Becoming the Best Grandparent Starts Here. Finding a guide on how to be an exceptional grandparent has been nearly impossible—until now. Welcome to The Grandparenting Agreement, a fun and insightful guide packed with actionable steps to help you become the best grandparent you can be. Wise grandparents know that the secret to successful grandparenting starts with a strong, trusting relationship with the parents. This interactive guide is crafted to help you build that crucial foundation. Through thoughtful exploration of your own values and beliefs on key topics, as well as theirs, you'll engage in a meaningful dialogue with the parents. Together, you'll embark on a journey where you outline expectations and design a shared vision for your grandchild’s carebuilding a foundation of love, support, and nurturing. This journey will help you not only bond with the parents but also become a truly exceptional grandparent. Start your journey today.

A beautiful meditation on the joys of being a grandparent and a practical guide to help you and your adult children make the most of your relationship with a grandchild. For many grandparents, a grandchild offers a second chance to become the parent they didn’t have the time or the energy to be when raising their own children. Being a grandparent, family relationships expert Jane Isay argues, is the opportunity to turn missed opportunities into delight. Drawing on her personal experience, dozens of interviews, and the latest findings in psychology, Isay shows how a grandparent can use his or her unique perspective and experience to create a deep and lasting bond that will echo throughout a grandchild’s life. She explores the realities of today’s multigenerational families, identifying problems and offering solutions to enhance love, trust, and understanding between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. She also offers a wealth of practical advice, from when to get involved, when to stay away, and how to foster a strong relationship when you’re separated by long distance. Unconditional Love advocates for honest conversation, thinking in the long run and healing breaches in order to be together, understanding that most of us try to do our best and need to be forgiven if we fail. Isay argues that secrets and surprises may tilt the boat but won’t necessarily sink it and that grandparents and their grown children are happier when they give each other the benefit of the doubt. Most importantly, she writes, the advent of grandchildren offers families the opportunity for healing and redemption—if we seize the moment. In lovely prose and through delightful stories, Isay shows us how we can. A great gift for grandparents-to-be and a wonderful resource for all, Unconditional Love is a beautiful and psychologically astute look at what it means to be an engaged grandparent.

Toxic Mom Toolkit by Rayne Wolfe takes on super toxic mothers with humor, kindness and practical tools to help readers build a peaceful and happy life. The book includes Wolfe's memoir of growing up brave and scrappy in 1950's San Francisco, the daughter of three mothers: an absent birth mother, an abusive adopted mother and a wonderful step-mother. Coupled with her honest memoir, are mini-memoirs of women from all over the world, whose stories of growing up with toxic mothers shine light on the varied ways in which toxic parents can hurt, damage and undermine their children even into adulthood. There are helpful self-tests; positive affirmations and prompts; tools for contact and boundary setting; and lots and lots of wisdom wrapped in laughter. Toxic Mom Toolkit offers readers a starting point for the messy work of gaining perspective, setting boundaries, and breaking the cycle of toxic parenting. Join the Toxic Mom Toolkit community on Facebook.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The perfect gift for new parents and grandparents this Mother’s Day: a bighearted book of wisdom, wit, and insight, celebrating the love and joy of being a grandmother, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist and #1 bestselling author “This tender book should be required reading for grandparents everywhere.”—Booklist (starred review) “I am changing his diaper, he is kicking and complaining, his exhausted father has gone to the kitchen for a glass of water, his exhausted mother is prone on the couch. He weighs little more than a large sack of flour and yet he has laid waste to the living room: swaddles on the chair, a nursing pillow on the sofa, a car seat, a stroller. No one cares about order, he is our order, we revolve around him. And as I try to get in the creases of his thighs with a wipe, I look at his, let’s be honest, largely formless face and unfocused eyes and fall in love with him. Look at him and think, well, that’s taken care of, I will do anything for you as long as we both shall live, world without end, amen.” Before blogs even existed, Anna Quindlen became a go-to writer on the joys and challenges of family, motherhood, and modern life, in her nationally syndicated column. Now she’s taking the next step and going full nana in the pages of this lively, beautiful, and moving book about being a grandmother. Quindlen offers thoughtful and telling observations about her new role, no longer mother and decision-maker but secondary character and support to the parents of her grandson. She writes, “Where I once led, I have to learn to follow.” Eventually a close friend provides words to live by: “Did they ask you?” Candid, funny, frank, and illuminating, Quindlen’s singular voice has never been sharper or warmer. With the same insights she brought to motherhood in Living Out Loud and to growing older in Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, this new nana uses her own experiences to illuminate those of many others. Praise for Nanaville “Witty and thoughtful . . . Nanaville serves up enough vivid anecdotes and fresh insights—about childhood, about parenthood, about grandparenthood and about life—to make for a gratifying read.”—The New York Times “Classic, bittersweet Quindlen . . . [Her] wonder at seeing her eldest child grow into his new role is lovely and moving. . . . The best parts of Nanaville are the charming vignettes of Quindlen's solo time with her grandson.”—NPR

