Grandparents

This practical talk helps grandparents navigate their most complex but rewarding role: building close relationships with their grandkids in today’s rapidly changing world.

Grandparents make a significant contribution to Australian families, but many new grandparents can feel deficient and unsupported in their role and are unsure how to approach it.

Feeling anxious about stepping on the toes of their kids, the parents, is a common issue, as well as screen time, ‘grey care’ and other tricky topics like divorce. This presentation answers the following questions:

• What are the biggest mistakes grandparents can make?

• How can we work in harmonious partnership with our children to give grandchildren what they need?

• What are some of the “best practices” or grandparenting strategies and ideas that really work?

• Are there any circumstances under which one should criticise your children’s parenting?

• What are the crucial pieces of life advice you ought to pass on?

Many of us will be grandparents for 40 years, more than twice as long as the time we had to parent a child in our home. Parents have the most powerful influence on a child but grandparents are, hands down, the second most powerful influence in a child's life and in many cases, the single most important influencer in their grandchild's life. Children benefit massively when grandparents are involved in their lives, and it is reciprocal– research shows grandparents derive significant advantages from having grandchildren in their lives.