Health and Family

Raising your grandchildren can be both rewarding and challenging. The transition to this new relationship can be stressful for the entire family. While your grandchildren are getting used to a new home and new rules, you must readjust to the responsibilities of parenting. The adjustment will take time and patience on everybody’s part. But with some planning, patience, and a lot of understanding, you can overcome the challenges of raising your grandchildren. Some of the most common challenges are discussed below, along with suggestions for making the adjustment process easier for the whole family.

Moving to a new home brings a variety of emotions and feelings for any child. Like adults, children grieve for the people, places, and things they are leaving behind. Your grandchildren’s move into your house also may be complicated by other stresses, such as the loss of regular contact with a parent.

Don’t be surprised if your grandchildren express sadness, anger, anxiety, or other negative feelings during the transition to your home. Treating your grandchildren’s feelings with sensitivity will help make the adjustment a little easier. Keep in mind that children of different ages will need different kinds of support to deal with this transition.

When you take on the responsibility of raising grandchildren, you may have to navigate the tricky question of whether and how to help your grandchildren stay connected with their parents. For some grandchildren, video calls or visits with their parents may help them adjust to the change of living in your home. For other grandchildren, visits or calls may add to the children’s stress, or may put the children in a vulnerable position. Every family is different. You need to decide what will work best for your grandchildren.

Handling death is always a difficult process. Experiencing grief stretches your emotional resources, and organizing details such as a funeral and burial requires time and planning. For some grandparents, the death of an adult child also means that you must accept responsibility for raising grandchildren.

The stress of so many changes at once can be overwhelming for the entire family. Many adults do not know how to explain a death to children, and are unprepared to help children grieve the loss of a parent. But with sensitivity and compassion, you can help your grandchildren learn to cope with the death, better understand their own grief, and find productive ways to express their emotions.

No grandparent likes to imagine a grandchild being mistreated. But the reality is that children who live in a chaotic home, where chronic problems like family violence or substance abuse take place, are at high risk for abuse and neglect. As you adjust to caring for your grandchildren, you might also have to help them cope with the aftermath of abuse or neglect.

Raising grandchildren can be expensive, especially for grandparents with limited budgets. There are many resources in your community that can help make the job of raising your grandchildren easier. If you are struggling to make ends meet, check out the financial resources and services in your community. Your family may be eligible for federal, state, and local financial assistance programs to help with the costs of food, health care, child care, and other expenses.

Note: This fact sheet is NOT intended to substitute for financial advice. If any of these financial issues affect you, or you think you may be eligible for assistance, your first step is to seek advice about the specific programs. If you are unsure where to begin, contact your local Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) office.

As a grandparent raising your grandchildren, you may not have imagined being involved with the legal system. But if your grandchildren live with you for a long time, you may eventually need legal support and advice to provide the best care for them. It’s important for you to understand laws affecting grandparents raising their grandchildren. The following information is a brief introduction to the legal system as it applies to grandparents caring for their grandchildren. This fact sheet is NOT intended to substitute for actual legal advice. If any of these legal issues affect you, your first step is to seek advice from a qualified attorney.

As a grandparent, you may feel “out of practice” in caring for a very young child. It may have been many years since your own children were young. We know more now about how the brain develops and how to keep children safe. The number of “educational” toys and products may seem overwhelming. What’s a grandparent raising an infant or toddler to do?

The first step to caring for your young grandchildren is to relax. Even though we’ve learned more over the last few years about how very young children develop, children’s basic needs haven’t changed all that much. The basics that you gave your own children are still the most important things for your young grandchild: a warm, loving relationship; a safe, secure home; chances to try new things; consistent routines; and gentle, loving guidance. By providing a nurturing home for your grandchildren, you are giving them essential support that will help them grow into healthy, happy adults.

Have you noticed that being a grandparent changes when children become teens? Adolescence is a time of rapid growth in how teens look, act, think, and feel. With this growth, teenagers begin to need different things out of life. You will need to change your grandparenting style in order to meet the new needs of your teenagers. You may feel like you don’t know them anymore, but don’t be alarmed; most of these changes are very normal.