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What happens when retirement plans are suddenly replaced by bedtime routines, school drop-offs, and parenting kids after trauma?

In this deeply moving episode, Allison sits down with Laura Brazan, host of the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren podcast, to talk about the unexpected realities of becoming a full-time caregiver later in life. Laura shares her personal journey of raising two grandchildren after a family crisis — and how sleepless nights, behavioral challenges, and profound grief ultimately led her to create the world’s leading podcast for grandparents in this role.

Together, Allison and Laura explore the emotional, financial, and relational shifts that come with stepping back into parenting after 50, especially when children have experienced trauma, neurodiversity, or instability. Laura speaks candidly about the isolation many grandparents feel, the strain on marriages, and the lack of clear resources — but also the deep purpose, healing, and joy that can emerge through love, structure, and connection.

This conversation also offers insight for parents who aren’t grandparents, including how to support children being raised by grandparents, how to navigate uncomfortable but necessary conversations, and why talking openly about trauma and mental health matters for the next generation.

Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, caregiver, or someone who wants to better understand families shaped by adversity, this episode is a powerful reminder that healing is possible — and that community makes all the difference.

In this episode, we discuss:
— What it’s really like to unexpectedly raise grandchildren
— Common challenges grandparents face: sleep deprivation, trauma behaviors, finances, and isolation
— How trauma impacts children’s brains — and how healing happens over time
— Navigating parenting in a completely different generation
— The strain (and strengthening) of marriages when raising grandchildren
— How parents can support children in their community being raised by grandparents
— Why having hard conversations about mental health and family trauma matters
— Finding purpose, joy, and legacy in later-in-life parenting

Connect with Laura Brazan:
Website: grandparents-raising-grandchildren.org
Instagram: @grandparentspodcast
Facebook: Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Wondering if your child is getting enough sleep? Allison’s free guides take the guesswork out of bedtime. Learn the optimal sleep ranges for every age so your little one can feel their best—day after day. Get your free copy now: 0-2 Years Old or 3 to 10 years old

From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.

Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

221. Grandparents Raising Grandchildren with Laura Brazan
Allison Egidi: Hey there, Allison here. Welcome back to How Long ‘Til Bedtime. Today I have a special guest. Laura Brazan is a mother of three and a grandparent raising two grandchildren. She’s the host of the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity podcast. I was a guest on her show a couple of months ago to talk about sleep and left that conversation knowing that I wanted to connect with her again.

I was thrilled when she agreed to join me on How Long ‘Til Bedtime to share what it was like to shift from being retired to raising her grandchildren full time. Whether you know a grandparent raising grandchildren, you are a grandparent raising grandchildren, or you simply enjoy better understanding the people in your community, this episode is for you.

Hi, Laura. Welcome and thank you for joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation a couple of months ago when you had me on your podcast to chat about sleep. And I was eager to have you come share about your experience as a grandparent raising grandchildren. I always like to start by asking my guests what inspired them to pursue their vocation. And hosting a podcast is no small job as you and I were just chatting about before we hit record. So I’d love to hear what inspired you to launch your show.

Laura Brazan: When we got the call that the children needed a home, our two grandchildren that we’ve been raising since they were three and six, they’re now almost seven and 10. We thought, my gosh, we’re gonna grab these children up and we’re going to bring them to our beautiful home and fix them warm home cooked meals and our problems will be solved and they’ll be thanking us incessantly for what we’ve done for them.

And what we realized was that was not the case. They were sleepless nights. They were insane days for months and years really on end because the children had had no boundaries. And this was as alien a world to them as what they had gone through was to us. And when I made phone calls to the sources that you would think would have the answers for you, there were none. And we just kept getting referred on to the next person and the next person and the next person. And basically people just said, I am so sorry for you. I don’t know what to do. And I went, oh my gosh, there are over 2.6 million people in the United States alone that are raising their grandparents that are raising their grandchildren.

