Grandparenting: Basic Guide

1.  When the baby is born, don’t come to stay. It is curious to me that by some mechanism the emergence of an infant from the body of a daughter or daughter-in-law is taken as an open-ended invitation for a sleep-over visit. I won’t be a burden. You won’t even know I’m there. You won’t have to do a thing. I can help with watching the baby, doing laundry, going shopping. You’ll need the help. These are some of their honest well-meaning intentions. The reality is that your body is slowly recovering, you’re in pain just to walk around, you’re incredibly sleep-deprived, you want to focus on the baby so everything else in your life and home have been put on hold. What do you get? Critical, judgmental houseguests.

It’s great, perhaps essential, to have supportive parents or relatives nearby when a baby is born. It can be crucial to have someone trusted to watch the baby while you sleep for a couple of hours. And it is indeed helpful if somebody is willing to do the laundry or some basic shopping. But the stories I hear are often about grandparents who bring their usual daily routine with them, play with the baby when the baby is happy but give you the crying baby. I hear about grandparents who, though they might not say it, still think of you as their child so they expect to be able to direct the baby’s care. After all, they’ve already been there and done that.

So when the baby is new, stay in a hotel. Or at least find a different relative nearby you can stay with.

2.  Pay for college. Obviously, if you’re not well-off enough to pay for the kid’s college, you can’t do this. And I’m happy to say that love and support is way more important than money. If you have no money, than it’s even more important to be supportive of your adult children. Now that I got that out of the way, however, money is sometimes where the rubber meets the road. Your children are adults now, with children of their own. They will be concerned about providing for the children and will be worried about this. It’s OK to believe in self-sufficiency and living within one’s means. But complaining about the cost of your yacht maintenance while your kids are struggling is not going to get you whatever sympathy you’re looking for. It’s not an empathic thing to do, and it’s potentially lethal to the relationship you have with those grandkids. So if you can, put money away for college. If you can’t, share with an open hand. Take the grandchildren to Disneyland. If that’s too much, take them to the movies. If you don’t like the way your kids handle money (who’s fault is that?), then do your giving directly to the grandchildren. But sharing what you have in this way takes a serious burden off of your children, and it might materially improve their lives. They will be grateful for it.

3.  Watch the children. What do you have that no one else has? Trust. The disturbing stories we hear on the news have made parents more cautious than ever to leave their kids in the care of a stranger. A grandparent is in the unique and privileged position of knowing the parent for his or her whole life. The parents know where you live, know who your friends are, and know how to get hold of you. They may not want you to let their children watch cartoons all afternoon. They may not want you to feed the child chocolate cake and 2 glasses of milk every schoolday afternoon. But they will love that their child loves you. And they will love you for being there to babysit. Generosity with your time will give you the opportunity to bond directly with your grandchildren without their parents filtering your intentions. Hopefully, your children will see this as the valuable gift that it is.

4.  Bite your tongue. I have said this several times, but I’ll say it again here. You had your opportunity. You raised your children in the best way you knew at the time, and now they are raising their own. It might look to you that they are needlessly flailing about and trying to re-invent the wheel. You might feel that you could save them a lot of trouble by just telling or showing them the way certain things should be done. If you get asked, then go ahead and be the teacher. But if you aren’t asked, volunteering an opinion could leave you vulnerable. This isn’t picking out a color for the drapes! For better or worse, your adult children have chosen a path to follow with their own children. If your suggestions contradict this, you won’t change anything. But you might give the impression that you think you know better, or that you’re interested in continuing to treat your child as a child. How will this help? Your experience and knowledge are important resources if they are wanted. If not, you are playing with fire.

Empathic Grandparenting

As I publish more and more about parenting, I’ve been getting a lot more questions about the role of grandparents. Parents, whether biological or foster or adoptive or step or any other kind, have certain reasonably uniform tasks they usually need to accomplish with their children. Survival basics, such as food and shelter, schooling, love and support, and promotion of the child’s general sense of growth and accomplishment as they grow and develop. If there are some hurdles on the way, people ask me about it, and I do my best to give them some ideas on how to manage.

