Entertaining Your Grandchildren

Grandparents are in a unique position. They have time and energy—two things that parents of young children (and teenagers) almost always lack. When they have the opportunity to be with their grandchildren, there is therefore time to fill with activities, and energy to do exciting things. But what exactly should you do?

There are, of course, all the ‘usual suspects’, including cooking, gardening, craft activities and outings, both indoor and outdoor. Just as parents can engage in any or all of these, so can grandparents. Skills You Need contains several pages with ideas for age-specific activities, and how to get good value from your activities.

This page, however, discusses some considerations that are specific to grandparents, and gives some tips for making the most of your time with your grandchildren.

Top Tips for Activities for Grandparents and Grandchildren

1. Make sure your activities are age-appropriate

   Parents are with their children all the time, and generally don’t need any reminders about keeping things age-appropriate.

   Grandparents, however, may not see the grandchildren so often, and may find that they are pitching activities wrongly.

   This can go either way. They may remember ‘last time’—which could be several months ago—and therefore choose an activity that is most suitable for slightly younger children, or find that they are ‘dumbing down’ too much. Alternatively, they may remember their own children, or other grandchildren at a slightly older age, and set expectations too high.

   There are several ways that you can avoid this as a grandparent:

   • Ask your adult child and their partner (your grandchildren’s parents) if what you have planned is appropriate. They will quickly tell you whether your grandchild is likely to be interested and engaged, or how you might have to ‘pitch’ the activity to make it acceptable.

   • Ask the children themselves. Children often have very clear ideas about what they would like to do, especially with their grandparents. You can offer options and see what they pick, or ask them if there is anything in particular that they would like to do.

   • Watch and listen to your grandchildren and react to them. When you have embarked on an activity, you will quickly see if the children are engaged. You can then react to amend your approach to better fit them.

2. Develop your own traditions

   Most of us have fond memories of particular activities with grandparents.

   Among the most special of those are the activities that you only did with that grandparent—those where you developed your own traditions:

   • The slow evening walk round the village with your grandfather, where he told you stories about his childhood.

   • The weekly trips to the coffee shop with your grandparents, where you got a ‘babycino’ and sat with them “like a grown up”.

   • The hours spent in the park playing in the stream, with your grandmother supervising.

   Often, these were things that your parents simply did not have time to do, because they were too busy with work, cooking, or other family admin. Sometimes, if you look back, you will realise that they were things that your grandparents were doing anyway, but they took time to involve you too—and made you feel special by doing so.

   Take a bit of time to think about what you could do with your grandchildren that might feel like this—and then start doing it.

3. Do activities that make the most of your interests

   Just as you can share your own activities with your grandchildren, you can also share your interests.

   In other words, you do not always have to follow your grandchildren’s interests. You can pursue your own, and share them with your grandchildren.

   Children are generally prepared to be interested in anything and everything. When information is presented in the right way—that is, age-appropriately, and actively, in a way that grabs their attention—they will be interested. You can therefore do activities with your grandchildren that interest you as well as them, provided of course that you are prepared to put in a bit of time to make the subject interesting to them.

   For example:

   • If you are interested in nature, you can take your grandchildren bug-hunting or birdwatching in the local park or even in the garden. You’ll need some kit for them, such as a magnifying glass and some way to look up what you have found, but they will be fascinated if you can tell them more about what that beetle likes to eat, or how ants live.

   • If you like visiting art galleries, you can take your grandchildren to visit one particular picture, and talk about its history, what the people in the painting might be doing or thinking, and then find other pictures that might be similar or different.

   • If you like music, take your grandchildren to a concert aimed at children, and share music with them at home. Talk about why you like a particular piece or song, and ask what they think.

   When your grandchildren are small, this obviously won’t be the same as doing these activities with another adult, or by yourself.

   The investment may take time to pay off. However, as they grow up, you may find that they develop their own interests in these subjects, and start to accompany you to nature reserves, or art galleries, or concerts.

4. Find the right balance between education and fun

   Some grandparents seem to feel that their role is to impart information to their grandchildren. They see themselves as teachers, or sharers of family tradition and knowledge. However, grandchildren do not always see things the same way. They want to have fun with their grandparents, and run around, and will often excuse themselves from what they see as a lecture.

   It is important to remember that not everything has to be educational. However, not everything has to be NOT educational, either.

   It is possible for activities to be both educational and fun—and children tend to learn best when enjoying themselves. Grandparents who remember this will be better able to find the right balance between fun and education. This will help them to develop strong and happy relationships with their grandchildren—and therefore put them in a better position to share family traditions and knowledge, if they wish to do so.

5. Share family history with your grandchildren

   Children love hearing stories about their grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles as children.

   It makes adults much more relatable when children appreciate that they were once children too—and especially that they were not “perfect little angels”.

   Grandparents have a lifetime’s worth of stories about their families and their own lives to share. These stories can be told just for entertainment, or to make a point about particular behaviour if necessary or desirable.

   They can also be a way of sharing family history and culture, and making sure that children understand that life was not always like this.

   For example, mobile phones are ubiquitous now. The concept of having to sit in one place, with the phone tied to the wall, and that you could only be phoned when you were at home, often seems very funny to children. The idea that you might not have access to a phone except as a phone box down the road—their grandparents’ grandparents’ experience—is, however, so alien as to be almost unbelievable.

   Tying family history to ‘real’ history is also a helpful way to set school learning or visits to museums and other similar venues into context.

A Final Thought

Grandparents often make the mistake of trying to do the same things as parents.

Instead, they may do better to develop their own traditions and activities—and in doing so, build stronger relationships with their grandchildren.