And that is the statistics say that it is because of the opioid epidemic, that it is because and was instigated by COVID that maybe that forced the numbers up. I think that it’s also a mental epidemic that’s happening in the country. And there’s a lack of understanding about how to handle neurodiversity and what is happening to the generation that is turning to drugs and opioids and why. And so the story of what happened to these children is unfortunately I found not uncommon, not as uncommon as I thought it was. So when I began to dig and dig and dig, because I’m a person that is a researcher and I wanted answers, I didn’t believe there wasn’t a solution to giving these children the love and care and healthcare that they needed to get them back on track. And what I found out was that there are answers and there are people that have answers and there are and were people that gave us hope.

And when I realized that I went, my gosh, if there’s 2.6 million other people out there like me, then they need to hear this. And I did not want my pain to be wasted. So I said, what would be the best way for me to get this information? Well, I’m terrifically busy right now. I’m not too much into technology, but enough into technology that I know what podcasts are.

I know what Facebook is and I can get this information out to people that need to hear. So I developed the podcast and I hired some professional help to do it right because when I had been searching for this information, looking for a podcast that was about grandparents raising grandchildren, I saw several that had been started but had failed very quickly. So I thought that’s probably because I don’t really know how to do this well and so I’m going to find out how to do it well from people that did know and I built a very solid podcast that is now the number one podcast for grandparents raising grandchildren in the world.

Love it. And it makes me think of even just in parenting in general, sometimes people who are struggling the most, the way some of us have the energy to go search for answers and to find resources, and then some of us don’t. And when you’re the person that found the answers and the resources, I think it’s so powerful to be able to package that up a little bit for the grandparents that are just completely overwhelmed and aren’t able to dig and dig and dig. And so what a gift that you have developed this podcast. And that’s why when I chatted with you before, I was so inspired that I thought we got to share this further.

Well, I want to make it quite clear. I don’t make any money doing this. as a gift of love. And I do it selfishly because I want those answers for my children. And when I did research, because I did do research for over about a hundred grandparents to find out what their top priorities were, grandparents really are thinking about leaving a greater legacy.

You don’t.

I do it because we’re beginning to think about, and I personally am 68, you start thinking about what you’re gonna leave in the world, not what you need personally. And if that’s what you wanna do, then the information and how you can help them, you don’t wanna give up.

So tell me a little bit about some of the most common challenges that you think grandparents face when they unexpectedly step back into this primary caregiving role or maybe kind of the big challenge that you faced when you initially stepped back into this role.

When you are dealing with trauma of any kind, and it doesn’t have to just be when you receive children because parents have been incarcerated, sometimes they passed away and you need to take them on and grandparents in most states and it does the laws do change from state to state, but grandparents have more rights than anyone else. Biological grandparents do so. You’re the first ones in most cases that child protective services or some other service is going to look for to see if you want to take the children and in most cases we’re over 50 years old. So it’s difficult because of your age. It’s difficult because at that point in your life socially you lose all of your friends because most of them don’t want to be around young children and loud noises constantly because we know children are noisy and disrupt your privacy all of the time and that’s more difficult for older people to adjust to. A lot of times it’s because parents have been deployed so that can be another reason why you get your grandchildren but in most cases it’s because the parents have been incarcerated or there’s drug or alcohol addiction involved.

And in that case, the children have seen a lot of things they should not have seen. having to talk to the children that you thought you would be just talking about very simple things to. You have to talk about age, things with these kids, and that’s really tough. So you play the role of being the grandparent that needs to just maybe sometimes have

Yeah, age-appropriate things.

Breakfast for dinner. You know, that’s what we thought being a grandparent was about. You’re playing many roles. So that’s a new thing. Also, financially. So if you have taken a child voluntarily and they have not come through a foster care system or something like that, there is no financial compensation unless you live below poverty level. And then, of course, there are the normal things you would expect. There’s food assistance and health assistance and that. But in our particular case, thank goodness, our children had a lot of medical problems. So they already and their parents were already on Medicaid. So the Medicaid came with the children. But other than that, we have no financial assistance. So our retirement plans completely changed. We cannot travel. Which we did right before we got the children. So our travel plans changed. We hope someday to take the children traveling with us when they’re a little bit older and and more stable so your financial situations change you change your priorities you give up the idea that you’re going to be going out for dinner more often and visiting socially with friends, you have to adjust to the fact that your social group and community is gone. You’re having conversations with mothers that are in their 30s because those are the age of the parents your children are socializing with and their priorities are completely different. So you have to realize that these are friends that you make because your children are associating with their families, but they are not going to be the people that you spend time with or can identify with. It’s a very odd place to be.

