A Guide to Great Grandparenting

This guide provides practical help for building a multigenerational family characterized by love, respect, communication, and mutual support. The key is creating a strong Family Trinity consisting of grandparents, parents and grandchildren, bound together by God s love. When this God-Given Family Trinity is God-Driven, its benefits endure for generations.
Unlike others who have written about grandparenting, Paul and Diana Miller provide insights into the grandparents' relationships with their adult children, not just with their grandchildren. This adult-to-adult relationship is quite different from the old parent-to-child relationship that must be put aside and replaced with one characterized by deeper and mutually respectful love and communication.
The book describes the responsibilities in the Family Trinity. First, grandparents are to be coaches of the adult children, helping them become better parents. Second, the parents are the primary instructors for the grandchildren, including discipline. Third, the grandparents are to be models of appropriate and loving behavior for their grandchildren. When these roles are fulfilled, the children are more likely to grow up to be solid and productive adults.
Grandparents are warned to avoid two pitfalls. First, they must not continue treating their adult children like children! That means letting them go so they can live their life as they should. Second, grandparents must not view themselves as instructors and disciplinarians of their grandchildren in order to avoid encroaching on the parents' responsibilities and confusing the children by not teaching the same things that their parents are teaching them.
The book provides much practical guidance, including help with such activities as baby-sitting and gift-giving, and explanations of why spoiling the grandchildren is a terrible idea!
The book also presents insights into special situations, specifically grandparenting in adoptive, fostering, and intercultural families. It also discusses more difficult circumstances, including those when the parents are out of the picture or disengaged from the rest of the family.
This guide is a must-have for expectant grandparents and for grandparents who want to get better, who aren't sure what to do, who are in special situations, and who are in difficult situations.
The authors also recommend it for the parents of grandchildren to help them more readily and productively involve the grandparents in raising their offspring.