Many families now rely on grandparents for either full or part-time childcare when both parent go out to work. While such a set up can be a fantastic opportunity for those of us in midlife or older to spend some quality time with the grandkids, it can also be a challenging role as well. It is with this mind that I have come up with some essential dos and don’ts that can help any grandparent navigate the waters of caring for their children’s, children. Read on to find out more.
Do make it as fun as you can.
OK, so maybe you didn’t expect to be looking after you grandkids all day, every day, but the truth of it is that it’s an excellent opportunity to develop a strong bond and have a lot of fun to boot. It will be necessary, however, to put in a little effort when the kids come over and provide things that they like to do.
This may include teaching them to cook, or garden with you, as well as providing activities like painting coloring and even computer games, which are fantastic for you if you need a bit of a break as well! Of course, if you aren’t sure what they like the best thing to do is just ask them and go from there, most kids aren’t shy about telling you what their latest interest is and will want to share it you as well.
Don’t go against their parent wishes.
Next, when it comes to taking care of your children’s children, boundaries are essential. In particular, is crucial that you understand what expectations the kids’ parents have of them, and for them and keep to these as much as possible.
What this means is, that is vital you don’t fill them full of junk food and sugar if the parents have specifically asked you not to. In fact, this can cause a major issue between the adults and may mean you aren’t asked to look after the grandkids again.
Do offer to help with errands and tasks relating to the kids.
Also, it is wise to discuss which errands and tasks related to the kids that their parents would like you to be involved in. For example, many grandparents cook their meals and have them fed and changed for bed before mom and dad pick them up.
In addition, because grandparents are free in the days, it can be helpful for them to take the kids to the doctors and the pediatric dentist, as well as any other health appointments. Then mom or dad won’t need to have extra time off work or use up precious weekend moments with these sorts of tasks.
Don’t say no when you need to.
Lastly, as a grandparent, it is crucial that you learn to say no when providing childcare for your children’s children. After all, you have had your kids, and if you don’t want the little rascals around every day you are entirely within your right to say so, and you should! In fact, doing this will be better for everyone in the long run, including the grandkids because you will have more energy to invest in them when they are there.
But there are a lot of pitfalls that will slow you down if you don’t pay attention.
Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels
It’s that time of year again, back to school! As all parents know this time of year can get expensive with all the school supplies, new school clothes, and other items children need this time of year. In addition to everything else my girls need for school they always need new glasses so they can see the board in their classes no matter where they are seated. Every August I cringe at the expense of having to buy 2 pairs of glasses on top of all the other things my girls need for school. I am happy that I found a way to save money on eyewear for my family with Discount Glasses. 
My girls had fun picking out the frames they wanted. DiscountGlasses.com offers 2 different ways to virtually try on their frames. You can choose from one of 10 virtual models to see what the glasses would look like on them or you can upload your own photo and virtually try the glasses on your own image. How cool is that?!?!
I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical about virtually trying on glasses but the whole process was really easy. You sit in front of your computer, click the button, follow the simple directions, and in moments the website creates a virtual model of you. My girls had so much fun using themselves as virtual models that I decided to give it a try myself. It’s amazing how you can drag the image of yourself to the right and left and see what the glasses would look like on you from all angles. Pretty awesome if you ask me. I don’t need new glasses for a few more months but I really like how this pair looked on me.
Ordering from DiscountGlasses.com was really easy, too. When you place the order you can enter the prescription information from your eye doctor or you can give DiscountGlasses.com your doctor’s contact information and they will contact your doctor on your behalf to get your prescription. The only thing we had to do ourselves was measure our girls’ pupil distances (also called PD). There is a ruler you can print right from the website and measuring was easy. It took about a week for the glasses to arrive from the date they were shipped and less than 2 weeks overall from the date we placed the order. Part of that wait time was DiscountGlasses.com waiting for the doctor to get back to them with the prescription so if you have your prescription handy I suggest you enter it in yourself.
My girls love that DiscountGlasses.com offers Transition Lenses for an additional price so they can go from indoors to outdoors without needing an additional pair of sunglasses. As a parent this feature is worth every penny (only $69 more). If my girls had separate sunglasses it would just be one more item for them to keep track of, and let’s be honest, one more item for them to lose. So Transition Lenses really work for us.
Here is a little more information on DiscountGlasses.com:
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