Right. Two things come to mind as you’re talking about that is I picked up tennis for my 40th birthday and it’s my kind of gift to myself and my hobby and I play with a lot of retired, my kids call them the grandmas. They say you love your grandmas. I’m like I love all my grandma friends. But they are in this different season. And when we’re playing, it’s so interesting as a parent who’s actively raising kids, when they say like, do you and John want to grab dinner tonight? Like they’re just very last minute, like engaging in these actives. I’m like, wow, what a delightful existence you’re having. And so, know, they’re golfing and they’re doing all these things. And they always say like, retirement life is so great. And so listening to them thinking, yeah, you are not doing that. So not only are you not doing the last minute, let’s go to the club and grab dinner or let’s hit play nine holes in the morning. Also, because this was the season that I’ve recently exited thinking you are not having an easy time finding a babysitter for these children. So it’s hard to find a babysitter in the most typical situation is what my experience was. And I hear from my clients all the time. And I’m assuming then when you have children who have extra needs and might have different outbursts that put them kind of in the not typical three and six year old babysitting experience, you’re probably also even having a hard time getting someone to care for them to even take a night out.

Well, you probably know, Allison, that we recently moved and relocated our whole lives to be closer to family to get help because our children have several issues and are special needs kids. So when we first got the children, we were retired, living in a very remote, beautiful area of Montana, not in the neighborhood with other children.

We had built our retirement home, which was a small place, one bedroom. It was a barn-dominium with a place for our RV and our one bedroom home because we wanted a place that was easy to keep because we traveled around the country. We only lived there four months of the year. We were doing the retirement thing. No babysitters. We had one night out in the first three years alone together for dinner. Really didn’t know what to do with ourselves. And then we moved down here so we had to leave our friends and community to make this choice and now we do have babysitters. Well we went out the other night and that was probably the third time we’ve gone out in six months. But that’s okay because our life has changed and that’s not a big priority and I love to cook.

It has really brought us close together. My husband and I can take small moments of time and really make the most of it because we’ve just learned that this is our retirement. This is our joy is to give two children a better life. Your priorities change.

So you’ve shifted from, we’re going to have this little retirement home and we’re going to take our RV and we’re going to go everywhere to, I find great joy in that I’m home cooking for these children and caring for them, even though they have a lot of challenges. That’s a big shift. And so I would love if you’re open to it, to just hear how your steps to make that shift where you your husband have found a way to be in a really good place. And I think a lot of marriages would not probably be in a really good place if they took on grandchildren. So I’m just, can you share a little more about that shift?

Sure. It’s been amazing and beautiful and I’m definitely a better person because I’ve gotten through it. And they always say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And I’m going to share this with your younger listeners, younger parents now. The greatest thing that I’ve learned is that you hit difficult walls in life.

The more you hit, the more you get through, I happen to be a person of faith. I would say I’m very non-denominational. just believe in a higher power and that for those listeners, everybody has a different name for it. But it’s really caused me to rely more on that sense of being outside myself and not taking things so personally and being able to grow. These kids have triggered. If you have special needs kids, and even if you’re a young parent with special needs kids, and then you add all the other challenges we’ve gone through, it’s like there were times when that rock, know, another rock, can I just take one more rock in my basket? Can I carry one more thing? And I found that the more that I gave up, more that I let go, the more that I accepted about my own personal challenges, the more I realized that I’d get through another wall and there was always something better on the other side.

So when we started, I’ll also clarify that my husband and I had just met each other. I had been a single mother for 10 years. He had lost his wife of cancer. We had only known each other four years when we got the kids.

Wow. Yeah. That’s big.

