind of sad, that you guys have decided not to have granted not to have children, because you’re going to not have these moments like this that I’m having with you. And she kind of gave you a lot she kind of gave me a look, which I didn’t really interpret at the time.
Corinne 3:24
Because then it was out of the blue. Right. But then it was the very next morning, I think like the next day sometime, right? Yeah, she and Michael came to us in a very conspiratorial type of voice and the friend had gone for a walk. So it was it was good timing. And Erica said to me, are you sure you’re gonna retire next year? And I’m like, you know, I’m not sure what does it matter to you kind of thing? But yeah, I mean, I’m pretty sure. And then she turned to Jim and she says, Well, what are you gonna retire? And I said, the following year. So that was the plan, sort of I really know you know, the problem with that is we didn’t really have a reason to retire necessarily, right, and things can change. And that’s, that’s a whole nother subject. But if we’d known there was gonna be a pandemic, and we didn’t have a grandchild, we definitely would not have retired, right? Why? However, doesn’t matter, okay, said okay. Because we have a deal for you. We are thinking of having a baby. And both of us resist What,
Unknown Speaker 4:28
what? And after we recovered from the emotional shock. We said well, you know, when when What are you thinking of, and they were trying to time it to where it would coincide with my region. near retirement. I retired
Corinne 4:45
because their idea was inaccurate was very strong and, and she said this for many years that she sort of regrets not having a relationship with our grandparents. As a child, because we never lived near them. They were they were Never part of my lives. They were such long distance away from us. And it wasn’t like it is today before the internet,
Unknown Speaker 5:07
yeah, email didn’t exist. It was letters cards, and an occasional phone call. But just expensive phone calls were prohibitively expensive overseas in those days. So that didn’t happen very often.
Corinne 5:21
And so we understand they really did not have the best experience as a child with their grandparents, just because there was more our fault because we had chosen to live overseas, right? So she, she voiced that. And she said she didn’t want that to happen with her child. And that, and on top of that, would we mind taking care of him or her for the very first year because it’s such a hard year, raising an infant and actually trying to give that infant up to somebody who doesn’t know them to care for that. It
Unknown Speaker 5:52
says it’s a scary year of the child’s life. I mean, this is the most critical year health wise that the child’s going to normally experience with SIDS and things like that. It’s all going to happen within the first year. And Erica had had an experience with a with a close friend, very heartbreaking experience, where her friend had lost her during childcare. And it was like a business
Corinne 6:23
type thing. Yeah, it was a business childcare and the baby died of SIDS. And it’s very, it was just tragic. And of course, there’s nothing more tragic than going to a baby funeral. So it was horrible, heart wrenching, and we totally understood where she was coming from. So basically, what she wanted to hear from us is that we would Yes, retire. And we would move back to the States. And we would care for the baby for the first year of its life. And we say, yeah, absolutely shocked, but we committed to that right away.
Unknown Speaker 6:57
And we had different ideas about retirement, of course, going into it because we had never expected a grandchild. So we had to adjust to that.
Corinne 7:07
Well, we had, we had to, we had to change our way of thinking, we originally thought that we would retire and we would go traveling for at least five years overseas, visiting places that we hadn’t been able to visit or doing things that required specific times to be there. And we couldn’t do it. For one thing, one of the things Gemini really want to do is go to Antarctica. And the time to do that is, you know, in the summer, the Antarctic summer, which is the middle of our school year, and we’re gonna leave it and go do that on it. So that was you know, we had we had plans,
Unknown Speaker 7:42
so we had to put those plans on hold. And we knew that when as soon as we agreed. And that’s I guess that was probably the easiest thing to adjust to, for me.
Corinne 7:53
Well, except for given up our jobs also put us in a position of not having anywhere near as much money as we’re used to having right, a retirement salary is not the same as a full salary. It’s just not you have to adjust retirement in and of itself takes adjustment, I think.
Unknown Speaker 8:09
Yeah. And and the reality is, we’re still on someone else’s time. So that’s something we kind of look forward to in retirement was not being on some else’s time.
