The Modern Grandparent's Handbook © 2011 by Dr. Georgia Witkin
We've published our first book!
The Modern Grandparent's Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to the New Rules of Grandparenting, written by our Senior Editor, Dr. Georgia Witkin, has been published by New American Library, and it's for sale right now in the brand-new Grandparents.com Bookstore for just $10.87, almost 30 percent lower than the full $15 price. And remember, Grandparents.com Benefits Club members always get free shipping on orders of $25 or more.
Here's an excerpt from Georgia's chapter on the hidden stresses of grandparenting:
Hidden Grandparenting Stress #1: Changes in Routine
I had a phone call from a friend recently who said she thought there was something very wrong with her mental health. She said that within the past year all her dreams had come true — her daughter married, moved to the suburbs, became pregnant, and made her a grandmother of a beautiful, healthy baby, while she herself had switched to a different campus at the university where she worked, in order to be closer to her new grandchild. But she was crying at the drop of a hat. Why, she asked me, was she so upset when she was so thrilled about all the changes? I had heard similar stories before.
The answer is that change, any change, even
good change like becoming a grandparent, can be stressful because it requires adaptation, and adaptation triggers the brain and body's stress reaction: our heart rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, blood sugar level, and hormone levels all prepare for emergencies — the baby has a fever, the babysitter didn't show up, your daughter or daughter-in-law's car broke down and she has a pediatrician appointment, your son or son-in-law has to travel and they need you to stay over . . . you know the story. If the unexpected emergencies pile up, we can become not only physically exhausted, but mentally exhausted too.
The big life changes are, of course, obviously stressful — an illness, a divorce, a retirement, or an economic setback. The small changes in a grandparent's life are less obviously stressful, but they can have an impact just the same: a traffic jam on your way to pick up your granddaughter, a missing doll when she's sleeping over, your grandson's favorite DVD getting broken, even running out of milk.
As grandparents, we know that our grandchildren need routines and crave stability. Well, so do we. Therefore, if every little snafu seems to throw you off, try to maintain your other routines as much as possible:
Keep your daily rhythms synchronized. Did you know that we can use our bodies' natural rhythms to fight stress? So even if you are up late with the new grandchild — or with the older grandchildren on a sleepover — try to get up at your regular time the next morning so your body clock is set — no matter what time you all went to sleep. New research from Chicago's St. Luke's Medical Center says a regular wake-up schedule is vital for energy and alertness . . . and grandparents need both!
And Dr. Scott Campbell, who studies biological clocks at the Laboratory of Human Chronobiology at New York Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center, suggests we should also forget about sleeping late even on weekends! It's because our biological clock can adapt at the rate of only one hour a day, so oversleep a total of four hours on the weekend and its four days before you're back on track again . . . and then it's the weekend again. The moral? If you're stressed and tired from the grandchildren, go to bed earlier at night, when they go to bed, instead of sleeping later when they leave.
Keep your daily schedules regular. If there's nothing you can do about the change in routine that you're experiencing because you are needed to help out with the newest grandbaby, or have become the caregiver for the older ones, take over the new routine and make it yours. If you are thrown for a loop and forced to adopt a new routine, try to find its advantages to help you regain a sense of choice and control and save you from wasting energy on resistance.
Hidden Grandparenting Stress #2: Fear of Failure
Need for achievement is built into all of us. It is an extension of our earliest desires to explore, crawl, walk, and run. Now that we are grandparents, it is an expression of our need to gain some control over our concerns about our family and solve some of their problems. But we may also be experiencing fear of failure, and these two drives could be duking it out within us and causing us stress.
I really wanted to teach my grandson to fly-fish, and I would picture spending future afternoons together. I am an avid fly fisherman, and I've even won several tournaments. But I started to worry that my grandson might not like fly-fishing as much as I do. Or maybe I wouldn't be a very good instructor and my daughter would get mad at me for not being able to teach my grandson. Or even that we would go out for the first time and not catch anything and my fishing buddies would laugh at me. So instead of taking my grandson fly-fishing, I took him to the movies. Isn't that silly?