Yeah, and we had our own things we wanted to do and planned and we were still learning a lot about each other. I remember one day we did have a hot tub and my husband and I were sitting in the hot tub and he said, I don’t think, I think we need to find a place for these kids. I don’t think we can do this. And I said, you know, we talked about it and I said, What are we gonna do? I mean, we honestly thought about adopting them out. We thought maybe that might be best for them. We talked about other family members that were younger that might be able to take them. Nobody wanted them and could take it on and chose not to. And I’m not saying this is for everybody. So I don’t blame anybody for that. It’s just as important to know when you can’t do this as it is to know that you choose to do it. Know that when you choose to do it, do it by choice. Otherwise find a different, find a better place for them. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that. But we’re sitting in hot tub and my husband, he goes, but you’re a natural mother. It’s easy for you. It’s not for me. He is not somebody that loves all kids. And he felt he had raised his two. He’d taken care of his wife for four or five years with cancer.

He was ready to live his own life and he did not want to do this. And I said, honey, I don’t want to do this either. This is not what I want to do, but it’s the right thing to do. And because of that, I feel I have to do it. And he said, really? You feel that? I said, yeah. And all of a sudden his whole perspective changed and we realized we were doing this because it was the right thing to do. And that’s why we chose to do it.

And all of a sudden we were like this we’re like a team trying to get something done and when you can do that in your life in your process as a young married person when there are hard things and challenges you just get through them and you do that and that keeps marriages together and that makes lives change it makes both of you change, but if you can get beyond that selfish point of I need to have this, I need to have a bigger house, I need to have the right car, I need to have the right clothes for my children. I’m not saying if you can do that, God bless you, and life is great. But if you can’t, or if you have to do something because it’s the right thing to do, do it and your life will be blessed. Because we are being blessed over and over by the simplest things we’re watching two children, their brains are being restored as we talked about. I found that in trauma brains can be healed and it’s about helping them rebuild their mother boards and it’s a hard thing to do. It’s like taking a paraplegic and teaching them how to walk again when they never knew how to walk to begin with because these kids saw awful things from day one and their mother did drugs in utero. The oldest child did so she has, you know, mental issues that she’ll struggle with all of her life. Watching that happen is better than having a million or five million bucks. So that process has taken years and we’ve gone through those walls together and I know we’ll have other ones. The teenagers are coming up but that story will be imprinted in their brains forever. They have watched us fail.

I have to admit over and over and over what I do wrong because I wasn’t trained how to read and raise neurodiverse children. We didn’t even know that word until I became a grandparent raising grandchildren. And the research and everything that I find out teaches me that I’m never going to stop learning. And I tell those little kids and they get to see it with 68 year old grandparents. My grandma was wrong. My grandpa had to apologize to me because he yelled at me. I remember reaching for my grandson’s throat because they were trying to scratch our eyes out because they didn’t know what it meant to sleep in a bed. They didn’t know what it meant to sit at a table. They didn’t eat food with forks and knives. They didn’t want their teeth. My husband’s six foot four. I’m five foot four and we had to both sit on our son’s arms and hold him down to brush his teeth because they had rotting teeth. Okay, this is a story that’s hard to hear, but there are a lot of people that are going through that. And I believe I have to learn how to do things the passive way, the kind way that we’re all learning as parents, teaching our children to be able to listen to us. But sometimes it’s it takes other methods to learn how to how to get through really tough things and that process brought us to where we are now which is watching the children healing seeing them do well we’ve moved to an area where they have all the needs they get in a very good public school system which is all that we can afford because we’re taking a big portion of our our retirement savings to clothe them and give them the help that they need and spend time with them because some of it just can’t be replaced with all the other people that help them, the therapists and everything else. They just need love and time spent with them, a little time every day really makes a difference because it teaches them that this is where the bond and the trust and the security comes from. It comes from people sacrificing their time and spending time listening to you in just very simple love.

