Building A Support Network for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren with Nicholeen Peck

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You find yourself stepping into a role you never expected.

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Full time parent to your grandkids.

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Everything you once knew about your social life is turned upside down. You once enjoyed quiet coffee mornings and occasional date nights, but now it's all about school runs and tantrums.

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Friends have become strangers. Loneliness is a constant companion. Does it have to be this way? Discover the answer in episode 26 with Nicholeen Peck, where we uncover the key strategies to build a support network that makes all the difference. Join us as we tackle the isolation and provide real, actionable advice to help you on this unexpected journey.

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Stay tuned for episode 26. Building a support community for grandparents raising grandchildren with Nicholeen Peck welcome to grandparents. Raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity in this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren as we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support. I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and. Beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice. We will explore the nuances of child. Rearing for children who have experienced trauma. And offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care.

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We'll discuss how we can change the. Course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's. Future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you.

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Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored.

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Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of grandparents raising grandchildren. I'm your host, Laura, and today we're diving into the importance of community support for grandparents who are stepping into parenting roles once again. When I first began this journey, I, like many of you, found myself overwhelmed and unsure where to turn for support and advice.

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It's been a profound and often challenging experience, but what has truly helped me going is connecting with others who understand what we're going through. That's why I'm incredibly excited to introduce our guest today.

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Nicholeen Peck, a renowned expert in parenting and self government, joins us to discuss how essential it is to build a. Supportive community around us.

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Nicholeen has generously agreed to be part of a special series of ten episodes where we'll explore practical strategies and inspiring stories designed to uplift and empower us all. In today's episode, Nicholeen shares insightful stories and practical advice on why having a community is crucial, especially when you're parenting the second time around. So grab a cup of tea, get comfortable, and let's delve into this enlightening conversation, you won't want to miss a single minute of it. I'm really excited to be presenting this series of ten episodes with Nicholeen, where we're going to be building up to some exciting online opportunities for our grandparents to work with Nicholeen and the teaching self government principles. So today we're going to talk about why building a support community is particularly important for grandparents raising their grandchildren. Nicholeen, can you tell us why you believe that community is important for all parents raising their children and maybe share with us a story about why that's been so important for the families that gather to learn about the principles you share with us? Yeah, for sure. In fact, a couple of stories come to mind that might be useful. One thing is that parenting can be lonely, because here you are, you're focusing all these needs of these little people. You don't get the same social interactions that you would have if you didn't have children around. And when you're a grandparent going into now, your grandparenting, raising your children as a parent would suddenly your social life is drastically altered, right? And so that's a big thing. And not everybody understands what you're going through, because it's not just the baggage with the children that you're raising, but then there's all of the other things with your children that oftentimes you're still dealing with and helping others as well. So that's a big deal. And in a way, it kind of reminds me of when I did foster care. So I had my children, right? And now I'm bringing in other people's children into my home, and I'm dealing nothing just with those children, but with their parents, right? So now I have to also work on what's going on with their parents and see if we can unify the children or not and what that's going to mean. And if we can't, what does that look like for the children that are going to be in my home? And I'll tell you what, though. There was one thing that was invaluable to me, and that was that I always had somebody for support. I had my support person who I could call on at any time, and that was my key in person with the agency that I was working for. So anything, any time of day, I could page her, she would call me right back. That was back when we used pagers instead of text, right? Anyway, and she would call me right back and she would say, okay, what's going on? And I would say, okay, now I'm trying to teach them this school. This is what's happening, and they're not making a connection there. What am I missing?

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Or they're threatening to run away right now, what do I do in that case? And she would say, okay, well, have you mentioned this? Have you remind them about this thing with the judge or, you know, the goal that they had been setting with you or something like that? And I would say, oh, that's a good idea. And she would say, okay, now you go and work on that and then call back and let me know. And I would say, okay. And so here she was able to remind me of what I wanted to do. And this is important. So anytime I do trainings for parents, I always provide something called the TSG support group. And in the TSG support group, this is a place where you can ask me or other mentors questions, and they know what you've been trained on. They know you're trying to teach your children to follow instructions and accept no answers and accept criticism and consequences and how to disagree appropriately. So they know all the skills that you're trying to use. And sometimes there's a moment where you just forget. You feel like, okay, why am I not remembering what I'm supposed to be doing here? And they can give you that little reminder, that little shot in the arm to get you back on track.

