Am I damaging my 26 month old grandson?

Now. He just thinks you’re magic. Gramps are supposed to be magic. He’ll ask when the time comes.

He’s a baby, enjoy it and give him the gift of playing with grandpa. Cute mental picture!

Let the kid enjoy all the magic you can provide him. The merciless disappointments of reality will be cascading on him soon enough.

Wow @Luckyguy, he’s going to have to have intensive therapy after this.
Kidding! I don’t see how it could be any different from believing in Santa, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy. It’s magical! You are making wonderful memories with him that neither of you will forget. I envy him!

@LuckyGuy I agree with the others. It is sweet and you both are blessed to have this relationship.

I agree with everyone, and besides, by the time he’s five, you will actually be passing blueberries back and forth through augmented reality! You’re just preparing him for the future!

(Will you be my Zayde?)

Awww…bless your heart for caring about it. That’s one lucky little boy to have you; you love him so much that you’ll not only spend time with him, but you think about what impact your actions might have on him. Seriously. So many children don’t have that even from their parents. <3

Most everything is make-believe to a kid until they get to about 7 years old. Keep up the make-believe.

I kinda know the feeling. When my kids ask me hard questions, I find it almost impossible to lie in any way. Of course there’s a bit of guilt at the deception, but I can’t imagine he’ll be anything other than proud of himself when he finds you out. I think it will end up being a cherished memory of the pandemic. Ends justify the means.

Cute. I think it’s a nice trick. One day he’ll figure it out and appreciate the game still the same. It’s like Santa Claus or peekaboo. In my opinion, no harm done.

Thank you for the kind words. Ok, I’ll continue.
I got nervous about it when he tried handing me one of his chickpeas.

I just hope he doesn’t break my son’s phone trying to send me a found stone or seashell.

It’s worth the risk

Just say chickpeas don’t work.

One Christmas my niece and nephew came to stay with me and we were afraid they would worry Santa wouldn’t come because we didn’t have a Christmas tree. Without us saying anything my nephew said, “Santa will find us because JL has a fire place.” I wouldn’t have been thought of that.

Couldn’t correct the typos: fireplace. I never would have thought of that.

People preach about “God” when there is no “God,” so what harm can it do? (Or Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny, etc., etc.)

Maybe he knows exactly what is going on and thinks of it as just playing a game, or maybe he thinks of something he can do to make his granddad happy.

My granddaughter and I pass play food to each other on FaceTime all the time. My teddy bears eat up what she has made for them.

This sounds so adorable! Be sure to have someone film you guys doing it. You can tease him when he grows up.

Your question reminds me of an old episode of Skeptics Gude to the Universe. A listener had a question about whether it was wrong to lie to their kids about Santa. A really interesting discussion ensued and the general conclusion is that a kid figuring out about Santa is one of the most significant moments in their development of critical thinking and reasoning, and that the exercise is actually really valuable for their development.

So I think you’ve got a pretty good thing going @LuckyGuy! Happy blueberry to you both.

^^^ Excellent.

It is my strong belief that all little kids are born scientists. They learn about the world through hundreds of little experiments throughout the day (what happens if I drop this spoon? WHAT HAPPENS IF I DROP IT 200 TIMES? what happens if I don’t put my shoes on? what happens if I put them on but vvvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyyy ssssssslllllllooooooowwwwwwlllllyyyyyy?)

I think you have given your grandson a wonderful mystery to solve. He will have to form lots of hypotheses and collect lots of data. Maybe HE is the Lucky Guy in this story!?

A little humblebrag about one of my own little scientists. My 7yo daughter started losing her baby teeth last summer. “Mom,” she said, “I’m going to put my tooth under my pillow, but promise me you won’t put anything there. I don’t think the tooth fairy can possibly be real, and I’d like to test my hypothesis.” The next morning she was delighted to find out that she was right, and she got a dollar out of her sucker of a mom anyway.

@nikipedia But I’m a magical literature teacher who bred two Computer Scientists! Where did I go wrong? :-) But my younger son did steal the tooth from under his older brother’s pillow once and put it under his for the money!

@gorillapaws Thank you for that beautiful comment. I promise to video the process in action. That is a great idea.
I’ve got a blueberry heading in your direction. :-)

I love how you and @nikipedia have turned it around and made it an experiment HE is running.

@janbb That is a hilarious story. Very tricky indeed! He has a future in Hedge Funds.

@LuckyGuy Same kid also at about 2 or 3 when we were playing the matching cards game Concentration looked under the glass table top for the matches!

When my son was about 8 he’d pull teeth to get money from me.
He called them “genuine silver and ivory artifacts.”

@nikipedia , Did your seven year old daughter actually use the word hypothesis? I am impressed.

@LostInParadise My guess is her mommy uses the word a lot.

You’re fine.

It’s probably more damaging to tell him he’s 26 months old.

My memories of kid behavior include my almost 3 year old nephew attempting to shake his great grandmother free from apparently being trapped in the telephone receiver. Then there was the time when I was on the phone staring at the adorable picture of a grinning 2 year old while her mother reported on that girl wrecking the car.