There's a rumor going around that grandparents will do anything their grandchildren ask, as long as it makes the kids happy. So we decided to find out how far grandparents would really go for their grandchildren. For example, would grandparents bungee-jump with the kids?
Jeanette Burkett, 54, of Hemet, Calif., would. "I'm a different kind of grandma," she says. Not only did she bungee-jump with her granddaughter Jeannine, 17, and grandson David, 11, at Six Flags, she persuaded the reluctant boy to ride the roller-coaster with her, too. "I'll do almost anything," she says. "The question should be, 'What wouldn't they do that grandma wants to do?'"
We asked grandparents around the country just how far they would go for a grandchild, and most said they know where to draw the line. They also reported getting some outlandish requests from their grandchildren, demands that would jeopardize life and limb. But believe it or not, says clinical psychologist Aaron Cooper, coauthor of I Just Want My Kids to Be Happy! (Late August Press, 2008), asking grandparents to satisfy those requests is not only normal for kids, it's a good sign. When your grandchildren come to you and ask you to give them bus fare to New York City or to buy them the pet snake they've always wanted, "it means that their parents are setting appropriate limits at home," he says. "Kids need a lot of limits, and grandparents can be looser than parents can. Sly grandkids do whatever it takes to make an end run around mom or dad. It's been that way forever."
Cooper says it's fine to indulge the children once in a while, as long as it's within reason. "That’s part of the pleasure of being a grandparent." He warns, though, that "you want to make sure you’re not violating some key values that parents are trying to teach. When kids make a quirky request, check with mom or dad before saying yes."
But no grandparent needs to check twice before turning down a request to jump off his or her own roof. For more details on that and other grandchildren's outrageous demands, read on.
"Trust Me, Grandma!"
"My husband was reroofing the house and our daughter Renee was helping him," says Cindy Houde, 51, of East Killingly, Conn. "I was watching my 4-year-old granddaughter, Makari. She asked why I was not on the roof, and I told her I didn't like high places. She told me I should just go right up on the roof and jump off. Did she want to see Gramma go splat? I asked. No, she told me I would bounce like a ball because I was shaped like a ball. I declined, even after she tried a few more times to show me the logic of her ball science."
"It'll Be Cool!"
Catherine Klinski, 61, of Dunnellon, Fla., will go got great lengths to please her 15-year-old granddaughter, Sara. "I try to be a cool grandma," she says. They once even got (temporary) tattoos together at Daytona Beach. Sara's mother approved the girl's in advance; Klinski's was more spur-of-the-moment. But that same day, Sara urged Klinski to bungee-jump with her, too. That was one step too far: "It's not advised with my pacemaker!" Klinski says.
"Everyone's Doing It!"
Cindy Kars, 59, of Port Huron, Mich., will do a lot of things for her two grandchildren. Once, she let her four-year-old grandson, Bradley, try on her dentures, after a lot of pleading. The family still laughs at the series of pictures Kars took that day. But she'll only go so far, as Bradley, now 14, and his brother, Hayden, 11, recently learned on a family trip to the Wet'n Wild amusement park in Orlando. They asked her to join them on Der Stuka, a six-story slide that sends thrill-seekers splashing down a nearly 250-foot vertical drop. "I was terrified and they could never, ever talk me into that!" Kars says. "I'm not sure what the age or height restriction is on the ride. I know I'm old enough and tall enough to do it, yet smart enough not to. I'm a chicken Grammie!”
"But I Know How to Drive!"
"One time when my grandson Blake was visiting, I told his father to go and move the car so there’d be room in the driveway," says Miriam Ahitow, 85, of Rochester, N.Y. Blake, who was 12 at the time, volunteered to do it himself. "Why don’t you let me do it?" he asked his grandmother. "I want to see if the airbags work if I crash into the back wall." Ahitow declined. "We didn't let him do it. Grandchildren can get us to do a lot of crazy things, but not everything."
To read about grandchildren's most outrageous lies, click here. Elsewhere on Grandparents.com, join the debate about who should make the rules when grandchildren visit grandparents, find tips for handling your grandchildren's worst habits, discover tips for getting along with your daughter-in-law, learn how to make home movies of your grandchildren, and see the 25 reasons why kids love their grandparents.
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