Corinne 8:19
And for a while we live with them because we didn’t have a place to live. They had moved to Tacoma, probably 10 years or so ago, and we’ve never lived here to come in is not our our home. I don’t think we ever really planned to live here. Right? So we moved to Tacoma. And I don’t know that we would have chosen to do so otherwise. But of course, now we don’t really choose to be anywhere else. But that’s beside the point. That’s because of the baby. But still it was changed for us. It was something that we weren’t expecting something that we hadn’t planned for. put it that way.
Unknown Speaker 8:55
Yeah. Well,
Corinne 8:57
but what they got,
Unknown Speaker 8:59
right, someone to someone that they trust, taking care of their most precious possession. And in a way we get that too, because if we weren’t providing that child care, I would be anxious and worried about where AJ was at in his childcare.
Corinne 9:17
And it is kind of a different feeling. We talked about, do you love your grandchildren more and these kinds of things. But, um, I think that with the pandemic, and all the things that have happened in the last couple of years, we could not have planned it better. Honestly. As it turned out, Erica had some health issues. Right after the baby was born, she needed for her. Luckily her sister was up here during the birth and right afterwards. But it was nice that as soon as we can retire in mid June of that year, AJ was born in April, that we can take over that burden of Taking care of the baby and helping him out. That was really important. And so now we take her role very seriously. And being his childcare provider during the day. When the pandemic happened, this was kind of good and bad, I guess. Both Eric and Michael kept their positions completely intact. However, they both were working from home. Well, for adults living in the same house 24 seven, I’m very difficult, Oh, my gosh, very difficult.
Unknown Speaker 10:33
So it was great for them to be able to be home during a really critical time in AJ his life. But it made the living situation difficult. So we actually ended up getting an apartment and moving out.
Corinne 10:47
And at the same time, we have him come now to our apartment instead of at their house, which he’s so used to that he just is ready to go, we show up loves coming. And we love having him here. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 11:01
So but getting to that point took a lot of work, to where it was a comfortable, useful childcare relationship, as opposed to just being a grandparent relationship. It took a while to get there. And it took a lot of a lot of communication. Like I think we’ve mentioned in every episode, the key to most things in life are balance and open communication.
Corinne 11:28
I would agree with that. So if you are going to be any type of childcare provider for your new grandchild, you’ve got to really think ahead about what you want, and what you’re expecting, and then have a conversation with mom and dad about what they want, and what they’re expecting. And don’t be surprised, they’re not going to be exactly the same thing, right? Almost 100% of the time, there’s got to be some given take. And there’s got to be some idea about autonomy, and with allowable and what’s not allowable and rules that
Unknown Speaker 12:03
they want followed with that you want followed, know what’s gonna be best for the child.
Corinne 12:12
And, you know, can you take him out of the house, you know, whenever there’s so many things that you have to think about. For example, we talked about this a little bit, but with all the new ways to raise babies, we weren’t completely informed, we had to rely on the archives. I mean, we could have looked it up ourselves. But we did she she and Michael made the decisions on how they wanted to do it. So when it came to something like feeding the baby, there’s a way which I’m still a little confused about. But we did what we were told, where you start feeding the baby wedges of food so that he or she can at what is that called weaning, baby weaning, self weaning, where they start to wean themselves off the bottle, and they can chew faster, and quicker. In You know what, I found that it worked? Yeah, our girls did not eat meat, I don’t think for the first year and a half. And we did everything in our power to try and get them to eat meat. And they went into it. And he loves me. And I think it’s because we gave him a slice of ham and he shouted down. Yeah, I don’t know, it’s kind of funny. But
Unknown Speaker 13:21
I think we’ve talked about this quite a bit about the differences between grandparenting now, and parent or parenting now in parenting, when we were doing it, there definitely are big differences. And parents today have the benefit of having all of that information available to them. And so we just kind of learn to accept and adapt and adapt and understand that for for Erica and Michael, at least, for their family, most if not everything that was decided upon for ages, feeding growth, rearing whatever, was based on some sort of evidence, some research, which is the way to do it. And it’s been proven to work. In our case, at least.
