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chrisinhouston · 02-03-2015, 08:52 AM

I see 5 of my grandchildren pretty regularly as their family lives only a few miles away. Both parents work so I often get asked to watch over sick kids or when they are out on a school holiday or half day. That being said, I do enjoy it. I always liked being the father of 5 kids and interacting with them as they grew into adults and now I get to sort of do it all over again! My feeling is as they are my grandchildren so I try not to interfere much with the mom and dad's parenting style. I don't always agree with their style but parenting doesn't come with a handbook so as long as no one is mistreated I figure they can figure it out as they go along.

My son in law calls just about everyone "Dude" in conversations, even his mother. I don't know why, I don't think it's a Jeff Bridges kind of dude thing as in The Big Lebowski. I think he got it from being a grunt in the Air Force with other grunts. Recently some of my younger grand children (ages 8 and 10) have referred to me as Dude in a moment of telling me something in an exited tone. I usually stop them and reply. "I'm your grandfather, your father can call me Dude and I could call him Dude. I don't call you Dude so please don't call me that."

The other thing is my 10 year old grandson has started saying "Jesus Christ!" when a sibling does something wrong or unexpected. Both parents use some pretty course language, but the kids know not to use most of those words. I guess he thinks "JC" is ok though. I told him, "I'm not much of a follower of Christianity or Jesus and I'm ok with it if you aren't either but I'm pretty sure if your teacher hears you say that at school or you say it to mom and dad you will be in some pretty big trouble!" I encouraged him to say something like, Gosh Darn or Holy Smoke.

I guess we all use inappropriate language around kids from time to time. I can remember a moment when I was working under our family car with a big repair and my 5 year old son went inside the house where his mother asked him where I was. He responded innocently enough, "outside under the God Dammed car!?

02-03-2015, 08:52 AM	#987
chrisinhouston Professor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Houston TX Posts: 1,857	I see 5 of my grandchildren pretty regularly as their family lives only a few miles away. Both parents work so I often get asked to watch over sick kids or when they are out on a school holiday or half day. That being said, I do enjoy it. I always liked being the father of 5 kids and interacting with them as they grew into adults and now I get to sort of do it all over again! My feeling is as they are my grandchildren so I try not to interfere much with the mom and dad's parenting style. I don't always agree with their style but parenting doesn't come with a handbook so as long as no one is mistreated I figure they can figure it out as they go along. My son in law calls just about everyone "Dude" in conversations, even his mother. I don't know why, I don't think it's a Jeff Bridges kind of dude thing as in The Big Lebowski. I think he got it from being a grunt in the Air Force with other grunts. Recently some of my younger grand children (ages 8 and 10) have referred to me as Dude in a moment of telling me something in an exited tone. I usually stop them and reply. "I'm your grandfather, your father can call me Dude and I could call him Dude. I don't call you Dude so please don't call me that." The other thing is my 10 year old grandson has started saying "Jesus Christ!" when a sibling does something wrong or unexpected. Both parents use some pretty course language, but the kids know not to use most of those words. I guess he thinks "JC" is ok though. I told him, "I'm not much of a follower of Christianity or Jesus and I'm ok with it if you aren't either but I'm pretty sure if your teacher hears you say that at school or you say it to mom and dad you will be in some pretty big trouble!" I encouraged him to say something like, Gosh Darn or Holy Smoke. I guess we all use inappropriate language around kids from time to time. I can remember a moment when I was working under our family car with a big repair and my 5 year old son went inside the house where his mother asked him where I was. He responded innocently enough, "outside under the God Dammed car!?