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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Tim & Darcy Kimmel 
 
 
Question: 
 
I like to spoil my grandkids. Do I need to be careful about how I do 
this? 
 
Answer: 
 
DARCY KIMMEL: You mean there’s a problem with grandparents 
spoiling their grandchildren? I thought that was one of the earned 
privileges! [laughs] 
 
TIM KIMMEL: Well, it is. It’s part of the grand conspiracy—and 
remember, you’re going to be a grandparent someday, and you’re 
going to want to spoil your grandchildren. 
 
But really what you’re getting at is there is a positive type of spoiling 
that can be fun for everybody, and then there’s a negative type, and 
when it gets negative, it can really do a lot of damage. 
 
We just want to hit on a few things that might help them through this. 
 
DARCY: And a lot of it has to do with discipline on our part, as the 
grandparents. We have to know where the limits are, and a lot of that 
has to do with actually talking to our kids about ways that we can help 
them raise our children, rather than us going in behind their back and 
undermining them. 
 
TIM: And that’s probably the first rule, that you want make sure that 
as a grandparent, you are never doing anything that undermines the 
role and the authority of those parents. Those parents have a set of 
rules that might be very different from yours, as far as what the kids 
 
can eat or can’t eat. How much television they can see or can’t see. 
That kind of stuff. And you really want to be sensitive with that, and 
go along with that. 
 
And then you don’t want to come along with your money and do a lot 
of wrecked havoc with that. For instance, if you want to go by a rule of 
thumb, less is more when it comes to spoiling grandkids from a 
financial point of view. 
 
DARCY: That’s right, because time, our attention, just spending the 
day with them many times is much more valuable as far as making 
them into a better person, then just doling out money or giving them 
gifts. 
 
TIM: Let’s say your grandchild has left his baseball glove at the park, a 
$50-$75 baseball glove, and his parents are disciplining him by making 
him earn that money back, and then granddad comes along and finds 
out he doesn’t have a ball glove, and just hands him $75—well, that’s 
negative spoiling. That’s undermining. We don’t want to do those kinds 
of things. 
 
Or we go and just bring a gift along we haven’t checked out with the 
parents—like, you know, a pet snake or a Rottweiler, or something like 
that. 
 
DARCY: [laughs] 
 
So one thing you may need to do with your parents to keep them from 
doing the negative spoiling is just to very graciously say, “You know 
what, Mom and Dad? This Christmas, we’re trying to limit all the 
material stuff for our kids. I know you love to give them gifts. Maybe 
you could limit it to just two gifts this year, instead of the normal 
twenty?” 
 
 
TIM: And a couple more things. There are other sets of grandparents 
in this family tree and in this family picture. And regardless of what 
the situation is, you never want to do anything that makes them look 
bad.  
 
For instance, there might be one set of grandparents who, for 
whatever reason, have a lot more material goods to share. They could 
easily make that other set of grandparents look small in the eyes of 
the kids.  
 
Well, c’mon. We’re older people now. We should have matured enough 
to know that that’s not the right thing to do. That would show an 
insecurity on our part, and you don’t want to do that, and so you 
might have to talk with your parents about that. 
 
But probably the number one thing is, when it comes to spoiling your 
grandchildren with gifts or whatever, just make sure that whatever it 
is you are giving them or doing for them, it’s always going to make 
them a better person, help them grow up to be a greater person.  
 
And if that’s the rule you’re using, usually the kids involved there—not 
the grandkids, but your children—they don’t mind it a bit. 
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