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So we've really worked hard at teaching self government to try to create a support system for people so that they know other people that are doing what they're doing. There was a family who came to a training in Montana just last year, and they were a set of grandparents. They were raising two granddaughters, little granddaughters.

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They were ADHD granddaughters. And these grandparents were incredibly overwhelmed. And they really needed to know not only what skills they could teach and what they could do to not lose control at the grandchildren and to maintain some energy. But they also needed to feel like they weren't alone in raising these neurodiverse grandchildren.

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So they came to the train, and there were a couple of sets of grandparents that were there, mostly parents, but then there were a couple of grandparents.

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They kind of unified with each other, which was really neat, so that they could meet each other and they could be people who would understand what each other is doing in their life. And then they came on the support calls and started asking questions as well. And those two things made such a difference for these grandparents. In fact, they said to me, you know, we really didn't think that we were going to be able to do this. And we thought it might even damage our marriage, you know, the grandparents marriage. And because it was so difficult and they just got so much hope and were so grateful, so much gratitude in their hearts, it really made me feel happy that I was able to help them. I so wish I had had that at the beginning of this journey. But then I found people like you to be able to do that with. And it's been essential because it's paralyzing when you get in those moments, it's like our brains just freeze and we don't remember what we're supposed to do and panic and make poor decisions. So I know those strong community connections are important. What specific strategies do you recommend for grandparents looking to find support within their own communities? And how can grandparents connect with other mentors that understand their unique challenges? I'm asking a question and I'm answering it in my head at the same time because I know that the peer to peer groups which the University of Montana have helped me build for myself, we didn't have that to begin with. And the training that I've received from them has really helped me on a local monthly basis to stay connected with others. What do you do in the local communities of the grandparents that you're working with through teaching self government? I'm sure they have other local support that they connect with as well. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of people who are part of different groups, Facebook groups and stuff like that, where they'll connect and they'll talk with people. And if you don't have one, then one of the easiest ways to build a Facebook group or some sort of a group of people near you that are doing the same thing is to go on to maybe your town's page. I know that we have a four one, one page for our town.

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Right. And so you can go on to your 411, you know, billings 411 or whatever there is that's like that. And you can go out there and say, hey, I'm creating a group for grandparents who are raising grandchildren. Does anybody want to be part of this group? So then they might say yes. And then you pull them into a little group. And I would say even if you start with just three, just three is a good size group. You don't have to have a massive group. Usually three to five is the perfect social number of families that can really stay connected on a regular basis. So you try to find those, and then if you can find a commonality that you're trying to share in the grandparenting, that's going to make a big difference. So we're going to hopefully help them with that by doing a training here at the end of all these segments that we're doing in these podcasts that are coming out monthly so that people can have that. Okay, we've been learning all this stuff about teaching self government. Now we're gonna all get together and maybe do a training in that. Maybe, maybe not, but maybe they will.

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Now I can unify with people who are learning some of the same things that I'm learning using some of the same skills with their grandchildren that I'm wanting to use with my grandchildren. Now you've got something that links you together.

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You know that on some principle level or skill level, you're focusing on the same thing that gives you a common ground with somebody, that helps you be able to open up to them and helps them be able to answer some of your questions using principles and skills that, you know, you share in common. That's the thing, because sometimes you might be asking somebody questions, but they don't have your same background or same skills in common, and then you're not sure if it's really helpful or not. Right? I know that with the peer to peer support group that we've formed in our community, meeting with other people to discuss the topics that directly apply to us and may not be pertinent to other grandparents or other people our age, topics that are difficult to discuss are important to be able to share with others. And it's a great outlet for the small group that I meet with. We have childcare, which has really been helpful. We get to meet and join over a meal, and I always think that that's really nice to share a meal together and be able to talk about difficult subjects that we might not share with other people.

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Yeah, that's good. Just so that you're aware that we do have this teaching self government support group, I'm sure we'll talk about this more as we go along here. So there's the time where we actually get together, answer questions, talk to each other about things, and then there's also the Facebook group that's with that. So if somebody was part of the teaching self government support group and they joined that Facebook group, then they could say in there, hey, who in here is a grandparent raising grandchildren? So then that would be useful because then they could be like, okay, I'm identifying that person's name. That person's name.

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I know they get what I'm having, the same experience, because then there's going to be also people in there that are just parents too, but everyone in there is working on self government for. Their family, and we can put faces together with names and it does help to connect. Yes, I'm really excited about doing that myself.

