Spoil, If We're Not
Careful
"My parents are easygoing and let me do everything I want, but my grandpa is very strict, and I'm glad. It's fun to get strict with people."
MICHELLE
Age 11
One sunny desert day I was driving my daughter-in-law, Linda, two young granddaughters, and a small grandson to a neighboring town for lunch. I had just received a beautiful silver dinner bell from my publisher, to commemorate the publishing of Let Freedom Ring, my bicentennial book. My gift had been unwrapped and was sitting on the floor of the car.
Enter my grandson, a superactive, bright, inquisitive little guy, who is cute as a button. (Does that sound like a grandmother talking?) D.J. grabbed the bell and began to clang it so loudly that his mother and I couldn't hear each other over the racket. One of his sisters in the backseat reached over to the front and took it from him. He was furious, and in a fit of temper, grabbed it and hit her on the head, drawing both blood and tears.
While Linda was soothing the injured one, I firmly took the bell from D.J. and announced, "That's enough! This bell belongs to Grandma, and I will have it quiet!" With that, he threw himself on the floor before the front seat, pushed my right foot on the accelerator, and pressed it to the floor. I kicked his hand off my shoe and with my right hand seized a
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handful of his hair, giving it a good sharp tug. He yelled like a banshee as I lifted him onto the seat beside me.
Slowing down, I put my arm around him and said, "Honey, I love you, but you cannot behave this way in my car. Your daddy wasn't allowed to do it, and you're not either." He was shocked, to say the least, but soon cooled down.
Perhaps some of you may say, "Why, Dale, surely you didn't pull your grandchild's hair?" Yes, indeed, I did, but he didn't lose any of it. He could have caused a wreck, so it was love, not the devil, that made me do it. He and I are pretty good buddies, although I admit he's so cute I have a temptation to spoil him.
That little story does not imply that I was usurping Linda's right to discipline D.J. Immediate action was needed, action strong enough to leave an impression. Intervention in this case was a necessity, due to the serious consequences of a little boy's temper.
We walk a fine line, grandparents, between loving and over-indulgence, between caring and intervention. Our guidelines need to be both common sense (and I love the book of Proverbs for some of the great one-liners of all time) and role models of other grandparents.
My Mother, My Son
I had a marvelous role model for my grandmothering years, but I didn't realize at the time that she was establishing the godly principles that I could emulate a generation later. While I was pursuing my intense youthful desires for fame in the entertainment world, Mom was playing surrogate mother to Tom. She worked hard at not spoiling Tom, and her efforts were rewarded in the evidence of his life.
Promptness is not a virtue bestowed upon us at birth. A child
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does not have to be taught to be late. One of the rules that my mother had was that dinner was at noon, and everyone had to be in the house, with hands washed, ready to eat when the food was served. This was not a peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich snack, but a real meat-and-potatoes meal. Tom would wander in after everyone had started to eat, and his grandmother would scold him; however, the next day he would be late again. Finally she said, in that tone so common to exasperated parents, "The next time you're late, I'll teach you a lesson so you won't be late anymore."
Tom was late for dinner again, and this time the punishment was due. Now I'd like to set the stage for the next scene. Imagine a small town in the 1930s. There weren't a lot of exciting events for a young boy, but the high-school football games were highlights of his existence. Every high school has its arch rival, and the game of the year was to take place on Friday night. There were banners around town; the tension was high. The winner of this game would take the conference championship.
My mother called upon her inner resources and said, "Tom, I keep my promises. I told you not to be late, and you were. You cannot go to the game Friday night."
"Mom," he wailed, "everybody's going to the game. I've been waiting all year for this. You're not going to make me stay home just for being late for dinner, are you? That's not fair."
How many generations of parents and grandparents have heard the accusation "That's not fair?" It's the national anthem for teenagers.
Well, the days marched toward Friday, with Tom becoming more vocal each hour with his protestations. "Mom [he called her Mom and me Frances until Roy and I married, when he began to call me Mother], I'll do anything, but please don't make me stay home from the game Friday night. I'll stay home
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for a month and never be late again. I know you don't want to be so mean."
My mother told me in later years that she never felt so terrible in her life. Other members of the family accused her of being unfair; her Aunt Octavia said, "Betty Sue, that's the cruelest thing you've ever done." It was at that point that Mother almost relented.