Corinne 14:17
Yeah, I mean, I think that we now agree with pretty much everything that we’ve seen, even if it came out of what we considered left field, something that we never would have even thought about, but like I was kind of ready for the sleeping thing where you don’t use blankets and stuff like that, because we’ve had friends who had babies and and back then yeah, no, not back. me more recently. More recently. Yeah. But But there were some things. I’m gonna tell you, like, okay, that’s the thing, some things Yeah, whatever. I mean, you know, those are the conversations
Unknown Speaker 14:50
and you want to make sure you have this conversation so you know, how to continue those methods or those things and the child is with you.
Corinne 15:00
I think and I am not gonna say I wasn’t guilty of this at all, because I think I was a little bit. But I think one thing that happens is when when you hear this new way of doing something, and you think to yourself that that doesn’t really make sense to me. I didn’t worry about that when I was raising kids. Well, that doesn’t make it right. Right. It doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. And I don’t think that we should say, well, it worked for me. And you’re still alive, aren’t you? You hear that a lot. Way too often. Right? Yeah. I mean, you hear that a lot. And you know what, I kind of understand that, because some things are new to me to most things were doing to me. But at the same token, I want what’s best for the kid and what’s not best for the kid is fighting with mom and dad. Right? That’s definitely true. One thing that I wasn’t prepared for. And I don’t know if it became like, I don’t remember 33 years ago, what I did. But Erica told me that babies zero to six months are allowed to have water. No, right? Why? Apparently, their systems are not made, or fully developed, inside yet to accept water, and it messes them up. Well, I wasn’t going to give them water. And I, you know, wasn’t planning on it, really. But it still shocked me. Yeah. And it’s not like we ever got in the fight about it. But it was just one of those things that sort of hit me from left field that was like, it’s just an example of things that are so different than we weren’t ready for them. And there was lots of them. So one thing that I think is important, if you’re planning on being a childcare provider, whether it’s full time or whether it’s part time is maybe taking a grandparenting class, or read some articles on how parenting has changed from when you were raising kids, because believe me, there’s a lot out there. And if you’re not going to believe your daughter or son and their spouses, then maybe you need to do some research on your own. Because ask them
Unknown Speaker 17:00
where, where they’ve been researching where they’ve been getting their information from, and visit the websites, read the articles for yourself. So only totally good to educate yourself. Right?
Corinne 17:13
Yeah. And we know that you have the the baby’s best at heart. So everybody would want to do everything they can to make the baby healthy and happy. We know that. Um, so one of the conversations you need to have is whether or not you’re going to take the baby full time, or you’re going to take the baby half time. Or maybe you’re only going to take the baby on an occasional weekend or date nights or something. But establish the hours upfront, and be honest with yourself, how much can you take, without getting tired or without stepping into your own lifestyle and doing what you want to do in this time, whether you’re retired, or whether you’re still working, a lot of people are still working in to take care of their grandchildren. That’s right. There’s so many different ways and so many different formulas for how much you can take and how much you can’t take. But you need to be honest with yourself. Don’t overextend yourself, and don’t offer something that the parents are going to expect you to do later that you just can’t follow up on resenting are not able to do at all and putting them in a bind. For example, we watch AJ, Monday through Friday, basically, for six hours a day. Well, Eric is at work. And then we’re off him and we consider it being off. Well. We are also off on the weekends. And we get one thing happened we were we love AJ and of course if we’re going to be home and they want to go out, we’ll take it but that’s our choice. And there’s two of us, there’s not just one of us, which does make it easier. But we’re not here to take care of the dog or that kind of thing to is because we’ve already put in our time. So there was one time they wanted to go away. And they called us up and they said we want to go on the way on this weekend. And we want you to watch the dog. And I answer was no, no, no, we’re off. We’re taking off that weekend. And yeah, she was a little put out that we could do that favor for her. But think about it, you’re already doing a lot for them. Don’t overextend yourself. We we had to learn that we had to learn to say no, that this is enough for us. Or like just the other day they were like we want to go out for dinner. And we said, well, what are the times you know, because we’re tired. You know, maybe this is not the best time to do it. Can he go out tomorrow instead? Which they did, which they did do in fact, because it worked out better for everybody involved.
