Three million kids have grandparents parenting them. Are you one of those grandparents? Are you in need of some help? Are you in a crisis with your teen that you're not sure anyone has an answer for?
There are natural communication barriers between grandparents and their teenage grandkids:
- gray hair meets sharpside cut and an appreciation of different cultures flies out the window
- hurtful words stab at a grandparent trying to help
- memories are missed and arguments explode in a family
Both grandparents and grandkids face these triggers, but from opposite sides. And sometimes they result in kids getting into drugs, kids smoldering in unexpressed anger that deepens into depression, and kids even harming themselves. The kids want attention and relationships; grandparents want to help.
Help is available from author and well-known family expert Mark Gregston who has worked in teenage and family ministries like Young Life and his own program Heartlight for over forty years. For Mark, it's all about relationships. Teens need to find out why they think no one understands them. And they need help to guide them through this contradictory world.
Grandparenting Teens gives grandparents a resource to help them love their teens and to relate in genuine, honest, life-changing ways. In God's way.
Gregston doesn't say he is an expert, but the 3,000 families who have journeyed through his residential facility and his nationwide radio audience will say he has a gift for working with teenagers. He doesn't say it's a gift. It's from Christ.
This book gives practical tips on how to start grandparenting God's way. Mark teaches skills like getting everyone to listen--really listen. You can help your teen learn to paint the honest, big picture of their perspective, so no one's left out of their world. They will learn gratefulness instead of giving grief. They will recognize when their grandparent understands their troubles and becomes their role model for life when everyone else turns away. And both grandparent and teen will find their point of contact--their bond. Gregston's stories will entertain you. They will teach you. They will move you. Some will even change your life.
This book is as much for the teenager as it is for the grandparent. But Mark has found out that when Christ has called a grandparent to parent teenage kids, there's no one who can do it better.