On the night of the game, Tom went to his room and was heard crying. Mother was in her room, wavering, too, because Tom was very precious to her. Afterwards she said, "Frances, I believed that if I gave in on that promise, Tom would never respect my discipline again. It was the hardest thing I ever did."
Tom never forgot the lesson. Today he is the most punctual person I know. He's either on time or fifteen minutes early.
There's a proverb that says: "A youngster's heart is filled with rebellion, but punishment will drive it out of him" (Proverbs 22:15).
My mother's life gave me another illustration that has stuck with me as a lesson in the potential destructiveness of gift giving. The characters are not parents and grandparents, but the principles are the same.
It was during the Depression, and every purchase was a major event. Tom's greatest Christmas desire was to have a cowboy suit. (Do you think he had some childish prophetic insight into our life to come?) My mother saved nickels and dimes, little by little, to buy her grandson the small wish of his heart. Finally she had enough saved to go to Sears and make the major purchase. It was a wonderful Christmas morning when Tom unwrapped that suit and put it on. He went outside to show the neighbor children, and one of his friends was very envious. His father was one of the fortunate people who had money during the Depression, and the boy never had to wait
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for his wishes; they were granted before he expressed them. Naturally he went home and described Tom's cowboy outfit, and a few days later he was outside sporting the fanciest, gaudiest suit and boots that could be purchased in the area. Tom's basement purchase looked shabby in comparison.
My mother was deflated and thought that the boy's father was insensitive in promoting the attitude of one-upmanship in his son.
That story has made me think twice about my own gift giving to my grandchildren. We may destroy the value of another's gift by our own desire to be generous.
Giving With Restraint
If grandparents have more resources than parents, it is a temptation to give the grandchildren some of the expensive and wonderful things they desire. One of the best ways to build a barrier of resentment is by giving presents that undermine parental giving ability.
How would parents feel if they had spent hours making a dollhouse for six-year-old Jeanette, hiding the project in the back of a closet, working long and loving time pasting up tiny pieces of wallpaper and cutting minute carpets, if Grandma and Grandpa invite Jeanette over to their house and presented her with s Schwarz miniature mansion, complete with Victorian furniture and crystal chandeliers?
Do you think this is an exaggeration? I heard of one grandfather who gave his two-year-old first grandson a complete Lionel train set. Another grandmother had established such a pattern of buying, with her grandchildren, that when they came to visit her, the first question was, "When do we go to the toy store?"
Grandparents, we need to examine our own motives when it
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comes to gift giving. Are we doing it for our pleasure or for the benefit of the children? Naturally we give to get enjoyment ourselves, but we must not yield to the temptation of lavishness, lest we leave in our trail the injured feelings of our own children and in-laws, who will have to deal with the expensive appetites we have aroused in their children.
On the other hand, there may be the situation where parents have said there was a toy of present they couldn't afford, and the willing checkbook of Grandma and Grandpa then brings delight, not dismay. Many young families, for instance, would find the major purchase of a swing-and-slide set or a dome climber, outside the budgetary means. With the permission of the parents, this type of purchase would be a long-ranger investment.
Grandmothers usually are more prone to lavishness than grandfathers. Particularly in those early years, when our sons and daughters are stretching to buy playthings for their children and trying to choose those toys that are sturdy and lasting, we need to exercise careful restraint, without being stingy. This balancing act becomes steadier as we gain in grandparenting skills. It's the first-timers who have the hardest decisions.
Get Inside Information
I have news for you. Toy stores do not know the best gifts for your grandchildren; their parents do. I know a grandma who bought a puzzle with forty pieces for her five-year-old grandson, only to discover that he was working the ones with a hundred pieces. Another grandmother bought a Candy Land game for her grandchild, who had graduated to Monopoly.
After the rattle and teddy-bear stage, anything we choose as a gift is pure guesswork. It's not the kids who live with the toys
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and gifts; it's their parents. Also, the parents today are more sociologically oriented than we were. Where a set of toy soldiers may have been Grandpa's favorite choice for his grandson, his own son may consider them war toys. We might not dream of choosing a doll of another race or color for our granddaughter, and yet that might be a teaching method her mother is using to promote the idea of good race relations.
Some Christian child psychologists tell us that the toys and games we choose for children may have a profound influence upon their thinking. The Barbie-doll craze, for instance, is thought to promote a sex symbol for little girls, instead of a mother image. I believe that toys and games are important educational tools and should be given with wisdom and recommendation of parents.