Unknown Speaker 19:45
Just be open and honest, open, have the conversation. Don’t be afraid to have the conversation. You’re not going to maybe maybe you’ll hurt someone’s feelings at the time. But it’s going to be a lot Less hurtful, and sound no upfront than it would be to be resentful of it. Because you did it anyway. And then take that out emotionally, on your, on your children after the fact, or put them in the mind of agreeing to do it. But then when they show up saying, Yeah, but I can’t really do it tonight. So you need to, you need to cancel your plans,
Corinne 20:28
things like that. There are a lot of things that happen that people need to do, being upfront and honest and really open and honest, the best way to establish those hours. Don’t overextend yourself, don’t commit to things that you can’t provide. And then one of the things Erica, I told Erica A long time ago, before she had the baby, I said, Well, how much you get a pass? And she, she really took offense to it. Actually, she thought at the time. Yeah, yeah, at the time she is in her mind, of course, you know, this is mom and dad, they’re going to do this, they’re going to quit their jobs, and they’re going to watch our baby for free. Well, let me tell you something, our financial situation, and I’m sure everybody’s, when you retire, your financial situation changes, and I knew ours was gonna change. And that we would, we would need to do everything that we still need to do as far as living. So I expected her to pay us a little bit going way, of course not.
Unknown Speaker 21:30
And having the child in your home, and maintaining everything you need for that adds an extra financial expense that you may not have planned for anyway. So yeah, don’t, don’t be shy, shy or afraid of having that part of the conversation as well. I now run it’s going to save them a ton of money, we don’t charge, like we said, I think anywhere near the going rate,
Corinne 21:59
right? We but we have just a little bit to kind of get us over to help offset the expense. And it’s better for them anyway, because then they can counted on their taxes, which they’ll get the whole thing back. So that’s great. So look into that. And also, if you’re even if you’re a day worker, or and you cut your hours or something, you’re really making a difference in your life financially. So pass it on to your children, we understand that everybody’s in a different financial situation. And some kids can truly afford to pay you whatever. And some cannot. I mean, that’s something that you need to take into consideration as well. If you, if you are putting yourself into a financial burden, and they are already in financial burden, maybe you’re not the right person to watch that baby, you really are going to have to have discussions with them and figure it out. Because Because nobody wants to, like you said be resentful. Nobody wants to cause hurt, cause hurt. And yeah, of course you want to help. And of course, you want to be there for that baby. It’s hard, it’s hard, but have the conversation openly and talk about money, if money is going to be any issue at all, and make the parents understand that, you know, of course, you would do it for free. If you’re new, you’re in that position, but you’re not necessarily in that position.
Unknown Speaker 23:29
And just, it ends up that you can’t provide everything, all the childcare that the parents need. That doesn’t mean that you can’t provide childcare, you can say, Well, you know, I can’t really do it every day of the week. But I could do it on Mondays or Fridays, or I can provide time after school or, you know, nights out things like that, that you can still provide. And they do for free. And those are gonna do for free. And there’ll be more than grateful for to get anything. Everything’s gonna help.
Corinne 24:10
It is hard. I think talking about money, it’s always hard. But if you’re going to be a full time childcare provider, be be honest, that’s your best thing. Yeah. And both parties need to be out as I mean, you need to encourage your son or daughter to be honest as well, what’s going to work for them.
Unknown Speaker 24:29
Yeah, but you know, once you’ve done that you’ve had those conversations, and you’ve come up with an arrangement that’s going to work for everybody. Then it’s just a matter of, you know, setting up your home routines and, and just being as prepared as possible for the actual providing of childcare.
Corinne 24:50
So then we have a couple of tips for, for being a great childcare provider, for your grandkids and making sure that you’re helping them Parents along the way. For one thing, you can occasionally take photos or videos, especially message them with them. They love seeing the baby or child or in their work breaks. So if something cute is happening, like get it on, get on your cam, get it on video. I mean, we we have sent Erica and Michael the funniest things that AJ has been doing, because those are moments that they might see. But even if they do see them, it’s still cool to see them at work and maybe show their their work friends or whatever.
