young grandparents
Gary
23 years ago
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Bengal Lily at Home
23 years agoRelated Discussions
For all Grandparents
Comments (16)Allright, I almost didn't open this thread, but then I remembered......"Oh that's right, I qualify!" LOL Cute anecdotes and your news is even better! Congratulations on little Mara Lee! I'll be watching for pictures, too! BTW...number 9 made me laugh out loud! Linda...See Morewhat do i do (very long)
Comments (4)I am assuming from reading your letter that you don't have children of your own. If that's the case you deserve a lot of credit and some xtra support for the task you have taken on. I am rearing my 3 year old grandson but it feels easy so far compared to what you are dealing with ESPECIALLY if you didn't raise children of your own. Dynamics between females in a household are often tricky and I think you are seeing signs of this in your 10 year old granddaughter. She is working at establishing herself as a young woman, and you are working at establishing yourself as an authority figure in her life while you amange a home, amarriage, and other obligations. Tough going!! There are bound to be rough spots but I will make a couple of suggestions about smoothng things over. First, try to take your own ego out of the equation. Don't get your feelings hurt if at possible and stay calm as if you were a teacher or doctor. This is hard but it can really help defuse a hot situation. Tell her you will speak with her about it later when you and she can think about the topic some more. Tell her calmly that you are trying really hard to make a happy and safe home for her and her brother. Tell her you don't have all the answers but you will always listen if she needs to talk. Show openess and kindness to her...sounds like she has had a rough childhood and might be needing some soft guidance from a female figure. If she's got a therapist, I think you could use one too! Not forever, just a few appointments to support you in this job. You are worth it. Set your husband straight that he was unfair to dump the costume decision on you and that you and he SHARE this job. Yes, you spend time with them but he cannot sail in to be Fun Person. Not fair to you OR these children who could use a kindly, protective father figure. If I had to guess, I would say your GD is doing some attention-getting behaviors and rather than turn your back on that, give her what she needs now. Otherwise, you will end up with a defiant, ugly teenager who battles with you non-stop. Fix things NOW...you won't be sorry....See MoreSimple questions for grandparents....or anyone..plz fill thanks
Comments (1)Time to move this down, too....See MoreMy Grandparents made me the man I am today!
Comments (4)Hi, I read your post with interest as we are in the process of taking on our 20 month old Grandson. His Father (our son) and Mother are both on drugs. Our Son is currently in jail and is back to being a normal person who you can have a conversation with. He doesn't know we are taking on his son as he has no contact with him and becomes very angry about the situation. He would dearly love to see him but before being in jail his girlfriend (the Mother) and he had a very volatile relationship and the 3 children were taken by child protection services. The older two (different fathers) were placed with their maternal grandparents, who thought it would be short term. Unfortunately their daughter is still on drugs and only maintains spasmodic contact, which is getting less. Our grandson was placed in foster care, he was 3 weeks old at the time. He is with a lovely family who have two teenagers and two other foster children aged 6 and 4 and our grandson 20mths. We didn't take on our grandson at 3 weeks, hoping the parents would come good. That is obviously not going to happen for the mother and my son would have to jump through hoops to prove he has drug taking and anger issues under control. My questions are "how important is it for my grandson to be with family? Should he be allowed to stay where he is happy and loved? (my fear here is he will become part of the "foster" system and be parcelled around). If we don't take him will he grow up thinking the family didn't want him? We will have him before he turns 2, are we being selfish to take on a toddler at our age ?(54) We just want what is best for him. The overall question I suppose is "how important is family ?"...See MoreMaxine
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