And I think I can only imagine how different it is raising kids now. Let’s put aside all the complications, but just raising kids now versus when you raised your kids. Because I am probably maybe around your kids age-ish, probably a little bit older, but I tell my kids all the time when you talk about we have to apologize and repair and we’re learning new things, I say to them all the time, there are a lot of things I’m having to make choices on for you that I can’t even look back on my childhood and say, I agree with how my parents handled that or I disagree because these things didn’t exist. So what’s coming to mind is technology. But there are all these things where I say, sometimes you’re going to have to give me a second. I need to look into this. I need to read something about it. Sometimes I make a choice and then I say, look, I learned something new. I didn’t know that because guess what parents aren’t born knowing everything and now we’re going to change course because I know better do better. And my parents say to me all the time, I’m so glad we didn’t have to raise kids with everything that’s going on. And so does it feel starkly different from raising your children versus raising your grandchildren with all that is happening. I mean, even the fact that we’re on this podcast, that wasn’t even a thing when you’re raising your kids. I’m curious how that feels because now you’ve literally raised two different generations.

Well, yes. And I think that it’s a wonderful opportunity because it gives us a whole nother, a bigger perspective of the world, which, you know, as you said, every generation is doing things differently than the generation before them. Every generation is learning how to be a better parent. And there’s no such thing as the perfect parent. So I think. I’ve had this great opportunity to able to be in both generations and share that with my grandchildren. And you know what they say about a lot of grandkids that have been raised by their grandparents is that they’re more relaxed, they’re less anxious because we

You don’t sweat the small stuff. You see the big picture.

You don’t. You do. You have to tell them, I have to tell them, have to go, grandma can’t always get on her hands and knees and let you ride on my back like your dad could. I need to take a nap. So please be responsible while I’m taking a nap and don’t talk too loud. And you know, all those things which makes the kids think about things and they’re just a little more slowed down maybe. They’re still very active, they do sports and we still go out and play soccer and we’re sore for two days you know after we do but yes you just take a little more time and probably a little bit more grandparently than younger parents are and that’s okay.

Yeah, I’m curious when you are associating with parents of their classmates, that vibe, because my parents had my brothers a fair amount apart. There’s 15 years between my brothers. And the first three of us were kind of a cohort. And then I have my youngest brother. And in fact, I remember he came early and we went to the grocery store to buy bottles, my dad and I did, because they had not gotten anything ready for him. And when we’re checking out, he and I will both never forget when the woman said, did you just have your first grandchild? And he said, no, I just had my fourth child. Thank you very much. But he talks about the difference of the first three of us when he was putting us through school with his peer group. And then when he had my younger brother, now people are having kids in their 40s, but then they weren’t really. And he said, we were just so much older than all the parents and we had a hard time relating. And I think a little bit of what you’re talking about is like, we just brought different perspectives. So he said, you know, things that we did with the first three of you freak out about your sports and so intense. He’s like, we just didn’t with that fourth one. And of course he went on to play D1 athletics and they said that we were just more laid back. And I’m curious about how that feels, going through school with these parents who are sweating the small stuff probably and are you able to connect with them or do you just find you have to give yourself some space?

I choose how I connect with them. I can’t do late parties and stuff like a lot of them do. I’m kind of enjoying the looks that I get in the store because the kids do call us mom and they call papa and mama. And people go, she looks a little old to be a mom, but it keeps you, it does keep you young in a lot of great ways. You know, mentally, oh my gosh, I enjoy even more the humor that comes out of a six year old’s. And it keeps me smiling. And now we have four generations under one roof right now. And my mother who’s 88 years old, although yes, she’s a little more sensitive to children yelling and running around and she kind of gives them looks sometimes.

I bet.

She’s laughing more and smiling more. And laughter is the best medicine. And keeping a sense of humor is the best medicine. As far as relating to other people, I think I teach them something. I think I teach younger parents a lot because I do want to relate to them. I care about people and I enjoy talking about our families.

And we do have a lot that we relate about, but I can also give them a perspective they may not have seen. And it is hindsight because I did raise my kids and I can say, don’t worry about that. It’ll be okay. Just make sure your kids get into sports because that’ll keep them really healthy. Two of my kids played a lot of sports and they were way more well adjusted than the ones that didn’t. Now kids that are nerds and whatever.

