Five Ways to Entertain your Four year old Grandson in a Construction Zone

As many of you know I babysit my grandson two days during the week while his mom (my daughter) sleeps (she works the night shift).  As you may also know from my last post, we are also in the home-stretch on a total house remodel job.  So this means that my four year old grandson has to accompany me to the job site during the day on those two days a week.  Have you ever tried to keep a four year old boy occupied and out of harms way in a construction zone?  It is not easy, but I have managed to do it with some success this week and no one was injured in the process.  Let me share my top five tips, just in case you find yourself in a similar situation.

Five Ways to Entertain your Four year old Grandson in a Construction Zone:


1. Give him something constructive to do so he won't be destructive. I had to sand and refinish all of the kitchen cabinets so I gave my grandson a screw driver and let him remove all of the hinges...boys really like screw drivers. He did it with such attention to detail, and was so proud of the huge pile of hinges and screws he had when it was done.

2. Give him a hammer and show him a pile of large rocks.  He will figure out what to do next.  Just don't tell him that prisoners use to do it as punishment, it takes all the fun out of it.

3. First, make sure the neighbor's dog is securely confined in her yard, then let your grandson run laps up and down the fence line making barking sounds (like the dog usually does when we are in the yard).  Interestingly, the dog hates this as much as we do, when she does it to us.

4. Ask him to use a magnet to pick up all the loose nails, screws, and staples.  This may be a chore for us grown ups but four year old boys LOVE it!

5.  If you are painting the trim outside the house, let him put on his Spiderman gloves and climb the 5 foot tall chain link fence like he is Spiderman.  When your daughter gets upset that you let him climb the fence (which apparently is against her rules), then first tell her it is only 5 foot tall so the most he could have fallen would have been two feet...then remind her about the things she secretly did as a teenager against your rules...then say, "We are even now." (with a smile of course)


So 5 hours on the job site and he didn't get hurt, nor did he make his Papa crazy with 1001 silly questions while he is trying to make detailed tile cuts.  He even earned some pay at the end of the job just like the subcontractors on the job. I think it was a good day :-)