After the parents, the grandparents are often the most important adult caregivers within the family. They can give the child security, stability and confidence. This can compensate for the backdrop of a changing relationship between their parents and a disintegrating nuclear family.
Knowledge of psychological and legal foundations as well as their own possibilities and limitations help them to avoid any possible errors. Providing active support for their grandchildren it comes to children coping with the separation. When parents do not reach an agreement, it is important for the grandparents to offer children the support they need.
The grandparents’ role in a separation
Very often, grandparents or the parents’ parents get to have great importance when it comes to separation or divorce. They often become familiar, comforting the crisis in the relationship and giving advice. They offer the "safe nest" that one's family cannot offer anymore. Sometimes, parents decide on a temporary separation and return to their own parents. The grandparents’ attitude can have such a major impact on the further course of the separation events.
Comparing the relationship with the partner’s parents often comes to clarify whether the termination of the couple's relationship has the same relationship qualities with the parents prior to demolition. If the relationship was already loaded with this conflict previously, it is not uncommon for a complete break to occur in the relationship.
The importance of grandparents to the child
How important the grandparents are in case of separation depends greatly on the intensity of the relationship growing between the grandparents and the child at the time of their parents’ separation. Generally, the grandparents are the ones who have known the children for the longest period of time and their relationship with the children is also very resistant.
In addition, the grandparents symbolize the child’s origins beyond the parents and, therefore, they are usually the oldest living representatives of the child’s "roots" in this world (unless there are surviving great-grandparents).
When the parents split, the child loses the only thing they know when it comes to family union and the family being together. They feel abandoned by the parent with whom they no longer live, although they may still see them regularly. Also, children often develop fears that the parent they live with may leave them as well.
The separation conflict also changes the situation. Some parents are so confused and polluted by the separation that they can no longer see what their child needs. Single parents often live under more pressure economically and have less time for their children, expecting them to have greater support in their everyday life. The tensions that exist between the parents represent a high emotional stress for the child. A child can quickly reach the limits of their mental capacity if they are faced with major changes in their environments.
Undisturbed contact with the grandparents means stability for the child in a changing world. They understand that their father and mother have separated, but they also understand that it is the familiar family relationships that persist. Their grandparents are not directly concerned with the parents' separation and they can get the child a piece of familiar familial world.
You have the option to take your child to them and try to understand what the child needs from you and from them. There is some emotional "refueling" when it comes to children and their grandparents and they can get the certainty that they're not the ones that are different than before, but that it is their mother and father who have changed.
Grandparents can thus have an essential contribution when it comes to ensuring that the child goes through a crisis period without being hurt. They can offer them the bright side of things and not let them experience the dark side of the separation.
Grandparents need information
Grandparents are often unfamiliar with current psychological trends and the legal framework with regard to separation / divorce and the impact of separation / divorce on the child. Therefore, they are often unsure when it comes to helping their grandchild best.
The most important psychological information for grandparents is:
- Children need to be in regular contact with both parents even after the separation.
- A change in the child’s behavior after the visit to the other parent does not automatically lead to the
conclusion that the other parent has dealt with the child in a responsible way. Children often need time to
recover from the "Mama's World" to "Papa's World" switch and vice versa.
- Children can cope with the new situation better if the parents avoid carrying on with their conflicts in front
of them.
- The children do not care which parent is to blame for the separation as most separations are caused by
both parents.
- Children cannot really understand why their parents get separated, so they need to be explained the
situation as it makes no sense. More importantly, the child feels understood and accepted in their grief.
- Parents remain parents and grandparents remain grandparents even if they do not behave exactly like in
the educational textbook. It therefore makes no sense for parents or grandparents to turn to the "other
side". There are only a few cases in which children must be protected from individual family members.
- There is no single treatment regime. Instead, there are a number of possible access arrangements to the
extent that the child lives with the mother and the father equally. It is important that the parents agree on
the form of association and that the child is included in the picture.
- The children whose parents have separated are not necessarily harmed for life. If they and the parents
seek joint solutions, they have good chances to cope with family crisis situations and to have a
completely unobtrusive development.
The most important legal information:
- Unless a parent submits an application for transfer of sole parental authority, parents keep their joint
custody even after a divorce as this is the law.
- Even with joint parental authority, the parents must take care of the everyday matters and they should not
make decisions on their own. Also, the child should be informed on those decisions.