When grandparents are the primary caregivers for the children, and there are many, many families like this, then they are really acting as parents. In this context, parenting advice applies no matter what your title is. I have known fine adults raised by relatives both close and distant, and sometimes by parents who weren’t related to them at all. In all of these situations, I recommend openness about the reasons behind the situation. This openness should be limited to what is developmentally-appropriate for the child, and which protects the child’s sense of self worth. If parents are gone, then they’re gone and there’s no point in giving the child further opportunity for emotional scars by learning that what you say can’t be trusted. It’s hard to imagine a sadder image than a child waiting at the window for the parent who won’t return. So be as honest as you can with them.

An important part of the bargain when we take on the responsibility of being parents is that there are no warranty periods or lease expirations, during which we can trade up to a new model as long as the one we’re returning has only normal wear-and-tear. More needs to be said about what is and is not appropriate, and I’ll try to do that another time.

For most grandparents, however, the primary responsibilities of care for the grandkids falls squarely on the shoulders of your children and their spouses. This is a blissful arrangement in which you get most of the benefits of child indulgence with little of the consequences. Sure, it’s not as good to buy love as it is to get it spontaneously. But--just between us--it’s still love and it feels mighty good when bartered for some new toy or ice-cream before dinner that mommy would throw a fit about but we’ll just keep it as our little secret.

For those who’ve been reading my advice about getting kids to eat right and behave nicely, it might come as a surprise to know that I don’t disapprove of any of the above. Every child deserves to have somebody in this grandparent role, where some of the rules are a little more flexible than at home. I think there’s an important place in every child’s life for a trusted non-parental adult who isn’t spending every waking hour managing the relationship. But that’s not the same as having carte blanche.

With that said, however, we all know that childhood obesity is a big problem. There are many causes, of course, and I have no special cure or treatment. But I have had one insight that I have not seen written about in all the studies I’ve read: grandparents.

There are many reasons that both parents have to work outside the home. Mine did. With most elementary schools still dismissing their students at 3:00 in the afternoon, most working parents have to find some arrangement for the 2-3 hours or more before they get home from work. In my community, this is often a job gladly taken by grandparents. They treasure the opportunity to be with their grandchildren and have such an important role in their lives. They also are happy to help their children by being there when needed.

But when I talk to children who are overweight, I ask them about their diets. It becomes clear that their parents aren’t usually taking them out for fast food, and aren’t letting them eat potato chips instead of dinner. Most parents are reasonably careful about what they feed the kids, so the extra calories aren’t coming on their watch. Again and again, the calories just don’t add up. While it’s true that school lunch is often not nutritionally optimal, it’s usually not a major problem. They usually don’t have the money or transportation to get fast food. But again and again, I hear about the time in the afternoon with grandparents. There’s a lot of school-day afternoons filled with television and very fattening snacks. It’s one thing to be the indulgent grandparent who gets the kids stuff their parents wouldn’t or couldn’t get them. It’s quite another to be contributing to serious and long-lasting health problems for the child. Though I don’t want to be confrontational, I really wonder if these grandparents, who melt at the first hint of a whine, really feel all right with the consequences of that big piece of cake as an after-school snack.

I have often wondered about the mysterious mechanism by which brain functioning seems to change as soon as one’s offspring has offspring of their own. There is a clear difference between being a grandparent and being a parent, and I’m fine with that. But why, besides failing vision, can’t grandparents see that their grandchildren don’t need that extra cookie?

We get our parenting knowledge from several sources. Our own experience as a child is a major source, whether this was good or not. Our perspective on the parenting techniques used by our parents is a very biased one. In general, we love our parents. Perhaps as a result, I have heard people describe as useful some incredibly counterproductive experiences they had as children. Did washing your mouth out with soap stop you from using bad language? Sometime, parents are aware of the mistakes made by their own families, and make a conscious decision to go in another direction. This leaves the parent trying to find a path when they have no landmarks. And, of course, there are all kinds of parenting experts willing to suggest things, perhaps in a book or blog, that the parent hadn’t thought of.

