A Parents’ Guide to Great Grand-Partnering

A Parents’  Guide to Great Grand-Partnering by Paul & Diana Miller

As a parent, you might ask, “Where can I find a helpful book on grandparenting?” because your kids’ grandparents seem to want to do only fun things with their grandchildren, give them lots of candy and gifts, let them break all your rules, and then send them home to you sugared up and spoiled rotten! In addition, you know they have lots of experience and wisdom that could be useful to you as learn how to be a better parent.

If you feel like this, or if you’re an expectant parent who wants to avoid these issues, Paul and Diana Miller have some new good ideas for you in their faith-based book, A Parents’ Guide to Great Grand-Partnering. This book is unique because it challenges parents to harvest the grandparents’ wisdom for their family’s benefit while also establishing boundaries to prevent interference and undermining.

Specifically, Paul and Diana will help you understand that grandparents can have a profound effect (for good or bad) on your children’s future. It’s also true their decisions will make your job easier or much harder. Further, parents and grandparents can come together to reap the bonus of enjoying a mature adult-to-adult relationship with each other.

The Millers’ key concept is the “Family Trinity” framework for building and keeping healthy and enjoyable relationships between all three generations. The Trinity shows that the parents are totally responsible for not merely providing for their children but also teaching them essential values and tools for becoming productive and fulfilled adults. It also shows that grandparents are responsible for helping the parents raise their children without getting in their way.

To gain these benefits, the book explains why parents need to embrace their own adult-level independence. Likewise, grandparents should release the parents to be fully independent adults. Once these attitudes are established, the parents are free to allow the grandparents to coach them without having to comply with their advice. In addition, parents can encourage the grandparents to be good models for the grandchildren and otherwise reinforce the lessons and skills they are teaching them.