School Is Overwhelming for Grandparents Who Become Parents Again

Grandparents become the parents of their grandchildren for a variety of reasons. Here is why they typically replace their adult children as parents:

- death,

- incarceration,

- behavior, mental, and physical health conditions,

- lose of legal parental rights,

- financial hardship,

- unresolved parent and child tension,

- parental indifference,

- abuse and neglect,

- substance abuse and addiction,

- parental indifference, and

- military deployment.

Regardless of the reason, unconditional love causes grandparents to welcome their grandchildren into their lives and homes to become their children. And grandparents put aside their hopes, dreams, and the independence that they dreamed about for a long time to embrace their young family members.

Grandparents who become parents once again are confronted with challenges that they did not have while raising their first generation of children. This includes some of the following struggles.

1. They experience financial hardship living on a fixed income while providing for their children. In doing so, grandparents may be forced to use funds set aside for their retirement, home repairs, or other purposes.

2. It may become hard for grandparents to get around like they did when they were younger parents. They are more apt to move around more slowly, rest more, and ache more. Despite the decreased mobility of grandparents, they possess the motivation to remain active to keep up with their younger generation of children.

3. Grandparents sacrifice their heart-felt desires in life to support the overall happiness of their younger children. For example, instead of dining at an exquisite restaurant, they are likely to eat fast food because that is what their children prefer. Additionally, instead of grandparents enjoying an evening at the symphony with friends, they will accompany their children to a loud stadium to listen to loud music they cannot understand. The list of sacrifices that grandparents make is unending.

4. The personal time of grandparents is no longer their own. From the moment they wake up in the morning until they go to bed at night, virtually everything that they do is related to their child’s care. In addition to all the routines associated with school, grandparents involve their children in a variety of activities that were not accessible to their first generation of children. While grandparents did not spend much time monitoring the homework activities of their first children in the past, they now do so with their younger children. And this requires a lot of getting used to.

5. Technology is mind-boggling to the grandparents who do not rely on it. Because some may encounter serious struggles simply using the features of their mobile phones, anything related to social media is likely to become stress-inducing. This develops into a major source of frustration for grandparents because they do not understand how dependent their younger children are on their technology devices and programs, even those connected to schoolwork. Because of this, grandparents are more apt to assume that their young children are playing on their devices when they actually may be engaged in learning. This lack of understanding may easily create household tension between grandparents and their children.

The most profound challenge that grandparents experience is the education of their children. The rest of this story is devoted to eliminating such apprehensions.

Why Is School So Overwhelming for Grandparents?

Grandparents who become parents to their grandchildren immediately realize that schools have changed from the time their adult children were last enrolled. These dramatic changes include a lot of the following:

- A lot of emphases is placed on student testing.

- With safety being so important these days, parents or other visitors can no longer walk into school freely like they used to. Security cameras are everywhere, too.

- The curriculum is based on standards so that each student demonstrates what they know and are able to do. But students in the same classroom participate in different learning experiences. This process is called differentiation.

- Students with different abilities attend schools with their peers including students in wheelchairs and students who are blind.

- So many different types of educational employees work in schools to support the needs of students now. It’s hard to even distinguish the teachers from the principals are because there are other highly visible workers like behavior specialists and mental health providers throughout the schools.

- Many students who are English learners attend all schools and receive special programming to help them learn English.

- Schools aren’t just about learning anymore. Professionals make an effort to help families with things they need in their lives. They guide mothers, fathers, and teenage parents to get help with utility payments, food, getting connected to the internet, and so much more.

- Many more students with learning disabilities receive their education in the same classroom as students who receive a general education and those who are enrolled in gifted programs.

- Teachers and students rely on different types of technology for learning and instruction. Because of this, fewer textbooks are used in some subject areas.

- Family engagement has become important in a lot of schools so that parents and teachers work together as a team to support students as they learn.

- A lot of student disciplinary consequences mostly involves helping students make positive choices at school.

- Some students can receive free tutoring after school hours to help them perform better.

- Students not only eat lunch at school but they eat breakfast, too.

All these changes can cause grandparents who have become parents again to experience a lot of anxiety, pressure, and confusion because they don’t understand all the new things about education.

The good news is that there are steps that grandparents can take to eliminate their mind-boggling experience with their child’s school.

What Grandparents Need To Do

Grandparents must assert themselves by speaking up to let teachers and school leaders know they are overwhelmed with school in their new role as parents. Whether it’s by in-person conference or a telephone call, these new parents need to have an honest conversation with designated school personnel about what they are going through. This initial communication will set the stage for grandparents to take the following steps.

1. Grandparents need to let their child’s teachers and principal know their backstory. If these professionals understand how their immediate family came into existence, it will enable school personnel to lead the grandparents to various services that can provide support within their home.

2. As positive interactions grow between the grandparents and educators, these new parents must ask for the specific assistance they need. This will help them become aware of the various functions of the school as specific concerns are addressed.

3. Grandparents must make every effort to attend all the parent meetings and training sessions provided by the school. This is especially true if special meetings have been designed to address the concerns that grandparents express. Attending these informational sessions presented by the school along with parent-teacher conferences will help ease their worries about the areas of education they do not understand.

4. Maintaining an upbeat disposition and a confident attitude about their child’s school experience will help grandparents break through obstacles of uncertainty. Positive interactions with school personnel will result. And this will produce a purposeful family engagement experience for the grandparents and an overall meaningful school experience for their children.

5. Grandparents need to be very specific with their request for the school to stop bombarding them with communications on social media. They must let teachers and other school officials understand how critical it is for them to receive traditional forms of communication like telephone calls and letters. Even though some grandparents may eventually embrace and use technology proficiently, they need to convey the importance of the school sharing traditional communications with them.

6. If educators make recommendations to grandparents to receive specialized evaluations or services at resource agencies for their children or family, they should follow through. This will help to resolve problems that interfere with the student’s progress at school.

Grandparents can be empowered through the activation of their self-generated motivation and confidence to remove anxiety from their experience with school.

The Final Word

Grandparents of all ages have found that their role has shifted to parent. Driven by unconditional love, their grandchildren have been welcomed into their homes to stabilize their lives.

While grandparents adapt to the changes associated with being a parent once again, school becomes their biggest challenge to overcome. This is because school and everything associated with it has drastically changed from the time their first-generation attended.

The parenting adjustment must become complete as it relates to their child’s enrollment in school. In doing so, grandparents must confidently speak up to teachers and school leaders to inform them of all their unique needs and concerns related to educational protocols these days.

In return, educators who prioritize family engagement as a critical function will respond to hesitant grandparents and provide support to them. It then becomes the responsibility of grandparents to actively engage with the school by participating in activities developed for grandparents and other parents.

Thank you for reading this story about an overlooked topic. If you enjoyed this story, consider sharing it on your social media platforms. Also, please consider adding a tip to help fund my work to increase family engagement in education.

I am also a content creator on YouTube. Be sure to visit my "Ignite Family Engagement" channel to view my videos related to the role of parents in education. Here is the link:

Thank you.

This story was originally published on Medium.com.