Grandparents, however, have the certainty of their own experience. This can be a pain in the neck for parents who have decided to do some things differently. Just because you raised your kids a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s the only right way to raise them. This is often a major source of friction between adult children and their parents. If you, as a grandparent, value contact with your children and grandchildren, you must respect their point of view.

I guess it should go without saying that there are always exceptions. But it’s a mistake to assume that you are one of these exceptions.

In the next post, I’ll offer some specific guidelines for grandparents.

Sean’s ADHD, Part 4: Sticks and Stones

In my many posts about ADHD, and many other kinds of behavior issues as well, I have described cases in which a lot of the things a kid did looked just like the kind of things that a kid with ADHD would do. (It is for this reason, I suspect, that so many kids get diagnosed with ADHD and get prescribed medication.) Sometimes another doctor will send the child to me because they have ‘failed’ treatment with standard ADHD medication. Careful, patient, and thorough investigation often shows me that the child’s attention problem is actually caused by unappreciated anxiety, unseen depression, itchy skin or itchy eyes, a vision or hearing problem, or a bully.

Some aspects of attention are driven from within us. In order to accomplish any task, we have to shut out sensory inputs from the world. There are many medical studies that show fairly conclusively that multitasking is a simple delusion. We don’t really focus on driving and talking on the phone and sipping our coffee all at the same time. We actually do them in sequence, one after another. Because we’re not spending a visible amount of time on one before moving on to another, the sequence is invisible and it gives the illusion of simultaneous action. In every waking moment, we multitask in the same way. We walk and talk, we look where we’re going, we keep our pants from falling down. (When people get impaired in some way, they stumble.)

In Sean’s case, I thought he clearly had some attention and hyperactivity issues. He will have to learn to restrain some of his impulses in certain situations--such as a classroom. He also needs to be respectful of teachers, even if they aren’t the best. But when I asked him about bullies, he denied this problem. Now I realize that I hadn’t considered the possibility that the bully could be his teacher.

His mom asked him if what the other parent wrote in the email was true. He confirmed all of it.

Even without physical violence, this is abuse. Sean didn’t know or understand that a teacher could be wrong, or could do something wrong. So when Mr. Dickson called him a ‘rotten child,’ he didn’t take it as an insult. He understood it to be a professional assessment, like a B+ grade, or advice that he needed to practice his arithmetic. Since he now understood himself to be a rotten child, he realized that this new identity afforded him a freedom from behavior boundaries that he had not had before.

The rhyme about sticks and stones is simply a lie. It is irresponsible to teach it to your child as a defense. It is curious to me that parents will teach this to their children as if they believed it to be true. Given, part of being an adult is knowing when not to respond to hostility or an insult, when to simply keep your feelings to yourself, when to appear noncommittal when you really do have strong feelings. Most people, maybe everyone, has lost friends, relationships, jobs and many other important things because of words. Believe as we do in freedom of speech, there is no freedom from feeling hurt by speech. If your son struggles in school, and a sibling called him stupid, what would you do? Would you teach him about sticks and stones? Is that doing your job? I’ll come back to this.

When a teacher, and especially a parent, gives a negative assessment of the way a child is, a scar is made.

There are 2 important points here. If your kid messes up, you don’t have to go through some self-effacing nonsense--just tell them how it is. It’s OK to tell them they are wrong, that they must never play with daddy’s drafting equipment, that they are not allowed into the street without holding a grown-up’s hand. You must never tell them that they are stupid, unattractive, incompetent, or that they speak funny. Never tell them that they are rotten kids—save this one for your toast at their weddings. Never even hint that you wish they weren’t born, or wish they were more like one of their siblings or cousins.

In a work environment, there’s a big difference between hearing an assessment that you need to improve the way you organize the files and hearing that you are disorganized. One is a skill you need to improve, and can try to improve. The other is a label that is permanently attached to you.

The second point is how you deal with the bullies in your child’s life.

