Six essential tips on how to master the art of the ‘grandcation’

Like many older men, I’m invariably astonished to look in the mirror and see a grandfather staring back. Hell’s teeth. I’ve barely got started. There’s still the rock band to form, Twickenham to take by storm and Route 66 upon which to get further kicks. Then a small person by my side restores reality. “Pops,” he says. (I’d wanted “Brad”, or conceivably “Colonel”, but the consensus was “Grandpops”, soon shortened to “Pops”.)

He’s eight. He wants to play soccer in the garden. He thinks he’s Mbappé. I think I’m Tom Finney. I’ll show him a thing or two. And for nine, maybe 10, minutes, I do. Then I need a break. He’s suddenly six goals up. I really need a break. So it is that the first lesson of having the grandchildren on holiday is: don’t kid yourself. You’re no longer 27. No purpose is served by cardiac arrest. At your age, even Sir Tom had slowed down.

There are other lessons – of particular pertinence right now that lockdowns, quarantine, curfews and the rest have made such a merry mess of holiday planning. Grandparents are likely to continue being conscripted for the foreseeable. And, in most cases (I’d say) they are delighted, even when the grandchildren come festooned with instructions. Ours is a risk-averse era in which parents’ natural tendency to micro-management is compounded by warnings barked from the internet. Grandparents therefore receive, at best, guidance even though (as I have occasionally pointed out) we have been parents ourselves and not entirely disastrously – otherwise the person giving me dietary diktats for the tots wouldn’t have learned how to use a bl**dy spoon himself.

This gets me nowhere. Grandparents should respect parental directives but maybe tweak them slightly, in line with the mores of less weedy times. I’m not saying ignore the seat belts, smoke in the lounge and slap kids behind the knees (well, I am sometimes, but only quietly and to myself). What I’m advocating is that particular mix of insouciance and firmness which characterised earlier ages. Grandparents are, I think, generally stricter on structure – bed times, meal times and associated manners (“May I leave the table?” remains mandatory) – but less worried about what happens in between, even if it involves rocks, wildlife and being out of view for several minutes.

Injecting a dose of this into the holiday should do no harm, may add to everyone’s pleasure and, as long as we keep the kids out of intensive care, help create stout-hearted citizens for our planet’s future. There are also more specific questions to be considered:

Go to the countryside and unleash them

You’ll need a range of activities which tire them out but leave you standing. As seen, soccer lasts 10 minutes, top side. Tag and British bulldogs scarcely longer. Hide ‘n’ seek is better for, once hidden, you needn’t move. Outdoor-wise, I also favour crazy golf and, especially, Mölkky, the Finnish skittle game with numerical challenges. (If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, look Mölkky up. It’s a grand game for all ages at which grandpa might still triumph, as long as he stays upright.)

Funfairs and adventure parks generally soak up time and energy – but also, alas, shipping quantities of cash. Finest of all is to go into the countryside and unleash them. They’ll find their own stuff to do, often involving muck or climbing out of sight. Remember how liberating you used to find that? They will, too. Kids don’t change much. And it’s free.

Inside-wise, don’t fall for the schtick about “it’s never too early to expose them to culture”. Taking kids to museums and galleries is like taking poultry to the opera. Wait until they’re 20, minimum. I’m not that sure about aquariums, either. In my experience, the value-for-money is poor. You pay the thick end of 15 quid a head and they’re racing past many-tentacled endangered species as if they were bath toys, the quicker to get to the real bath toys in the gift shop.

It’s silly, too, to get high-handed about youngsters’ screen time. Disapproval is expected from the elderly. This is crazy. It is, for a start, reasonable to assume that Minecraft, Roblox or Lego Harry Potter are less moronic than were Captain Pugwash, The Flowerpot Men and Crackerjack – if only because nothing could be more moronic than The Flowerpot Men. The programme bestowed idiocy upon supine 1950s nippers. Today’s screens demand input from infants, which is one up. They also ensure quiet for an hour or so which, at the end of the day, is like a ceasefire.

Feed them whatever they want

Give them what they want. That way, they go home to tell their parents: “Grandma’s cooking is great.” And everyone’s happy. Except the parents. These same parents, these days, may evince an ideological take on eating, saving the planet, supporting growers of organic quinoa in far-off places and what-have-you. I like to discuss this with the grandchildren themselves when they are at their most receptive – ie, in Burger King.

That said, and unless it’s snowing, picnics are the ideal solution. They deconstruct meals for children whose job in life is to deconstruct as much as possible. A perfect match, then, in which kids may run around mid-sandwich, have ice-cream with crisps, romp into the sea brandishing the lemon tart, share bread with passing poodles or eat nothing at all because they wanted pizza, not melon. That’s all good. What isn’t good is the food-related tantrum. Or the tantrum of any sort.

Cope with tantrums through ‘cooling off periods’

Fortunately, these have grown very rare round here, for I am poor at dealing with them. Contemporary wisdom – that one should calm things down by talking them through – sits uneasy with a mindset more likely to yell: ‘Ffs, man up!”, thus committing three sins in five words. To the girls, I advise taking the problem to grandma. In all cases, I now suggest, with a certain firmness, a cooling off period in the bedroom. This grants peace for as long as it takes.

For bedtime? Find stories that don’t drive you nuts

Key thing here is to find a story to read which holds their attention without driving you nuts. Which rules out the Mr Men series. My favourites, depending on age, have long been The Little Blue Truck followed by the Fievel series featuring the émigré Russian mouse and the Astérix comic books. In the spirit of the times, we also seek works where girls are adventurers and boys dance. Grandparents and parents are on the same page, vis à vis gender stereotypes. Tragically, the children themselves re-impose them unprompted, the boys favouring soccer stories and blue PSG pyjamas, the girls given to pink and tales featuring unicorns. Go figure.

Leave the Easter Bunny discussion to the parents

Grandparents are meant to introduce nippers to experiences drawn from their own long lives. This is ok if you’re a farmer, zoo-keeper, gardener, forester or angler. Others struggle. My grandchildren have proved remarkably resistant to reminiscences of hot metal or demonstrations of shorthand. Fortunately, I’m pretty ace at skimming stones. Proper life lessons – the truth about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny or where babies come from – should, in all cases, be left to parents. Full stop.

Keep parental contact to a minimum

Keep Skype, Facetime or Zoom contact with distant parents to a minimum. Screen contact compounds the sadness of absence, especially for those too young to understand that mummy is in Canada, not the kitchen. Stay vigilant. You’ll have forgotten that absolutely everything in a house can maim or kill a child, from kitchen knives to settees (when fallen from while bouncing) and glossy magazines (when left on a tiled floor to be slipped upon). Finally, revel. Not only are grandchildren the greatest thing that’s happened since your own children but they are also a passport to desirable activities which, if an old man were to do them by himself, would attract adverse comment. I’m thinking the ghost train, buying blue ice cream, trampolining and hurtling through the town centre screaming like a banshee because pursued by cowboys and princesses.