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Once grandparents have connected with others, what steps should they take to foster and maintain those relationships?

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Are there any particular activities or gatherings that you do with teaching self government that strengthen those bonds?

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Oh, that's a really great one. I mean, again, kind of back to that support group. If you're meeting with someone on a regular basis and you're hearing from them and you're hearing their questions get asked and then answered, that can be really beneficial to strengthen those relationships. I really think the biggest thing is frequency. It's hard to have a relationship with somebody or to feel like you have a relationship if you really don't have any frequency with them. And so if you feel like you need support, like self government support, where you're trying to help your children learn certain behaviors of self government and you're trying to be more self governed yourself. You got to be around people that are doing the same thing, and you've got to be frequently around those people.

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And that's not super common, actually. I mean, what we're teaching about self government is, I would say, atypical, you know, in our society, because a lot of people just follow their emotions and they power struggle and go, oh, well, that's how it is, and it doesn't have to be that way.

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And so it's definitely a little bit more of a high level approach to any relationships to say, okay, how are we going to be in control of ourselves in these relationships? I think that there are emotions that are tied to being grandparents, raising grandchildren that tend to cause us to self isolate, especially because in today's day and age with social media and our tendency to self isolate, that this personal connection, especially for us as mothers, is really valuable. The passion that we have in helping these children become well rounded human beings after the experiences that they've gone through, it's part of that lesson that we're also teaching them that personal connection is important. One of the things I see with teens that's so common in today's day and age when we're doing so much on the Internet, feeling so self reliant or seemingly self reliant is anti productive to what we need to do to connect and create community. This issue is so self isolating. I don't think I, when I became a grandparent raising grandchildren that I had any idea that this community was so large, and I didn't even know how to talk about it. When I spoke about it originally with my friends, they had no clue that there were so many people doing this.

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Then the more you talk to people, you realize that somebody else knows another grandparent that's doing this. So I was excited to find out about those people and connect with them online and then finding the community that you've created with other parents. Yeah, and we also have mentors, so there's people who get trained to teach what I teach, and they mentor people in self government, and some of them are grandparents, too, so we have that. And, I mean, you're such a bridge builder, Laura. You know, you're helping people, too. This connection that they have to you is probably really valuable. Not everybody is the same level of social. They just need to know somebody else is doing it, and then they're okay. Some people need to see the people face to face and know that they're doing okay or to hear their voice. But, you know, there are people also in, in the teaching self government community who can have regular phone calls with a person and just talk to them about the issues they're facing and can help them through it, and they can get it, too. So we have a mentoring program as well. And who knows, Laura, maybe one day we'll see if we can convince you to be one, too, after all of your self government training. That's so exciting. And yes, I hope with a little experience under my belt that I can be a mentor for other people. I'm definitely passionate about the topics that we're talking about, and it's fascinating to learn how we can recover and how we can help our children recover from these traumas that they've experienced and create healthier opportunities for them in the future.

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A disconnect in relationship is really hard.

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So when our grandchildren have been. So they have their parents, right? But for whatever reason, they don't get to be raised by their parents. Now, their bonding need with the parents has been fractured or damaged in some way. Sometimes they still require a bonding need with the parents, even if the grandparents come in and try their very best to take over that bonding need. But that is a really high maintenance need because the children don't fully ever lose that need to bond with their biological parents. This is why children who've been adopted go looking for their biological parents. It's not that they want to have a really lasting relationships with them, but they just want to have enough of a bond that that hole is filled for them. And so it's difficult. And so the grandparents are trying, trying, but the grandchildren can usually never fully, fully get that hole completely filled, no matter how great the grandparents do. So then the grandparents are almost putting in even more effort than a parent would ever normally have to do. That is incredibly draining because they don't have that same tie that happens with the biological parents. And so all the more that the grandparent needs to know somebody that knows what they're going through and that can at least help them with some of those really difficult behaviors. So let's say you were to talk to me. I haven't raised my grandchildren, but I am a grandparent and I know all the skills that you're wanting to have. Well, I could still say, but in the hard moments, this is what you need to remember and that can at least help you to recognize, okay, the principles are still the same, whether your grandparent, whether your parent, the principles are the same, but the grandparent has a little bit bigger challenge because the bonding is actually been disrupted in its normal pattern with the grandparent too. Yes, I do want to commend grandparents out there that are doing this.