Unknown Speaker 25:31
Yeah, don’t, don’t get in the habit of posting things directly in a Facebook or Instagram, or tik tok, or wherever you’re on without the parents knowing about it or giving permission for it. So what we’re talking about is taking these little clips, and just messaging directly to the parent to the parents.
Corinne 25:49
And that will be a subject for a future podcast where we talk about online safety for your grandkids, and for yourself, because it’s a huge issue. Yeah, and there’s so many facets to being safe, that we think is well worthwhile. So look forward to that in the future.
Unknown Speaker 26:09
But, but they love getting those little things, there’s little photos or snippets of what’s happening in their child’s life during their school or during their work day. So another thing you can do is try to have special snacks or meals that your grandchild knows that they’re going to have when they come over, maybe not every time, but it’s something that they have at your house, when they’re with you. Like we like to have blueberry pancakes when AJ comes our
Corinne 26:36
breakfast burrito
Unknown Speaker 26:37
or breakfast burrito, or the other thing he really likes is a scrambled egg. So we had because we get him early in the morning before he’s had breakfast. So he gets breakfast with us every day. And we’ve got this maybe I guess like three things that we rotate between. and he gets excited to have him he doesn’t usually get those things at home. So it’s special for him. So he’s in a new place. It can be kind of scary for a kid. So you want to start establishing those familiar things right away.
Corinne 27:09
Plus, it’s so nice when they get a little bit older. And they’re like Grandma, can you make here? Yeah, breakfast burritos are my favorite things or whatever. And he loves
Unknown Speaker 27:16
to come into the kitchen and cook with me. And yeah, I just look forward to when he wants to start making this stuff himself, which he will because he loves to get involved in everything.
Corinne 27:27
Yeah, and most kids do. So that’s pretty cool. The other thing that’s really important in any child’s life is establishing a routine. So like I said, When AJ sees either gym or a first thing in the morning, he drops what he’s doing. And he started heading out the door because we’re there to pick him up to go to our house. And if we don’t take him he gets a little bit upset. He was expected to go and he didn’t get to go. So to pick me up, right? Sometimes we just go to visit actually, surprise, surprise. But there’s more things to establish and routine. The map for example, when he first gets here, as Jim said, the first thing we do is we have breakfast, which is always takes longer than you might realize, because they’re gonna cook together. Then we have the meal together. And then right after breakfast, even though he’s not quite too Yeah, he’s 16 months old. We have a lesson. And that lesson is just a quickie. Because he’s, of course, doesn’t have the attention span. But we want to or, yeah, yeah, he doesn’t have the skills. Yeah. But we want to establish how important lessons and learning are and that you have a special time to do it. So right after breakfast, we will sit there with him. And we will do an ABC letter. So like for GE, we’ll write the letter, we’ll talk about the letter well, pictures of you know what the letter is associated with. And he’s got a crayon that he’s just draws holding and hopefully not chewing on. And yeah, but he’s, he’s involved in it. And then so when we talk, of course, because we’re using grams, we talk about colors, we also count, we always find something new to count. And sometimes we we just count different ways. And he’s not there yet. He’s not. I mean, he can probably do 123 in his head and know what 123 means and that you can count down. But for the most part, he’s not there yet. Yeah, there’s no expectations in the lessons on on his part from us. Other than that, he’s building up the stamina, to listen to listen and participate. And establishing the fact that this part is important of his daily routine and as part of his routine. So we do that and other things that we have on his his routine is we like him to listen to classical guitar, because he really loves the guitar and he will during his playtime we’ll put classical guitar on just every day for at least half an hour so that he hears all the different things that he could do with the guitar. Will it remains to be seen if it makes a difference. But you know what, why not? We read with him, we try to read with him definitely before us to take him out. But that we read with him different times during the day to put in. But really, we feel it’s really important. So we do a lot of that
Unknown Speaker 30:12
because naptime is part of his routine. And we have some chores, that a part of his routine as well. So he’ll help empty out the dishwasher or pick up his toys at the end of the day before he goes home.