Chapter 10 Noncaregiving Grandparent Peers' Perceptions of Custodial Grandparents: Extent of Life Disruption, Needs for Social Support, and Needs for Social and Mental Health Services -- About the Authors -- Index

The New York Times Bestseller From one of the country’s most recognizable journalists: How becoming a grandmother transforms a woman’s life. After four decades as a reporter, Lesley Stahl’s most vivid and transformative experience of her life was not covering the White House, interviewing heads of state, or researching stories at 60 Minutes. It was becoming a grandmother. She was hit with a jolt of joy so intense and unexpected, she wanted to “investigate” it—as though it were a news flash. And so, using her 60 Minutes skills, she explored how grandmothering changes a woman’s life, interviewing friends like Whoopi Goldberg, colleagues like Diane Sawyer (and grandfathers, including Tom Brokaw), as well as the proverbial woman next door. Along with these personal accounts, Stahl speaks with scientists and doctors about physiological changes that occur in women when they have grandchildren; anthropologists about why there are grandmothers, in evolutionary terms; and psychiatrists about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren on both grandmothers and grandfathers. Throughout Becoming Grandma, Stahl shares stories about her own life with granddaughters Jordan and Chloe, about how her relationship with her daughter, Taylor, has changed, and about how being a grandfather has affected her husband, Aaron. In an era when baby boomers are becoming grandparents in droves and when young parents need all the help they can get raising their children, Stahl’s book is a timely and affecting read that redefines a cherished relationship.

Grandparents today are healthier, more active, and more youthful and young at heart than their predecessors. Dr. Georgia Witkin, senior editor of Grandparents.com, draws on her experience as a psychiatry professor, therapist, and grandparent to help readers be the best grandparent they can be. They'll learn: How to connect with their grandchild-online and off How to contribute to their grandchild's emotional development and boost their IQ The secret hidden stresses of being a grandparent- and how to deal with them The three things they should never say to their son- or daughter-in-laws And more!

The rapid growth of kinship foster care--full-time parenting of children by relatives or other adults who have a kinship bond with a child--has caught many child welfare agencies off guard. This monograph presents information needed by professionals, agencies, institutions, communities, and organizations to develop and provide services to kinship caregivers, kinship families, children, and parents. The monograph contains discussions of common clinical issues, suggests intervention strategies, examines kinship care's legal implications, and offers policy and program recommendations. Chapter 1 compares relative or kinship care to traditional family foster care, and outlines the characteristics of kinship care that necessitate changes in outlook and practice. Chapter 2 analyzes the clinical issues that must be considered in serving children, parents, and kinship caregivers. Chapters 3 and 4 provide guidance on child welfare practice with kinship families. Chapter 5 considers the effect of culturally based child-rearing practices, gender roles, and hierarchy of authority on child welfare practice with kinship families, as well as the impact of parental incarceration, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS. Chapter 6 looks at the legal rights, responsibilities, and status of kinship families, caregivers, parents, and children. Chapter 7 discusses federal and state issues for program and policy development; this chapter also examines the philosophy and values underlying provision of financial support to kinship families, the emerging federal role, state policy directions, and permanency planning. Contains 40 references. (KB)

This is the first book to take a sociological approach to grandparenting across diverse country contexts and combines new theorising with up-to-date empirical findings to document the changing nature of grandparenting across global contexts.