Empowering grandmothers to feel positive about looking after grandkids
Your kids have grown up, you - willingly or with tears - have recreated your life...and then comes the exciting news about a grandchild being on the way. Some grandparents get to choose when they see the grandchild(ren), some don't get to see the grandchild(ren) as often as they would like and some get asked to look after their grandchild(ren).
Grandparenting can be a major source of fulfilment, but that doesn't imply that all feelings about grandparenting will be 100% positive. Plus, by the time your kids have grown up, you're an experienced parent, but that doesn't mean that you will automatically feel that you know exactly what you need to do to be a grandparent - not least because now you should be taking into account the parenting views of your child. However, you feel about taking on this new role, grandparents can make a huge impression on their grandkids - they can be role models, fill in gaps when kids don't want to chat to their parents and be an extra source of love and safety, amongst many other things. In addition, there are resources to help you choose what type of grandparent you would like to be and be the best version of it you can including listening to your own child's needs and desires for their child, and voicing yours about grandparenting without causing conflict. Enjoy grandparenting!
Websites Offering Support:
Sixty+Me
How important are your grandchildren to you? Whether you are a grandparent raising grandchildren or you just like to help out from time to time, Sixty+me can help you to build a better relationship with your grandkids.
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National Family Mediation
is the largest provider of family mediation in England and Wales. They have a network of dozens of affiliated members, each of which is a not-for-profit family mediation provider.
Family mediation can help Grandparents who are worried that a break-up means their relationship with their Grandchildren can’t continue.
Gransnet
is the busiest social networking site for the over 50s. Launched in May 2011, the site was described by the Telegraph as “a new dawn in grey power.” Brimming with useful content including resources on grandparenting. It also has Gransnet Local, a network of sites featuring the very best in your local community as well as opportunities for gransnetters to meet up with like-minded neighbourhood folk.
Grandparents Plus
is dedicated to grandparents and their role in the care and development of their grandchildren.
Families Need Fathers
is a charity chiefly concerned with supporting all parents and the grandparents to have personal contact and meaningful relationships with children following parental separation. They offer information, advice and support services to help parents to achieve a positive outcome for their children. Their forum and network of over 50 UK Branches also offer pro-bono guidance of solicitors and others who are familiar with the operation of the family courts.
Books on this subject:
The New Granny’s Survival Guide: Everything you need to know to be the best gran
With half of the UK’s grandparents aged under 65, being a granny is no longer all blue rinses, hip replacements and bingo. Happy, healthy and energetic, the modern gran is worlds away from the little old biddy stereotype.
If you’re a new gran, or about to become one, The New Granny’s Survival Guide is your essential handbook for grandparenting. Packed full of sanity-saving advice from Gransnet – the number one online platform for grannies – this book covers everything you need to know to be a brilliant gran.
With practical guidance, hilarious insights and fresh ideas, you’ll discover:
· Top tips for entertaining your grandchildren
· Advice on building great relationships with in-laws
· Guidance on how to cope with broken families, competitive grannies and difficult situations
· Suggestions for how to juggle your own social life with being a hands-on gran
The Good Granny Guide
As all good grannies know, the most precious gift they can offer their grandchildren is time…
In The Good Granny Guide you will find a whole range of practical advice to help you make the most of the time you spend with your grandchildren, as babies, as toddlers, and through the primary school years.
Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, a loving and closely involved grandmother of four children, has gathered first-hand tips from other grandparents and their families in many different situations. The result is a wonderfully insightful handbook a vast resource of wisdom, history and humour covering everything from childcare troubleshooting to what NOT to say to the daughter-in-law.
Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting
After four decades as a reporter, Lesley Stahl’s most vivid and transformative experience of her life was not covering the White House, interviewing heads of state, or researching stories at 60 Minutes. It was becoming a grandmother. She was hit with a jolt of joy so intense and unexpected, she wanted to “investigate” it–as though it were a news flash. And so, using her 60 Minutes skills, she explored how grandmothering changes a woman’s life, interviewing friends like Whoopi Goldberg, colleagues like Diane Sawyer (and grandfathers, including Tom Brokaw), as well as the proverbial woman next door.
Along with these personal accounts, Stahl speaks with scientists and doctors about physiological changes that occur in women when they have grandchildren; anthropologists about why there are grandmothers, in evolutionary terms; and psychiatrists about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren on both grandmothers and grandfathers.
Throughout Becoming Grandma, Stahl shares stories about her own life with granddaughters Jordan and Chloe, about how her relationship with her daughter, Taylor, has changed, and about how being a grandfather has affected her husband, Aaron.
In an era when baby boomers are becoming grandparents in droves and when young parents need all the help they can get raising their children, Stahl’s book is a timely and affecting read that redefines a cherished relationship.
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