Dear LPG, 

Life never seems to give us any let-up when it comes to all the highs and lows that it takes us through on a daily basis although, as we get older, we seem to get a bit more time to breathe out.  At least we do not have a boss breathing down our necks and fewer time-targets to meet and time-frames to fit into.

They seem to start small with our two- and three-year-olds fighting to achieve acceptable standards of basic behaviour by the time they get to school age.  While school is supposed to be about being good enough to pass the exams we are going to need for the qualifications which will allow us to afford the family lives that most of us will inevitably fall into during the next phase of our lives.  Meanwhile the social aspect of living through your teens and early twenties has always been a challenge, but it all happens so quickly and the youngsters that are going through it now don’t realise just how quickly it will all pass.

As we get to the other end of our working lives we oldies often find ourselves enjoying having all that time and freedom at our disposal for a short while, but I am sure that each of us have been asked by a child or grandchild about how we are getting on (while they assume that we are at the start of the part of our lives where we have absolutely no worries).

While they all have a lot to learn before they get to become a person of pensionable age and enjoy all that (fictional) time on their hands, our children are perhaps at their most stressful.  

I so remember being at primary school with problems that I mentioned to my dad when his reaction was, ‘…and you think you have problems?  I am really tired today.  There is this project that I have to get finished at work, I have got bills to pay, and we can kiss goodbye to the birthday present I promised you unless you go away and let me concentrate on this…’

As grandparents perhaps we have the experience to make ourselves available to become that initial go-to person that our grandchildren can really talk to.  I have found that one of the secrets to enabling grandchildren to open up to us is reminding them that we were not perfect and letting them know that we faced the very same problems that they are facing now even though the music we listened to, the clothes we wore and the technology we had was different. 

Perhaps being there to listen to our grandchildren’s problems is something we can help with regardless of whether they live miles away or around the corner, with the help of the telephone.  We grandparents (blood related or honorary) could become their go-to person to confide in because we are never going to meet the people who are embarrassing them, belittling them, really worrying them, or bullying them and we have even more experiences than their very busy parents to fall back on. 

They say that feeling useful is one of the most important feelings when it comes to keeping our sanity and this is one way that we can stay in the loop.  

LG, Brockley.

LG found some advice designed to help parents but suggests that it will help any grandparent to get through too… 

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… and LPG has found some information on today’s celebration…

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