You just need to make sure that they have well-rounded, musical instrument or theater, some activity where they’re committed to it.

the outdoors but teamwork you know that sense that you learn from sports is really important so if they send to tend to be loners make sure they get it some other way but I can tell them that because I raised three children and now I’m raising two more my kids are wonderfully understanding and they are my youngest is 36 I lost a son who would be 38 it was tragic but it happens

I’m so sorry.

And I think that the way that we can relate to others and give that hindsight is a gift. And I wish there was more interaction. You know, I sort of do think there’s a really healthy thing that happens when you have grandparents and parents and children and three or four generations closer together, which, you know, people spread apart generations ago. And now this maybe brings them together a little bit more.

So I always look at the positive side. I love young people and sometimes I forget that I’m 68 years old. We were having a Christmas party and inviting some neighbors and I have 30-year-olds coming and I have 65-year-olds coming.

I love that. I just recorded on another podcast episode of mine where I share little tidbits at the beginning, sometimes about things going on in my life. And I mentioned that last week I went to a Christmas party for my tennis team and I walked out of there at midnight on a Wednesday, by the way, with my retired friends hosted thinking I love that I was just with people well over 10 years younger than me and people probably 20 years plus older than me. We laughed and laughed and everyone’s sense of humor is so different, but that we all find each other’s of humor entertaining, if that makes sense. And we just had the best time. And my point was the tennis brought me to a wider age group of friends. And that’s been such a gift to me. And so I love that you’re enjoying that aspect because I think it’s so fun to have friends across age groups.

Well, two weeks ago, I was riding on a golf cart with a 36 year old and she’s probably darn near close to that. I suddenly I went, my gosh, these girls don’t mind hanging out with me because I’m 68 and and we all have kids, you know, the same age. And it was a little wild. I was going, what am I doing? You know, it’s 12 o’clock at night and I’m out on a golf cart and our kids are running around. It was Christmas break and it wasn’t 12 o’clock. It was probably 11 o’clock, 10:30 or 11. And we came, I was like, let’s go back to my house and cook some food. And my mother got up and said, what are you all doing? Those kids were running around. Yeah, right, because she was in bed. I went it’s the middle of the night!

Sorry mom, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we’re making noise. So we went back over to another mother’s house for a little while longer and cooked some food and then came back and put the kids to bed. And I went, this is crazy, I haven’t done this in a long time. And I thought, it’s okay, and I probably won’t do that again for a while, because they’ll wipe me out. It took me a day to come back from just being up that late and I had a couple glasses of wine and I don’t usually do that, I never do that.

And yeah, but I thought we all had fun. They enjoyed talking with me and I enjoyed talking with them and they’re coming over for our Christmas dinner. And yes, I think it’s healthy. It’s healthy and it is real life. That is real life. Put too much expectations into what retirement will be and then it’s boring. And if that doesn’t work for you and some people don’t we have we have couples that they don’t, you know, they don’t want to change their lifestyle. And I hope they never have to, but if you have to, you’ll, you’ll get through not retiring because it’s just different if you have to do this job. It’s different type of joy.

A different type of joy. That’s right. So most of my listeners are not grandparents, but they may know a child in their child’s class or neighborhood who is being raised by a grandparent. And it sounds like you’ve really found a community and been embraced, which I love to hear. But I’m curious for the parent that’s maybe thinking, listening to you right now thinking, I have not really embraced this grandparent that’s in our children’s world. I’m curious how you recommend for parents who aren’t quite sure how to connect with a grandparent, if that makes sense. You know, we talk a lot about making adult friends is challenging. And so I think sometimes if someone even feels a step further out of your cohort, that might even feel more challenging. So I’m curious to your thoughts or advice you have for a listener who’s thinking about a grandparent in their orbit who is raising grandchildren, how can they connect with them? How can they support them and be part of their community?

I think about it like when my son died, nobody knew how to come up and talk with me. Nobody knew what to say. And the things that we’re dealing with are things that a lot of people don’t want to talk about. And they need to be talked about. It’s like one of the things one of my grandparents said about their own children. And this is something for young people to think about.