- The child has to stay with both their parents, but there is no specific treatment regime prescribed by the
law. The parents must agree.
- Grandparents have the right to get in contact with the child as long as it serves the best interests of the
child.
In addition, the legislative authority gives great importance to advice and mediation. The scheme developed by the parents is usually more valuable than a judicial decision. Counseling and mediation are public bodies and then, there is the advice offered by freelance professionals.
By the way, even grandparents can autonomously get involved in child guidance if they worry about the welfare of their grandchild!
What can grandparents do and what they cannot do
Grandparents can offer their grandchildren the stability that their father and mother cannot offer them because of the separation or they may have limited functions. They can make time for their grandchild, they can try to understand their feelings and offer them a piece of the previous family life.
Since the grandparents are not directly involved in the conflict of the parents, they are recommended to be the ones who reassure the grandchild that everything will be in order and that both parents will love them just as much. Given the fact that they have a certain emotional distance, the grandparents are the ones who can give the best to the grandchildren when they consider they have run out of options or comfort. In fact, they are the only ones who can build a sort of bridge between the children and their parents.
In some highly conflicting cases of separation, it has been shown that it is quite reasonable that the grandchildren represent this bridge between the children and their parents. This is only possible if the grandparents are accepted by both parents as a "transfer authority".
Grandparents can point out the possibilities of technical advice and, last but not least, they may help them when it comes to taking care of the children. Mothers and fathers take time for themselves in order to process the emotional injuries associated with the separation since it is also good to just go out alone at night and to know that the child is in safe hands...
On the other hand, the child's grandparents cannot stop them from expressing their regret for the family having fallen apart. The thing is that they should understand that not everything is bright and shiny in life. Grandparents do not do their grandchildren a favor if they think they have to compensate for their problems. Pampering and pitiable parenting is based on the child living in a world of illusions and makes their parents’ task much more difficult. Grandparents should even be careful with the expensive or frequent gifts to the children as this often increases the tension between the parents!
Benevolent age-appropriate demands on the part of grandparents help the child to stay in touch with reality and not to flee in an intact world of illusions. Very often, the children are not relieved when they talk about it with their grandparents. They do not feel comfortable with talking about their parents being separated or about how they are supposed to handle their separation from then on.
Grandparents can help their grandchildren become much more relieved as far as their situation is concerned. They can assume care and education functions, but they should never be asked too many questions. It is still the parents who are primarily responsible for the grandchildren, not the grandparents!
When the grandparents have to take responsibility for their grandchildren, they sit down to and explain the fact that this is not their role as grandparents. Second of all, this also leads to the parents’ image being affected in the eyes of the children.
Some grandparents also give their grandchildren tests to do when there is conflict between the parents. However, a professional consultation or mediation is more appropriate in this situation.
It depends on the parents
Whether grandparents can have a supporting role or not is mainly the parents' decision. They are the ones that can allow the grandparents to influence the children and to talk to them, guiding them through the entire separation process. They also have the right to declare themselves against the idea of their children being counseled by the grandparents.
The father and the mother should, therefore, talk about how they feel about the fact that their children are allies with their grandparents. If there are concerns (e.g. because of the danger of unilateral influence or excessive indulgence of the child), they should indeed be taken very seriously. Ideally, the parent should then address these concerns to the in-laws directly. Alternatively, the concerns will be conveyed to the parents-in-law via the partner. The grandparents act in the spirit of their grandchildren and if they do not object to the parent’s partner to get in touch with the children, they can get to spend more time with them than if they did not approve of it.
Open and honest communication and the struggle for fair and child-oriented solutions found by the parents and the grandparents can make the children be much more relieved. The father and the mother succeeding in reaching an agreement and not ending up in a destructive relationship is a good prerequisite for ensuring that the child will have unencumbered access to both sets of grandparents.
If a third of grandparents is added...
Another pair of grandparents is usually added with a new partnership. In accordance with the status of stepfather or stepmother, we could then speak of step grandparents, too.
The addition of another pair of grandparents may be a gain for the children provided, however, that the grandparents are not in competition with each other. Neither should the "new" grandparents try to be the better grandparents or even replace the "old" grandparents, nor should the biological grandparents try to rule out the "new" ones. The common factors are the grandchildren and everyone should remember that they only have a set of roots in this situation.