In the movies, the caring father teaches the child boxing or martial arts, so that when threatened, the on-screen David can beat up a schoolyard Goliath, humiliating him or her and inducing a catharsis in the ticket-buyer powerful enough to provoke tears. While I have often admired the positive impact on a child when they study martial arts, for example, real life never, ever has worked like this even once. If there’s a child threatening your kid, physically or emotionally, are you going to sign the kid up for lessons? How many years will that take? And then when the bully gets the desired reaction, and your kid finally explodes with the righteous justice of any number of action movies, who will be suspended from school? What will the lesson be about fairness and right and wrong? When the bully is an authority figure, who does the child have who could compete with that? Who is more powerful than a teacher or a school principal who tells your kid that he is some kind of delinquent? Only you can fill this role.

It could indeed make the child’s school life more uncomfortable if you intervene on your child’s behalf. But that child will be with you long after this school term is a bad memory. Step up to the plate on the child’s side, and they will remember it for decades. If you don’t, they will remember just as long. Don’t measure your success by whether the child gets a new teacher, or is being sent to the principal’s office. Your success is in your relationship with your children, who have acquired the secure knowledge that you’re always there for them, you’re always going to stand by them against the bullies of the world.

Teenager, Failing and Depressed

Once you make it to your late teens, your parents occupy an odd place in your life. You’re still dependent on them for many basic things, but you don’t want them interfering in your affairs. Parents often have a more difficult time with this separation. They know that they are providing many things, and they feel that it’s appropriate to receive something in return. What, exactly? Love and affection, respect, courtesy all must be earned, and cannot be bought with room and board. Those of us who have been in the working world and have worked for mercurial bosses know that we don’t respect people just because they are in some kind of supervisory position. (At Harvard Business School, they taught about leadership by showing the movie Twelve O’Clock High—a fabulous movie to see for any reason and an effective teaching tool for this, too.) I’ve known him and his family for about 10 years.

His mother called me last night, worried. She said that there was a major blow up with J, and he said he needed to ‘go for a walk.’ He left the house several hours ago and isn’t answering his cell phone.

About 5 years ago or so, when he was 12 or 13, his parents divorced. He was the only child who seemed to be reasonably OK with this at the time, since he wasn’t getting along so great with either one at that moment. But he started getting a little more introverted at the time, until one night he took off. His parents were naturally very concerned, and the local police found him some hours later nearby. He said at the time that he just needed some privacy, and he didn’t know why everyone made such a big deal out of it. His parents brought him to me. He explained that he just needed a break from things going on at home. I worked out a plan with his parents. I gave him my home and cell phone number. I told him that if he needed to get away again, he should call me at any time, day or night, and I would come at get him and take him to Denny’s or someplace where I could call his folks and let them know he was all right, and then he and I could talk and work out a strategy that could help him. He found this helpful, he said. It was like a relief valve.

In general, I think every teenager should have at least one, maybe several, safe adults. Adults who can let them vent, or just accept them when their parents have pushed them into a corner. It could be lifesaving.

When his mother called back, he had returned. He wouldn’t talk to her but she suggested me and he agreed to come the following day.

He sat in the room with me. I told him that his mother had called me, and I told him everything the mother had told me. He said that he was in a deep hole academically. Though he was a senior with excellent grades, and his college applications were already out, he has not been doing his school assignments and is in danger of failing several classes. I asked how that could be possible given his record. He started to cry. He had been cutting class, not handing in his work, not participating in class when he was in class. I didn’t press the issue, which I thought was tangential, even though he and his parents thought it was the center of the problem. He knew that eventually there would be a reckoning, specifically when his midterm grades were given to his parents, but he couldn’t deal with this. As the semester went on, and he got further and further behind, it seemed more and more impossible ever to catch up, so he had no choice but to let this crash happen even as he saw it approaching. His grades came out, his parents confronted him, he admitted not doing the work and lying to them about it, and his parents grounded him for a long time, to learn a lesson about lying to them and to get him to focus on his work.

