Parental Filter

My grandma used to rock and sing to me, and I loved that as a small child. I endeavour to do the very same with my grandchildren. With my granddaughter, it took about a thousand repetitions of "Yellow Submarine" to put her to sleep. My daughter came in the room and told me that no one had ever been able to sing her to sleep. She even took a picture of it to capture the moment.
My granddaughter got out of the "lullaby phase" quite quickly, but my grandson at 3 1/2 still wants a lullaby. His favourite is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and when I visited I'd pat his back and sing it until he went to sleep. A few days after I got home my daughter called and said, "He wants to hear 'Twinkle, Twinkle' but I guess I'm not doing it right. Will you sing to him?"
Isn't it the best feeling to know that your grandkids (or kids) like the way you do something better than anyone else? It's wonderful!

My stepfather is a fantastic grandfather, he was always best at getting my daughter to give up her wind and he could always soothe her to sleep. They had a lot in common, no hair and no teeth!

I love the relationship that my parents have with our sons. I know they will always treasure it. I cannot wait to have this kind of a relationship someday with my future grandchildren. You can bet I will be singing to them also.

It is nice for grandparents to play a special role in the lives of their grandchildren, but they should be careful not to undermine the parents.

You're so right about that, kernow. I try not to chime in with an opinion or suggestion about something until I'm asked (and that's hard to do sometimes!) I am very lucky in that my kids and their spouses are incredibly generous about our access to our grandkids. All of them had very close relationships with one or all their grandparents.

I don't have grandchildren yet, but I waited years to become an aunt and sometimes it is a huge struggle to keep my mouth firmly closed and let the parents do it their way. It is the coolest thing having a niece and nephews to enjoy.

My grandmother used to look after me on a Friday night, she let me stay up to watch the thriller on TV (very tame stuff) but I was so scared afterwards that I dare not go to bed. It made my mum so cross!

My grandma would let me do things that my mother didn't approve of, she let me eat things that my mother would never let me eat.

One of my husband's favourite memories of his grandma was that she would make him runny scrambled eggs (yuck, but he liked them that way, before eggs and salmonella was such a worry), and she let him eat them with a spoon.

That sound horrible! mine would put a little bit of butter on a spoon and dip it in sugar then let me eat it. I liked it at the time.