Grandparents

Grandparents: How do you view them?

Well I believe that it goes without saying that it certainly depends on your own personal relationship with your parents and inlaws. Do/did you get along? If not why?

Grandparents can hold a valuable spot in a child's life.**

I never really had a personal relationship with my maternal grandmother. She lived an hour away and we would go visit on a Sunday when I was young. I think it was kind of a "children should be seen and not heard" type of relationship. Not bad...just kind of neutral. I feel like I had a little more relationship with my maternal grandfather, he spent time with us after my grandmother died. He liked music and would always be singing or saying his quirky little rhymes. Did they speak into my life....not really.

My paternal grandparents, were different in everyway from my other Nanny and Gramp. They lived in my town. I did not see them alot but my grandmother made some impact on me. I liked her. She would speak to me. She seemed interested. She liked raw hotdogs and I did too and we would share one once in a while!. That little insignificant memory makes me feel as if I knew her more. We called her "nanny with the harmonica" to our children as she could belt out a jig on that thing well into her 90's.
Memories.

What kind of grandparents do/did you have? What kind of grandparenting would you want? What kind of grandparent would you like to be?

Speaking at a MOPS group this morning I touched on this subject. I painted a couple of senarios and asked the moms how they would have wanted me as a grandmother to respond to the children. Some want the grandmother to be just that..a spoiler. "Mom please just be the grandmother." Others would like there parents to be an active part in the discipline of their kids.

It's all personal. But I do think it's worth thinking about. I am going to ask my kids what they would like to see in my grandparenting. I think I can take it! :)

Let me finish with this.
One thing I know that I don't like... grandmom or not...
I don't like to be made to sound like the bad guy. A visitor might say,"Johnny, If you keep running around, Ms. Wells is going to get angry at you" "If you continue to ask for cookies, Nanny is going to sit you in the Happy Chair" etc etc

NO ...If you are the parent..BE the parent. It's your job no matter where you are and a grandparent or friend should never be made to feel like a potential bad-guy because your child is acting up.

Things to think about and hopefully talk about. (perhaps you could send this forward as an ice breaker to your folks for dialog)

Blessings!

*** Grandparenting tips will be coming in future blogs!