There are a lot of things that you don’t want to talk about to your kids and you don’t, but some of them need to be talked about. And finding ways to talk to somebody who just maybe doesn’t want to feel like they’ve got leprosy, which is kind of how we feel. We’ve got kids that have gotten addicted to drugs. We’ve got kids that have gone to jail. We’ve kids that have mentally ill. It’s something our communities don’t want to talk about and we need to talk about them. So just saying to someone, you know, could you come over and have a cup of coffee with me or tea and you know, I just want to hear your story. I know it must be hard for you and maybe you don’t want to talk about it. A lot of people don’t want to talk about it, but I just want you to know that it must be hard and I’m always here to be a friend if you need me or if you need me to take your kids and give you a break, you know, I’d be happy to help. You got to be aware that my granddaughter goes to school and said, my daddy pulled a knife on my mom. But they’re good kids. And maybe the way to handle children, because maybe you don’t want your children to be exposed to that.

You know, and I understand that it might’ve been scary for me before this happened for my children to know children like that. But I think you can talk to those kids and you can say, look, my children haven’t heard about that. Maybe you shouldn’t talk to them about that. might be scary to them. Could you understand it could be scary to you? You can tell those kids that maybe that’s not the right answer, but maybe another way of doing that is to talk to the parents and say, help me learn. Help me learn how I can, my friends, my kids can be friends with your kids. I think that’s a better answer. mean, nobody’s asked me that, Allison. So I’m glad you’re asking me that. Because we have, we have a lot of, I have been. I have seen a lot of parents who don’t want their children to play with my grandchildren.

Yeah. And I can see that this is where I’m going to throw myself under the bus. I’ve, my children have not been exposed to, to what you’re describing a story like that. But what’s coming to mind is a girl who was causing a lot of trouble in one of my kids classes, and my daughter was friends with her. And actually the teacher even questioned, like, why is she friends with this girl? And my answer was, well, we’re not going to alienate these mean children, because that does not solve the problem. So I will parent my child if she’s causing problems along with this girl, you just let me know and I’ll parent her. But it wasn’t I wouldn’t say I do think this child has had trauma in her background, but she wasn’t my daughter wasn’t coming home with stories like that. And as you say that, if I really look at myself in the mirror, I think if my daughter came home and said this little girl told her her dad pulled a knife, I might be like, now it’s time to distance ourselves. I mean, yeah, I would love help with that because I do think as much as I hate to admit it, that probably would be my gut reaction.

Yeah, well, so this is what I do when my child meets a child who’s having behavioral issues or things that are scary like that come out of their mouths, right? I think about who the parents are. Now, if I don’t want my child going over to their house, if I know their parents are using bad language or drinking or using drugs or not raising their children in ways that are safe for my children to be around. I don’t want my grandkids to go there. But if what I usually tell my kids, my grandkids, when they’re, my granddaughter is a very loving child and she really loves helping other children. And this child was really bullying her on the bus and mean. And I said, you know, it sounds to me like she’s really unhappy.

And so you might ask her, tell her that you don’t want to be treated that way or spoken to that way and say if you want to be my friend I’m gonna I’ve given you several chances but if you really want to be my friend please be respectful of me and that’s not a kind thing to do to talk to someone that way. Now if my daughter wanted to go over to her house that would be a whole nother question. I would say, I wanna meet their parents. So if they’re being raised by someone like me, right, let’s say my granddaughter, your child and my daughter wanna be friends and they meet each other and she says, I wanna bring my granddaughter over to play. So I would hope that you would reach out to me and get to know who I am. And if I told you, yes, this is my child, this is what we’re dealing with. This is where she came from and I want you to know that some of this conversation might come up. Then we have to address that. And the truth is these things are happening in the world so we can’t protect our children from them not ever seeing them. But we can say, okay, let’s sit our two kids down together and say, Athena, you said something that might have scared her daughter. And we’ll tell you that their parents got into trouble. They used drugs. It caused them to see some things they should not have seen and were not appropriate. But I can talk to my granddaughter and in therapy because she could any good grandparent whose child has seen this stuff is going to be taking them to a therapist. They can discuss it in therapy. And then maybe we say that’s something that her daughter does not know about it. It might be scary to her. Could you understand why that might be scary to her? Let’s keep those conversations with you and the therapist and not share those with other children who may not have seen that before. And thank goodness they have parents and grandparents that don’t expose that to them. But a lot of times, take it back a scale, a lot of parents will go over to other parents’ house that drink too much or watch TV stuff that shouldn’t be appropriate and maybe we don’t want them to see guns. I don’t let my kids watch stuff. There are a lot of parents who let their kids play with gun-like things and play that way.