— P. T., Minnesota
We all have some fear of failure, of course, but when it makes us look at ourselves through other people's eyes instead of looking at the world through our own eyes, it causes grandparents stress! It stops us from trying new things with our grandchildren because we don't want to look silly, and usually leads us to do things the hard way so we have an excuse in case we fail. If you catch yourself looking at yourself this way, or procrastinating every time you are about to face a challenge with your grandchild, like taking them on a vacation or trying a new sport, here are some tips:
Have an inside-out perspective. Look at all situations involving grandparenting through your own eyes only. Don't try to see yourself as others see you — or as you think they see you — from the outside in. We can never really know how others see us anyway. Instead, see the situation from the "inside out" — from your own point of view.
See failure as "inconvenient." Then, try to experience falling short of a goal as unfortunate, or as a learning experience, or as inconvenient, but not as a failure. And teach your grandchildren the same lesson. Let them see you fail once in a while when you are trying something new or something they are showing you. And show them that you expect some failure and are not thrown by it. You will make them braver themselves, and save them from a lot of stress of their own!
Avoid self-blame. Try your best, but don't put yourself on trial. Particularly in front of your grandchildren. Teach them to be their own defense lawyer — not the lawyer for the prosecution. My mother was great at that. My daughter, Kimberly, remembers my mother calling her by my name, Georgia, when she was upset and calling to her, "Don't run through the parking lot without holding my hand!" When Kimberly was insulted by being called the wrong name, my mother said, "Sorry — but if I was perfect, I'd be an angel in heaven — and I'd rather be here with you! Forgive me?" Of course, Kim did — and never forgot the lesson. I now say the same thing to my grandsons, and they do not expect me to be perfect. It really reduces my stress!
Don't be a compliment junkie. Be task-oriented rather than praise- oriented. I know, of course, that it's easier said than done! My friends and I agree — we live for compliments from our adult children, in-laws, and grandchildren, particularly if we've cut back on a lot of other activities to spend more time helping out and having fun with the grandchildren. Compliments are not the only reason we cook holiday meals, take grandchildren for the weekend, pay for the grandchildren's clothes or lessons or camp, travel across the country for our grandchildren's birthday parties, or turn our lives upside down whenever their parents ask us to help out, but not getting the compliments certainly does raise our stress levels. Admitting it to yourself helps. Getting sympathy from friends who feel the same way helps too. But here's the best way to move on. . . .
Give yourself credit. That's right. Pat yourself on the back when you do something right. I mean really reach over your shoulder and pat yourself. Or as my grandmother Sadie did, give yourself a kiss on the hand. Not only is it good for you to acknowledge that you did a good thing, but it gives your children and your grandchildren ideas! They'll give you credit more often and they'll learn to give themselves credit. It's a win-win.
Hidden Grandparenting Stress #3: Loss of Control
If you're like most grandparents, you run around with an undoable to-do list. Then you worry that you're adding stress to your life by adding items to your list. You're not. I've studied stress, written books about stress, and I've treated stress, and I'm happy to tell you that everything you put on that list by choice is unlikely to do you any long- lasting harm. It's the things that you can't choose, or control, the things you didn't predict, that can trigger mental exhaustion and physical stress. It's the gridlock you didn't expect when you are racing to see your grandson perform in the kindergarten play, the dash to the doctor next door with your grandchild after a playground fall, the unexpected trip to babysit because your daughter has the flu, or the race to the hospital because your third grandchild is being born five weeks premature. And yet you probably cross nothing off your list of things to do that day. So here's my best advice — when something comes up that you don't have control over, don't have a choice about, or didn't predict, cross something you do have control over off your list!
Since real life inevitably brings situations beyond our control, management of grandparenting stress has to include the ability to give up the struggle for control when that struggle is unrealistic. Try to change only what you can change, and do it before you invest your adrenaline!
Always remember that you are entitled to try to reduce the stress in your life. Just because you are a grandparent does not mean you have to take care of your children and your grandchildren to the detriment of yourself. In fact, take care of yourself at least as well as you take care of your grandchildren — okay, even half as well — and you'll reduce your stress considerably!
See more excerpts from our Modern Grandparents Handbook:
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