Helping raise your grandchild, nephew, or other relative gives you a unique opportunity to offer nurture and support to the child’s parents. The parents may feel shame or guilt about not being able to parent this child. And it’s not unusual for your pre-existing relationship with them to be rocky or frustrating for both of you. However, your history with this child’s parents does not have to get in the way of supporting them to heal and work on learning how to be a better parent.
Supporting This Child’s Parents While You Care for Their Child
When raising a nephew, or grandchild because the parents cannot, you can still find practical ways to support these parents and help them heal so they can parent again. This support might look different than it did when raising them if they are your adult children. You can offer this type of care even from a distance if they are unsafe or unavailable for an in-person relationship with you or your grandchild.
1. Create a Plan.
Start a conversation between you and the child’s parents to define the goals for this season when you are raising their child. Consider what steps you all need to take to heal and set yourselves up for success. Acknowledge in your conversations that each of you likely has a different need in this season, for example:
- You need to be sure this child is safe.
- The child’s parents need to take steps toward recovery from addiction.
- The child must feel safe and loved and be in a stable environment.
What’s included in this plan?
To be sure everyone’s needs are being met in this plan, you should consider issues like:
- How visits and other contacts will happen – including how to avoid conflict in front of this child.
- Therapy or recovery programs for each of you (Alcoholics Anonymous/ Al-Anon, Narcotics Anonymous/Nar-Anon, addiction counseling, parenting classes, respite care, etc.).
- Transportation to and from therapy or visits.
- Technology to support contact if in-person contact is not safe.
- Family holidays and other celebrations.
- Communication with and about the child’s school, medical providers, and extra-curricular activities
- Hurt within the relationships and how to resolve them (family therapy, counseling, etc.).
Sometimes, you will have to initiate a series of conversations to cover everything you all need to consider. It will help if you take notes in this meeting and share them with the child’s parents. Give them the courtesy of reviewing the notes and asking if they have additional thoughts once they’ve had time to think through the meeting.
It’s still possible to create your plan.
If you’ve had this child in your care for a while now, there is still time to create your plan. However, it would help if you were prepared to compromise and negotiate more because there are already some established routines or habits for how you interact. Try to give extra grace and flexibility in this instance. After all, a structured plan for meeting your collective needs differs from how this relationship started.
2. Show Empathy.
It might be challenging but try to put aside your judgments or pre-existing ideas about why these parents are struggling. Instead, try to communicate that you are willing to be present with them and want to help them work through the issues. Your empathy for their challenges – whether it’s addiction, homelessness, job loss, or alcoholism – will help buffer their shame and guilt.
It will be easier to demonstrate empathy for their struggles if you can work thoughtfully on the hurts and challenges in your pre-existing relationship with these parents.
3. Lift Them Up.
As much as you can, speak highly of the child’s parents. Your grandchild needs to look up to and respect their parents. While you have this child in your care, you can support that. If you have a negative history with these parents, find a safe to work through those feelings.
4. Reassure the Children of Their Parents’ Love.
Just as kids need to look up to their parents, they also need reassurance that they are precious to their mom and dad. Try to make it part of daily conversation – not forced, but something like this:
- “I bet your mom is so proud of your kindness.”
- “Your dad must love how joyful you are.”
5. Reassure the Parents of Their Child’s Love.
Parents who cannot care for their kids often carry considerable shame and guilt. Whenever possible, tell these parents that you don’t doubt their love for their kids. Send text messages or voice mails from the child expressing their love.
6. Keep the Kids Out of the Middle.
Children raised by someone other than their parents often feel “stuck in the middle” of the adults in their lives. Try hard to keep the child out of the middle of your relationship with their parents. Don’t put the child in a position where they might feel the need to “choose sides.” These are adult problems. Your grandchild should not carry the weight of these grown-up issues.
7. Keep Your Home a Conflict-free Zone.
While this child is living in your home, they need to feel the safety of this space. When their parents visit, you should do everything possible to avoid arguments or other conflicts. Remind each other of your plan, which includes keeping adult conversations among the adults.
Disagreements and conflict will happen – especially if you have a messy family history. Differences of opinion will crop up. However, refer to your plan when the child came to live with you. Your adult conversations are necessary and deserve time and space to get resolved. However, children should not be put in situations where their loyalties feel conflicted or are exposed to more trauma, chaos, and stress between adults.
8. Consider Family Counseling.
When this child’s parent is also your adult child, counseling can be an excellent tool for you all to find healing. The old habits between you can be reworked so that you can all find healthier dynamics in your family.
Changing your family patterns is especially necessary when there is a history of broken trust or if disagreements keep coming up repeatedly. Bitterness, resentment, or despair will creep into your relationship if you don’t work together to find healing and new relationship skills. Unresolved conflict will make it more complicated to approach future challenges for all of you. Your grandchild needs the coping tools you adults learn, and therapy or counseling can help you learn how to teach those.
9. Support Change in the Parents.
It can be challenging to believe in these parents’ ability to change. However, if only for the child’s sake, try to find something inside of you that thinks these parents can turn their lives around.
As you are working on your grief, anger, or unresolved feelings about these parents, you can also work on trying to believe in them and their ability to be the parents their child. Try to find practical ways to show your support for their changes – no matter how small at the start. For example, thank the parent for showing up on time for an appointment or visit. This is another instance where working with an experienced counselor or therapist can help you.
10. Maintain Your Connections.
Throughout the healing process, remember that your goal is to support the parents to raise this child and succeed as a family. Once the child can return to their parents, you must maintain your nurturing and supportive care for this family. After all, you’ve all spent significant time working together toward these healthy changes.
Continuing to tell these parents that you believe in them, support them, and are a safe place to turn if they need help will help buffer them against the inevitable challenges in life. We all need to know that someone is in our corner. After the work you’ve invested in this process, your ongoing encouragement will bring dignity and respect to the experience you had together.
Supporting These Parents Can Be Life-Changing!
You have the unique opportunity to impact the next generation of your family and community! By partnering with your grandchild’s parents to navigate these complicated dynamics, you demonstrate that all families can heal and people can change. New beginnings can be life-changing for you all and impact your community too!