So my dad's cut off from taking the grandkids ever again ...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

(Not my kids, but I’m sure as hell never going to leave him alone with them.)

My dad is quite a piece of work. The armchair psychiatrist in me says it’s probably narcissistic personality disorder, but of course he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with him (everyone else has the issues, you see), so a real diagnosis will never be made.

Anyway, a little backstory: About 10 years ago my brother met a nice lady online. She lived a few states away with her 3 kids (older boy and twin girls) from a previous marriage. She and the kids moved here to be with my brother. They had a child, got married, and moved back to her home state in 2001. In the fall of 2005, my brother died suddenly and unexpectedly. Since then, my dad has been making an effort to see the kids once a year or so. All four of them call him Grandpa, even though he’s only biologically related to the youngest.

Suzy’s ex-husband (father of the other 3) is quite the ass. She doesn’t think he’s really at all interested in the kids’ welfare. She’s pretty sure he just likes to yank her chain and power-trip on them. So there are some pretty strict restrictions on travel - she can’t take the kids out of the county without 7 days’ written notice to him (and I think to the court), and it would take a change in the custody agreement for her to be able to bring the kids here for a visit. Yeah.

So, last year, he went out for a visit and kept the kids at his hotel overnight. In the morning, the kids were enjoying some time in the pool, and my dad left them alone to go do some shopping. (They were 14, 12, 12, and 7 at the time.) For an hour, they were completely unsupervised on the hotel property. When Mom heard about this, she went ballistic. And my dad has no idea why.

But he wanted to visit them again this summer, and Mom nervously agreed to let him take them for two nights. He was “gently reminded” not to leave the kids alone at the pool this time. Being my dad, he showed up really late the first day - 10:00 PM. He gets the kids and their stuff packed up and over to the hotel, and they’re all so excited that the oldest one can’t sleep. What does good ol’ Grandpa do? Hands over a frikkin’ Percocet. Yup - narcotic pain relievers to an underage kid. Mom found out the next morning, and immediately drove over and took them home. And my dad doesn’t understand what the big deal is.

We have never allowed him to babysit our two boys alone, and never will.

2

I was gonna say the whole pool thing was an overreaction but the Percocet thing might be a deal breaker. Is he a good grandfather / dad otherwise? Could he be showing signs of diminished mental capacity or has he always been , er, irresponsible? If he honestly doesn’t understand why the Percocet incident was a big no-no, I’d seriously consider the former.

3

His understanding of the situation is not the issue; the kids’ safety is the issue. He has a serious lack of judgment, and should never be alone with kids.

4

I had a friend once whose mother did not understand why, if the kid fell asleep in the car, you couldn’t just leave her there (in the car with the windows cracked slightly) when you got home so that her nap was uninterrupted. Despite being told repeatedly, and the girl complaining because she could not get out of the child seat.

I lost track of the friend, but she pulled the mother’s access to the child after the second or third time, I beleive.

5

Leaving a 14 year old at a pool is a serious lack of judgement about the kids’ safety?

Well, OK I’ll be fair, I’ll assume that you agree that a 14 year should be able to not drown themselves in a pool in daylight with lots of other people around when they presumably haven’t been able to get a hold of alchol. I’ll assume you’re worried about the 7 year old. And IMO, that could still be fine depending on the situation.

For instance, if there was a paid lifeguard at the pool, what’s the danger? They’d be better at saving the kid than Grandpa would. Even if there wasn’t, depending on the maturity and ability of the 14 year old, they could be a perfectly good guard in a small pool for an hour. When I was a Boy Scout at camp, there were 14 year olds who passed the lifeguard test.

I agree the percoset is a bad idea, but it’s hardly going to kill the kid. If any medical Dopers offer their expert opinion that it could cause lasting harm in an adolescent, I’ll accept their judgement, of course and stand corrected.

6

I wish I had a grandfather who’d give me Percocet.

7

In my experience with hotels, they do not have lifeguards at their pools. Maybe if you’re at the type that has an indoor water park. Grandpa essentially laid all the responsibility for watching three siblings on that young teen’s shoulders, making him responsible for watching all of them at once, and we don’t know that the kid even knows how to swim all that well. Would he even know that a drowning person should be approached from behind or underwater, lest they grab you and end up nearly drowning you too, or to duck that person underwater to make them let go? All it’d take is one horsing around and, say, slipping and hitting his head on the edge of the pool then falling in, and the teen’s attention to be drawn elsewhere (by the other two fighting, by a cute girl, whatever), and tragedy could happen swiftly.

And “it’s hardly going to kill the kid” is like saying that grandpa isn’t handing out rat poison so it’s not such a big deal. Percoset contains oxycodone (extremely addictive and with strong withdrawal effects) and acetaminophen. If he’ll hand it out to a hyper kid who can’t sleep, who knows how readily he’ll give more if the kid decides he liked how that made him feel or figures out that some time after the stuff wears off, he doesn’t feel so good and maybe he needs more medicine.