I told him I wanted to change the subject. I asked and he told me that he was also neglecting his friends, even spending less time with and attention to his girlfriend. He said, “I’m not doing any of the things I used to enjoy. They just don’t mean that much to me any more.” He wasn’t doing new enjoyable things, either. All of this coincided with his academic slide.

He denied feelings of overt sadness, and denied thoughts of self-harm. I explained that weeping 17-year-old young men have a hard time convincing me of their blissful happiness. Indeed, what he described so eloquently is called anhedonia, a state of indifference to pleasurable activities. It’s a sign of depression. I told him that I didn’t think the academic problem was making him depressed. It wasn’t his fault, I said. The depression had caused the academic problem.

We needed a plan. First, let’s try to treat the depression. I discussed medication with him, and we agreed on a prescription. It offered the best chance of relief in a reasonably rapid time frame. Next, I offered to intervene with the school, but he said this wouldn’t be necessary. He was already negotiating a make-up schedule for the work he missed. Next, a frequent schedule for follow up. Though I suggested he try to find a therapist he can trust and talk to, I wasn’t going to wait for that to kick in. Whenever I start someone on medication, I see them at least once a week. So he’ll be back next week with a progress report. Finally, I told him I would call his parents and ask them to un-ground him. He is punishing himself for this mess much more painfully than anything a parent can devise. And at his age, a major source of support is his friends. Now, at this troubled time, he needs them more than ever. His parents should embrace their help.

I discussed with him explicitly what I would like to tell his parents when I called them. We agreed on a plan. When I spoke to his mother, she was OK with the plan. I’m awaiting a call back from his dad.

J told me that he felt much better after the visit. I think it’s because at least there’s now a strategy to get through the crisis. It won’t be easy—he has a lot of work to do. But his parents are behind him and I’m behind him.

New mother, Breastfeeding and Feeling Fragile

I just left a brand new mother in the hospital, going home today with her baby. She's doing fine, the baby's doing fine. So why did I spend 2 hours with her?

She had been reading a book about breastfeeding. It was very thorough and complete. Yet it didn't mention the issue she was having with painful engorgement on one side but not the other, and the problem she was having draining the engorged side. That wasn't the bad part. The bad part was the message the book conveyed that if it's not going according to the chronology in the book, then either you have incompetent breasts, an incompetent mother, or are doomed to failure.

Again and again when I see the beginnings of postpartum depression, it rears its ugly head in the camouflaged form of off-the-cuff comments by beloved relatives and friends. And book authors! Something is said along the lines of "...I did it this way and it worked beautifully" or "most women have no difficulty with...."

Though mammarily-challenged, I keep getting the impression that women have breasts their entire adult lives but never learn how to work them as a device until they have a baby. Imagine how difficult it would be to learn to walk, if even though you've had legs your entire life, you only now, suddenly, had the ability to use them. Books are helpful, and friends can be supportive. But, I told the mother today, they don't have your breasts and they don't have your baby. Both the baby and mother are still, at day 4 of life, trying to figure out a working system that keeps both happy. This is an iterative process, of course, so it's logical that an optimal outcome can come about only after many trials and many errors. She expressed her frustration with the baby failing to latch after 3 tries. I think it was Mark Antony who said, "I thrice presented him a kingly crown which he did thrice refuse." So maybe Julius Ceaser only got 3 chances, but not the baby! I told her that the baby might be hungry, but he wasn't going to starve in the next hour or so. So maybe he'll nurse on the 5th try or the 25th. The baby was just figuring it out much like mom was. I told her that the baby would be OK and she shouldn't be so hard on herself.

There is no one right path to parenthood, or motherhood, or successful breastfeeding.

She felt better having voiced her insecurities, and I didn't wave them away. I did, however, give her permission to use her own creativity with her baby. I gave her permission to give herself a break and then try again. It was 2 hours well spent.

Sometimes, with mothers in whom I see a risk for postpartum depression, I'll see them once a day, every day, in the office and then phone them every evening. I've had good feedback about this method. I also use the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.

But sometimes, what works best is my home phone number. And that one time when they're really upset when I show up at their house. It's only me, but they're not alone.