The Pros And Cons Of Grandparents

For many children who come from a looked after care status, moving around from home to home can lead to many negative issues such as low self esteem, lack of self respect, increased levels of truancy as they feel not wanted or that they don’t belong. Children in a looked after care status may be looked after by grandparents. Lack of money for pensioners may lead to little or no activities for the child and they may not be able to go out to play, have few friends or be bullied by their peers, much depends on their grandparents age and also their ability to be able to encourage and promote activities with the child.

Kinship care is defined as "a form of foster care in which a relative of a maltreated child, usually a grandparent, becomes the approved caregiver" (Berger, 2015, p. 272). An advantage of kinship care is that most children develop better in kinship care and foster care compared to their original families who are abusive. Children placed in kinship care may have a better transition and have better stability in the care of the adults the child is already familiar with. Kinship care is less traumatizing and it does not result is the level of struggle of being adopted by strangers. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles, may provide a sense of home for the child since they are relatives. Also, they will be able to share memories and have meaningful conversations during the beginning stages of the adoptive placement.

Children become looked after when their parents are unable to provide on-going care in either a temporary or permanent capacity.

may become unable or unwilling to adequately care for their children . Children often times experience a loss of parental availability and as a result, feel lonely and Isolated. More often

While many of the unique elements associated with kinship adoption are positive, there are also negatives that must be dealt with along the way. Adopting a child that you are related to comes with its own special challenges. In the last decade or two, kinship adoptions have increased in popularity. In fact, the numbers are still on the rise. With the increase in the number of children being placed with relatives, is more information on the topic than ever before. Knowing what challenges are likely to come up and what to do to move past them is extremely helpful to the entire family unit.

Carole B. Cox explains the importance of focus to the needs and concerns of these grandparents that are increasingly growing and becoming more known and the lack of services that address this group’s unique strengths and abilities to cope with any and all problems that they may face while caring for their grandchildren such as: their own physical health, increase of depression and insomnia, economic costs, low incomes, discrimination already present due to history, communication within the family, behavioral problems, and legal and entitlement issues. A study was conducted to see if a program that focused on providing these grandparents with a way to become more empowered in their role as custodial parents in strengthening their parenting skills,

Growing up, parents and grandparents want what is best for their children and grandchildren. I

We need grandparents to pray for their kids and grandkids. We need families to be raised in Christ and to be a light on earth. Our duty is to prove to many generations to come that God our Father is the answer. We need God to get ahold of our families. We do not want lazy parents who care less what their kids are

First, the relationships between the child, parent and grandparent should be evaluated to see how it affects the child. Secondly, it is important to assess the child’s understanding of the situation as well as why he thinks he is being parented by his grandparents. This will be based on the child’s age and ability to understand the situation including any developmental capacities he or she

- Grand parents play a huge role in the family structure as they are the older members

When living in a multigenerational home with other people everyone is spending time with each other, and there are no boundaries. One huge challenge is adapting to another person’s life. Everyone has a routine, but when living in a multigenerational home, that routine can collide with another family member. If a divorced man or women, with a child, is living with their parents, the grandparents can sometimes take the authority over the child. For example, when the child doesn’t eat all their food, and the parent is tell the child to finish the plate, then comes in sweet kind grandma or grandpa. The grandparents take the authority or control of the decision if the child should finishes the plate. As time goes by there will always be challenges in life, but there is also benefits in life, meaning that there are benefits to living in a multigenerational

Grandparents taking on the roles of guardian for their grandchildren happens to people with different income or ethnic backgrounds but mainly African Americans (P.S Storm & R.D Storm, 2011). Usually whenever a grandparent takes on the role of guardian there are both voluntary and involuntary reasons. These reasons could raises from occurrences of abandonment, imprisonment or drug abuse (P.S Storm & R.D Storm, 2011). In the cases of Alex and Mel, they were taken into the Harrison’s custody because their mother was a heroin addict and the father is currently in prison.

Culturally is it unusual that Lanesha’s grandmother is her primary caregiver? I would like to say no to this question, but the facts behind this issue don’t support it. Within the African American community, approximately 12% of African American children nationally are cared for by their grandparents, compared to approximately 7% of Hispanic children and 4% of non-Hispanic White children (NCBI, 2010). Lanesha and her grandmother are part of a larger issue that is reflected in today’s society. Several reasons can exist for this paradigm, anything from the parents needing complete education, the grandparents supplementing expensive daycare costs, or simply because the parents are not involved in the child’s life.

If the mom decides to stay with her parents, she deals with relationship issues on this front too. All to often grandparents want to take over. How can they not? It's extremely hard to step back and let your teen parent another child while you know they're so young, especially if the parenting styles they have aren't what the grandparents practiced on their own children. Babysitting, parenting styles, doubting the ability of the teen. All these can truly affect a teen mom in a negative way.

Families recognise that each person is an autonomous individual and adult children need to be encourage to pursue independent lives. Grandchildren are added and extended family grows, with on-going contact that does not interfere with the new nuclear family, which now work towards developing own boundary. Parents have to realise that adult children no longer need their guidance and economic assistance