Grandparents Raising Children Support Group

This community is dedicated to grandparents who are the primary caregivers of their grandchildren. In cases where the parents are not willing or able to provide adequate care for their children, grandparents may take on the role of primary caregivers. Join the support group to find support, share your experience, and get advice from other members.

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Counseling advice?

JanAndRob
JanAndRob
We have been working with child therapist. Recently, gd (4 years old) is quite mad at dad for lots of broken 'pinky promises' to visit. When he did call, she did not mention how upset she was. Gd said she did not want to hurt his feelings. Therapist did some role playing with her; had her tell 'dad' she was upset. Therapist worked to tell gd that dad loves her, wants to see her, is sick and makes poor choices but she's always in his heart...blah blah. My problem with all this: When she gets to understand more, how does she then deal with these mixed messages, he wants to be here, he does not want to be here, etc. Any thoughts? I want to further address this with therapist and need some advise from gp experts here.
Thank you.
redheadfrog
redheadfrog
Personally, I put our dd on speaker phone when she talks to our gd and don't allow any talk of visits. But she only recently began talking about a visit after 2 years of not seeing her.

If he's on the phone, put him on speaker and shut him down when he mentions visits. I'd just let him know he's not allow to speak of visits. It is very difficult, but I feel it is necessary to protect our gd from too many broken promises. Don't get me wrong, she's heard plenty, I'm just trying to cut it down to a smaller amount.
SaraBT
SaraBT
We found an excellent therapist, but we haven't gotten to the "learning the tools to deal with Mommy" stage yet. We have uncovered several issues that our eldest has, and over the next few weeks I think she'll be learning how to deal with it.

We thought the absence of Pinky was triggering her cutting, but it quickly became apparent that it was Pinky's PRESENCE that was doing it! Our granddaughter was cutting when Pinky was coming to visit every weekend. When Pinky stopped calling and coming around, the cutting stopped.

So now we'll have to work on ways for her to deal with Pinky as the "trigger" (not the cause - they're two different things).

I just don't understand why the courts won't let us raise our grandchildren in peace, without any influence by bios who didn't want them or didn't want to raise them in the first place.
fortress
fortress
Sara.... may your last sentence in particular, go from your lips to God's ears
daisydduck
daisydduck
If you read the various psychologists on child development one thing is clear. Children go through stages in their development and if something interrupts a stage it is difficult to move onto the next. Our grandchildren suffer this when their parents abandon them,physically or emotionally and we are left to find a way to help them through. However they need more than a kiss and a hug from. Grandma. Sara, you are right that keeping the addicts away would help but unfortunately it's not that way. We went through anger management, teen counseling and rehab with our grandson. Even after his father was out of picture, the questions and frustrations remained. He's 24 now. He is really trying hard to make a future for himself and our bond is strong. One rule we have followed is to never compare him to others and always accept him. They need the space to grow at their place and they need to know we love them.