Because books and records are the greatest grandparent gifts, I have asked a very find compiler of information on children's books and records to list suggestions at the end of this book. Here again, after the read-aloud stage has passed, we need all the guidance we can get.
I was discussing with some young parents the value of reading versus television. One father said, "Since we have restricted Jonathan's television time and rewarded him for reading, we have discovered that he is more imaginative. He talks more about what he wants to do and where he wants to go, whereas before he sang the jingles from commercials."
We cannot make children read what they're not interested in. However, if Jack is into airplanes, look for books on the history of aviation or designs of aircraft. If Betty loves horses, there are a wealth of books with horse themes.
Here again is where inside information is valuable. Don't foist your interests on your grandchildren, promote theirs. A child needs all the encouragement to read that he can get. One grandfather bribed his high-school-age grandson to read by
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offering him five dollars for every book he read and wrote a report on. In this case, Grandfather said, "Since I'm putting up the money, I get to choose every other book." The process was pure bribe, and some may not approve of the method used, but the results were that the boy entered college with better reading skills and more of an appetite for knowledge than many of his peers.
The Shopping Trips
In talking to children in the upper elementary grades, I asked, "What do you do with your grandmother that you like?" Most of the girls said, "I like to go shopping with her."
Perhaps one of the reasons they love shopping is because Grandma's purse or charge card is very handy. I think shopping trips can be made into events that are memorable, if the guidelines have been established in advance. "Today we're going to look for a graduation dress, and that's all." Or, "Let's look for a pair of slacks and a jacket for Bible camp."
One grandmother took her twelve-year-old granddaughter shopping for a special dress for a Christmas piano recital. The little girl found a black velvet outfit that was very expensive and not well made. Grandmother was in a dilemma. Should she buy the dress her granddaughter wanted, even though she didn't like it? She responded with a statement that I think is so wise in such a situation. "Honey, when I give someone a present, I like to like it, too, or I don't give it." That settled the question, and the little girl, wanting to please her grandmother, too, looked for another dress.
Men don't like shopping expeditions, as a rule, so these guidelines are aimed primarily at us grandmothers. Shopping may be spontaneous, but remember that nothing is fun when people are tired. Plan the trip for lunch or refreshments, and realize that an endurance contest is not enjoyable.
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What the Children Think
A friend of mine helped me with research for this book and visited several schools and classrooms, asking similar questions. One of them was, "Do you think your grandparents spoil you?" From first graders to eighth graders, the predominant answer was, "Yes." Perhaps their impression of our loving is that of spoiling, or perhaps it's because we give them things their parents don't. But I do know that it is easy for us to do and difficult for their parents to counteract.
Another warning we need to give ourselves is about promises.
A child doesn't forget a promise made, nor does he forgive a promise broken. If we say, "If you get an A in math, I'll take you to Disneyland," then we had better produce the promised reward. Nothing is quite so crass as forgetting or ignoring that we gave our word. The Bible says: "One who doesn't give the gift he promised is like a cloud blowing over a desert without dropping any rain" (Proverbs 25:14).
Grandparents, when the sweet upturned face, framed by those unruly curls, teases for "just one more piece," when the tears roll down those smooth little cheeks after she's been sent to her room, when "everyone is going on the ski trip, but I don't have enough money," then we must remember the rule of the day: When in doubt, "Ask your mother and father."
Impartiality
Sometimes, in our efforts to be fair and impartial with our children or grandchildren, we overlook the needs of a particular child. My mother was quite upset one time when she felt one of her great-grandchildren was not treated fairly. One child had been invited to an outing but couldn't go because a younger child had health problems and had to stay home.
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Mother had her say about the seeming injustice of the decision, but she was told, "Mom, you don't understand the problems."
Several years later I was faced with the same problem. I attempted to keep Debbie home from that fatal church bus trip to Tijuana because Dodie was ill and couldn't go. Debbie cried, "Mom, it isn't fair that I have to stay home because Dodie is sick." I relented, and Debbie was never to return to our home.
I try to be impartial with children and grandchildren, but it isn't always successful.
The longer I live, the less dogmatic I am in making statements like, "Treat them all the same." Children are different, and so are circumstances.
The only sameness is our oneness with Christ. He loves us equally and doesn't play favorites. The Bible says: "...we are all the same — we are Christians; we are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
