Grandparenting the Blended Family: How to Succeed With Your Step or Adopted Grandchildren

by Dene Low

Overview

Grandparenting is hard enough, but when you add in the blended family element, whether step or adopted, the challenge is even greater.  How do you succeed when these children are not your own? How do you make them your own? Can you get them to love you? to like you? to trust you? How do successful grandparents do it?

Dene Low, an award winning author and grandparent herself, explores thirty different sets of grandparents and provides tips and solutions  from her interviews and research for grandparent success.

Your role as a grandparent is critical to your grandchildren, whether they be your biological grandchildren, step grandchildren, or adopted grandchildren. You have a role to play. You have a difference to make. As  the author says, “Grandparents can save the world.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938301322
Publisher:	Familius
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dene Low is a grandparent. She thought she knew how to grandparent until she interviewed over thirty grandparents for this book, who shared their wisdom and experiences. Dene is a former journalist and is an award-winning author of novels, short stories, articles, and scholarly anthology chapters. She has a Ph.D. and is currently a university professor. When she’s not writing, teaching, or playing with her family, she is touring the United States with her husband on their motorcycles.

Table of Contents

Ch. 1 Grandparents Can Save the World
Ch. 2 Meet the New Family
Ch. 3 What Do They Call You?
Ch. 4 Always A Parent
Ch. 5 An Island of Peace: The No-Judgment Buffer Zone
Ch. 6 Interacting with All the Exes Who May or May Not Be in Texas
Ch. 7 Holidays, Traditions, Events, Oh, My!
Ch. 8 Politics, Religion, and Other Times to Shut Up
Ch. 9 Going the Distance—When Families Are Far Apart
Ch. 10 Enriching Lives: When It’s Time to Put Up and Speak Up
Ch. 11 When Your World Crumbles
Ch. 12 Grandparenting—It’s a Joy After All

Editorial Reviews

"Grandparents often have a special place in their hearts for their grandchildren, and vice versa. For many people, grandchildren or grandparents come in unanticipated ways such as through remarriage, adoption, or other blending of family relationships. Such relationships become 'life savers' in many cases. This book is packed with inspiring stories of ways that grandparents become involved in the lives of their blended family grandchildren. The experiences shared provide powerful examples of love across blended generations, and reassurance that others have similar challenging yet meaningful situations. Grandparents in blended families will be touched, inspired, and reminded of the wonderful blessing that grandparents and grandchildren can be for each other. They will find helpful examples of how to balance being a grandparent while having to teach, ways to address new blended family relations, and creating a safe place for grandchildren going through difficult times. Wisdom and examples share various ways to maintain and strengthen blended family relationships. I heartily recommend this book to any grandparents wanting to learn ways to connect with their grandchildren, especially those in blended families."
—Jeremy Yorgason, Associate Professor of Family Studies, Brigham Young University

 

From the Publisher