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This is something not any parent has to do. We're trying to fill multiple roles, and that's really challenging. Ideally, all of us grandparents would love for our children to be able to step back into the role of being a parent and giving them that support. It isn't always available, it's not always there. It's not always regular, it's not always wholesome. But that's the real life situation with all of these grandparents. It is. It is. And like my foster children, even if their parents were toxic for them, they still wanted a tiny bit of connection there, even if they knew that it wasn't because there's just something, it's biological that happens, which is very difficult.

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There's a mom who's been doing teaching self government. Well, she's a grandma who's raising her grandchildren, and she started doing it when she was raising one grandchild. And she came to one of my three day trainings and she was like, oh, Nicholeen, this is a godsend. This is a blessing. She said, I've been praying and praying for how to not get angry because I just feel frustrated at my daughter, frustrated at the stuff that I'm dealing with with this strong willed child. And I don't have the energy and I don't have the body that I used to have and I don't have, you know, all those things. And she said, so I just keep losing it, and now I don't have to. And then I saw her this last year, and she came up to me with tears in her eyes. She was at a conference, sitting there, she's holding a baby in her arms. And I thought, no way. She's had a baby. What's going on? And I came up to her and I just, I said, oh, it's so good to see you. And I gave her a big hug and I said, you got a baby. What's going on? And she just broke down. And she said, I had to take in the other four kids, you know?

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And she said, because, you know, this is what was going on. And she just started crying to me. And she said, nicholeen, this would never, ever be possible. Yeah. She's like, I would have had to give up on him if I wouldn't have had these skills of self government. And she says, and I'm still not perfect, but I know where I'm going and I know what I've got. And I'm sorry. I get emotional when I think about this grandma, because she is literally giving every single ounce of strength that she has. Her health is not perfect and she's doing all of this, but because she's got something to lean on, some skills, some principles, she doesn't have to try to emotionally parent these kids. And which also brings me to the fact that the community is important for these children, because in their school, in social settings, I know my granddaughter is ostracized a little bit because her grandparents are parents. And she came to me the other day to talk about it and said, I'm being teased and they make fun of me because they know my mother has been in and out of prison.

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So they tease me about that. So it's really important for us to be able to share connection in any way we can to allow these children to process and know that they're okay. Yeah.

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So for them to know other grandchildren that are being raised by grandparents, that's a really powerful thing, too. I'm hoping that people will continue to listen to our series. This is the fourth in ten episodes in which we are discussing teaching self government and its application for grandparents raising grandchildren. In November, we'll be offering an online program with scholarships that will be available for grandparents to work with Nicholeen and the teaching self government team online, we'll be having, as part of this program, opportunity to connect with mentors and the teaching self government community. So I really encourage you to listen in. The episodes with Nicholeen are about every four weeks.

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So if you stay in touch with my website at grandparents raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity.org or with Nicholeen at her teachingselfgovernment.com website, we'll be posting dates and times that the online program will be offered. Please email either one of us with any questions about that. The links will be in the show notes of this and every episode that I do with Nicoline going forward. So thanks Nicholeen for supporting grandparents and I'm looking forward to our next episode together.

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Thanks. Me too, Laura. My pleasure.

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Thanks so much for joining us today for another episode of grandparents raising grandchildren. Nurturing through adversity I encourage you to share your challenges and your successes with us. Your story is undoubtedly one someone else needs to hear.

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You can submit your stories to the links provided in the podcast information. Your contributions will enrich upcoming conversations, creating a more supportive community in which we can learn and grow together. If you enjoyed this show, please share it with a friend that needs to hear. And if you love this show and you're listening on a broadcasting platform like Apple or Spotify, just scroll down in your app and please leave us a review. Let's say you're a teacher and you just love to teach.

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You cherish those priceless moments with your students. But you start to notice something, and soon what happens outside the classroom starts to matter more than the lesson plan. Behavior issues, tough family situations, kids who just need to be heard of you. Start realizing that math can wait.

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It's their voices, their lives that need attention. First, join us as we sit down with Anastasia Arouse, a former teacher turned play therapist who discovered the power of play in healing children.

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Discover how she's helping to transform schools and families, one child's story at a time.

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I hope you'll listen to episode 27, seven strategies for helping kids heal through play therapy.

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Thank you for tuning in to grandparents. Raising grandchildren nurturing through adversity remember, you are not alone. Together we can find strength and hope in the face of adversity.

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Peace be with you, and I pray. That you find some time this week to listen to your inner wisdom amongst the noise and the pandemonium of this world.