Corinne 30:26
And we also make sure he gets outside every day, and he gets to play on the playground and get some exercise. And, you know, all kinds of stuff that we do, we try to make it so that he can predict what’s going to happen next. And there’s no, there’s no surprises. I remember when my mom was really late and coming together. I mean, she told us, she called him asked if she could go to this, I don’t forget what was going on, went to the store or she had a meeting. I don’t remember maybe both. And anyway, he’s just to be leaving around three 330 in the afternoon. And you know, just like a dog or a cat. Kids may not be able to return but they kind
Unknown Speaker 31:07
of know well, if you’ve built that routine, and he’s grown comfortable with it. when something changes, he knows
Corinne 31:15
he can go into the door, then he bought bag and then go into the door and anyone bag like yeah, mom is not coming yet. It’s just it was very cute. Because you could tell that he was like what’s going on here? I should be leaving my now. It’s just really funny guys
Unknown Speaker 31:30
forgetting to bring me outside niches out there. So what else can you do as a childcare provider in your own home? Well find out what mom and dad are working on at home and help with reinforce it. The one thing that AJ is doing right now is we’re teaching him some really basic baby sign language. So it’s good to have that communication. So they know what we’re working on with him. And we know what he’s working on. So it can be reinforced.
Corinne 32:01
But it can be anything from potty training to write reading, sight words to whatever they’re working on. Whatever, we’re practicing spelling words, wherever they are developmentally, yeah. You just help them.
Unknown Speaker 32:15
homework, whatever.
Corinne 32:16
Oh, and yeah, that’s, again, where the homework comes in. I think homework is such an important thing, right. Also, I think it’s really important to keep mom and dad informed. You don’t want to obviously you don’t want to not tell them when things are happening. But we also found that there’s a balance in this. You don’t want to be too gushy about things that are happening with new, whether it’s a new word, especially early on in the child’s life.
Unknown Speaker 32:42
Oh, yeah, everything is new that they’re doing. And the parents really want to experience that
Corinne 32:48
before anybody else. And the end, they deserve that. That’s, that’s fair child. So we have an unspoken rule. I guess a spoken now that we try not to the jig is up. Did I say that wrong? Yeah. At any rate, um, we have an unspoken rule that we do not sort of brag on him or gush too much about something new that he’s doing until after we’ve heard my dad say that he does it, or after he’s done it for enough time that we know mom and dad, whether they’ve mentioned it or not. And probably the I mean, the reality is they probably do see it first anyway. But we don’t want to take that joy from them. That’s something we can we can enjoy ourselves. And we don’t have to experience it. Yeah, firsthand. Yeah, we want, we don’t want to butt in there. But we do want to keep them informed about things that are happening. And like Jim said, if we started a new sign with them, or something like that, we’ll tell him that but he’s your, your kind of logical sense that don’t want to take away from their wonder of being parents because that infant toddler stage doesn’t last long enough.
Unknown Speaker 34:06
And you want them to have that joy. So finally, if you’re caring for your grandchildren, at home at the in his home, her her home, make sure that you clean up at the at the end of the time to do their. Make sure the child gets to bed if you’re if you’re watching him at night.
Corinne 34:26
And I’m reasonable time whenever the bedtime is make sure it gets well and she gets well rested. And that the pants don’t have to come home and then clean up the house after the mess that was made, or they get a cranky kid in the morning because they stayed up too late. Right? You don’t want any of that to happen. Thanks for listening. And joining us this week. I’m Martin grandparenting. We hope you’re enjoying it. We’d like to keep the conversation going. And so we’d love to invite you to join us at our private Facebook group, which is called cravings go digital And I have to do the join is answer a few questions so that we know that you’re not a
Unknown Speaker 35:04
bot. Oh, and you can also visit our website at Granny’s go digital, and sign up for our newsletter, and you’ll never miss out.
Corinne 35:12
So please hit subscribe and leave us a review. Thanks Abby grandparenting
Transcribed by https://otter.ai