Yes. Listen, I’m that annoying parent that was texting when my kids are a little older now and I believe them that they could not, you know, play with a gun in the house. But when they were little, because I live in a part of the country where people hunt and guns are a thing, I would text people. And I did get some nasty responses where I’m like, I know you wanted, so one of my kids come over to play and just want to understand what’s happening at your house and are there guns and if there are, how are you protecting them? And I can think of one person who really got very unhappy. But for the most part people were quite responsive and even my husband was kind of like, do you really need to? like, I do actually and if they don’t like me because of that then they don’t like me because of that.

And you have to teach your children to speak up like that and you want them to and You have to make the call about am I gonna let my kid play at their house if they’re gonna see that You know, it has to be a call that we made but I believe that You should be concerned and protective about your children, but then let’s also let them know that this is the world that they live in, this is what they might see. Now if I don’t manage my child well, you shouldn’t let her play with my child. You should keep her from, know, we’re gonna sit on the bus together, but maybe you won’t let them go over to.

Totally. I guess my takeaway listening to you is a little bit like we should do with any parenting is get comfortable having conversations that might be uncomfortable. And not all people, like not in any realm of parenting are as open and curious and thoughtful as you are. And if they aren’t, that’s okay. You got to get your answer. So I think that my takeaway is like people just need to buck up a little bit and have the conversation in a thoughtful way, but if it’s not well received then you kind of know how you want to handle it.

my wisdom thought to pass on is have these tough conversations because what we’re doing is passing on generational mental health issues in families and if you don’t want to talk about the drinking problems if you don’t want to talk about the alcohol I mean the drug problems and you don’t want to talk about mental health issues or behavioral issues that are getting passed on family to family then you’re gonna pass it on to the next generation and we don’t want to do that. It’s not healthy and that’s a big problem in this country is we don’t want to talk about.

Totally. Well, we’ve talked some about the challenges, but you’ve also shared the joy that you’re finding in this season. I’m curious what has been the most rewarding part of raising your grandchildren.

Watching two children who couldn’t hug, touch, or hold, or feel safe, watching them feel safe and trust because what would have happened if nobody had taken them? We’d have two more children in the world who were mentally unstable, who the system was supporting, who were on welfare, who couldn’t contribute to the society. And think if we all could embrace that issue, what a healthier next generation we’d be raising.

Absolutely. I’m so glad we connected. I knew the moment we chatted on your podcast that I was drawn to you and I thought this is a really special person. And my feelings on that have grown tenfold in this conversation. And I’m grateful that our paths have crossed. I’m grateful that my podcast community will get to hear from you. I think you’re really inspiring and the world is a better place because people like you are in it. So thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. And how can people find you whether they just want to learn more from you and hear other people’s stories or if they know someone in their life who could benefit from listening to your podcast, can you point them in the right direction?

If you Google grandparents raising grandchildren, we’re the first website and podcast that comes up. We’re on Apple and Spotify and all the other platforms. You can reach us on Facebook and Instagram. We’re grandparents-raising-grandchildren.org is our website. Grandparents raising grandchildren on Facebook and grandparents podcast on Instagram.

I’m gonna link to all these in the show notes. So then people if they’re thinking they want to find you through one of these avenues they can just go find the link and it’ll all be there for them.

If you know a grandparent that is struggling, encourage them to reach out and share their story because as difficult as it is to share these things, there’s somebody out there that needs to hear it and feel connected.

Well, thanks Laura and I hope to see you again soon. Bye for now.

We shall. Thanks, Allison. Bye bye.