Donna Kelce Shares Grandparenting Advice: 'Let Them Do Whatever They Want'

Donna Kelce knows how to win over her grandkids.

“Let them do whatever they want,” Donna, 73, responded when daughter-in-law Kylie Kelce asked for her best grandparenting advice during her Thursday, November 6, appearance on Kylie’s “Not Gonna Lie” podcast. “Within reason. There are things that I ask you. ‘Can I do this? Can I do that?’”

The grandmother of four continued, “I think you’re there to show them as much love as you possibly can. And I’m not the one that’s going to be the downer. So, I try not to be. But every once in a while, you have to say, ‘OK, that’s enough.’”

Kylie, 33, told Donna that she has an “amazing balance” with her and husband Jason Kelce’s four daughters, Wyatt, 6, Ellie, 4, Bennett, 2, and Finn, 7 months.

Donna Kelce Shares the Parenting Advice She Gave Son Jason Kelce

“They know that you’ll bring them sweet treats because that’s the grandparents’ duty. Everybody knows that you have free rein on sweet treats,” Kylie continued. “And they know that you will sit there and give them your undivided attention and read them books. And so because of that, whenever there is mention of DeeDee, they’re like, ‘Where is she? When she get here?’ Is she here yet?’”

Kylie concluded, “There’s excitement with it that, like, is unmatched, and very obvious that they truly value the time that they get to spend with you.”

Donna added that she values her time with the girls too.

In addition to sharing her best tips as a grandparent, Donna shared the No. 1 piece of motherhood advice that she lived by while raising Jason, 38, and his younger brother, Travis Kelce.

“Everyone should want to let them fight,” she told Kylie. “Because that’s how you learn to negotiate, to do different things. But I mean, if it looks like it’s getting kind of, you know, terrible, and it’s too … it looks like somebody’s going to get hurt. … But usually somebody cries and it stops.”

Donna added that younger siblings often “come up with good negotiation skills and manipulation and some other things.”

Now that Jason is raising kids of his own, Donna said she has been “totally amazed” by how “gentle” her eldest son can be.

“But then he still throws him up in the air on the couch. But that is a softer side of him that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before,” she added. “And he definitely loves his girls. There’s no doubt about it.”

Kylie Kelce Reveals Mother-in-Law Donna's Best Quality

Jason and Kylie met on the dating app Tinder in 2014 and tied the knot four years later in Philadelphia. The couple welcomed Wyatt in October 2019, followed by Ellie in March 2021 and Bennett in February 2023. Finn arrived in April of this year.

“I have to be bad cop most of the time because I’m outnumbered,” Kylie said of their parenting dynamic during a September 2023 episode of Jason and Travis’ “New Heights” podcast, adding that Jason is often the “good cop” and the “fun” parent. “On any given day, I have to be bad cop most of the day. We’re trying to limit injuries and keep the peace. And when it’s just me and it’s three against one, I got to try to nip it in the bud before anything goes terribly awry.”