8

Had the issue only been the swimming pool, I would’ve been going, “…and? What’s the problem again?” (This coming from someone who had many friends whose parents would allow us to swim, unsupervised, in their home pools since the age of 6 or 7 (basically as soon as we learned how to swim)). But the percocet really takes it over the top. That’s just plain scary.

9

I can’t get on board with the pool incident being wrong. Three of the four children can be asked to watch the youngest. Many a time I have sent my son who is ten years older than his sister to the pool in the hotel or on a cruise ship with no lifeguards. I guess starting at about 14 or so.

As far as the percocet? Extremely bad judgement but I certainly wouldn’t not trust him to be alone with my children if you are convinced he now realizes that it wasn’t such a smart thing to do.

10

Why are four kids going off to a hotel instead of one grandparent staying with the kids?

Were there other adults at the pool at the time? In any case, I wouldn’t let that man care for my pets let alone any kids.

11

The only way he would “realize” that giving a kid a percocet was the wrong thing to do is after he was outright told so. I think he may have gotten it after Mom came and took the kids away. Also, my nephew has some mental health/behavior issues and maybe physical health issues as well, so he’s on prescription meds to begin with.

Like I said, he’s narcissistic, so anything he does is OK unless you tell him otherwise. And even then, he thinks you’re wrong unless at least three people tell him he was in the wrong. He thought it was OK to insist on being at the delivery of my second child because he was there for the first one. (BIG mistake!) When I informed him otherwise, he called my (surviving) brother and my mom (even though they’ve been divorced for 15 years) to complain about how unreasonable I was being. Then he got the verbal smack-down from each of them, and conceded. He has no idea why he was wrong, just that he was told he was wrong.

12

I’m with everyone else here. 3 12+ yr olds can watch a 7 yr old at the pool.
Percocet, however, is pretty odd. You should be 16 before your family starts handing you drugs.

13

A lot of pools have actual rules about what counts as adequate supervision. Although I think the pool in my subdivision allows 14 year olds to supervise siblings (there’s a lifeguard), it wouldn’t surprise me to see a hotel require adult supervision. A hotel really has no interest in unsupervised minors in its pool. And even if the hotel allowed it, the parents’ right to be upset based on knowing the actual kids involved would still apply.

14

I don’t know…I’m not really on board with the four kids at a pool alone. It’s not like he was in another room, he physically left the property. What happened if there was an emergency? Hotel pools rarely have a lifeguard, in my experience. And I’m not much comforted by the presence of a 14yo - these are often the kids doing really stupid stuff. What if one of the kids rigged a diving board into the shallow end of the pool? What if they were fooling around and someone got seriously injured? You are trusting that the 14yo and 12yo are capable of making good decisions in an emergency situation. Half the time, adults don’t make good decisions.

The percoset thing - also pretty stupid. One is probably okay, but you have to dose things by weight in small children. I doubt any harm was done to the older kid - he’s probably heavy enough to have escaped any damage, but tylenol, a component of percoset, can be dangerous in large doses. Also, particularly in toddlers, narcotics are one of the adult medications that is considered very dangerous and potentially deadly.

Two thumbs down for grandpa.

15

I don’t see what the big deal is either. By 14 I was basically on my own during the summers, and that often involved swimming unsupervised. I’m sure if I hada 7 year old sibling that I would be entrusted (forced) to watch them as well.

The Percocet isn’t a big deal. It is acetaminophen with a small amount of oxycodone. Basically a souped up Tylenol. It warrants a :dubious: because it doesn’t really do anything to help someone sleep, unless they are in pain. However, it really isn’t dangerous beyond long term issues with the liver and becoming addicted to the oxycodone (unlikely at the small dose).

Frankly it sounds like there are other issues at play here.

16

I have no idea what’s wrong with a grandfather wanting to be at the birth of his grandkid either.

17

I wouldn’t rat him out either.

I’m guessing the problem with the pool is that it makes a great excuse for the bio-dad of the kids to raise a stink.

18

I do not know how much news it made elsewhere but here in Orlando July was a huge month for pedophiles to grope kids in the wave pools at the water parks. Leaving kids at the pool is not a great idea because you do not know who else is there and what they might do. All it takes is a moment and the child has been mis-handled. It is less likely if it is clear parents/“adults of the group” are there and keeping up with what is occurring. There are more creeps out there. There is that beside drowning.

19

I’m with the majority here. The pool thing was not a great idea but it’s within the bounds of reason.

But giving a kid percocet? That’s unacceptable.

20

Depends on the level of involvement he demands, and his behavior in the past. Insist on being in the hospital’s waiting area for the kid being born? Ok. Insist on standing in the actual delivery room to watch the kid emerge in person? Not at all ok. And if he spent the first kid’s birth causing stress, it might be better for him to stay home.