Almost 5 million children under the age of 18 are being raised by grandparents.
An increasing number of grandchildren rely on their grandparents for food, shelter, clothing and emotional support. For these grandparents, raising another family wasn't part of the plan. They were looking forward to retirement, hobbies, travel or just taking it easy.
Many of these grandparents are in their 50's and 60's, and facing health problems that often come with getting older. For some, starting over with children means the retirement they were looking forward to won't happen for several more years.
What about the financial stress? Most of us didn't include raising children when we were budgeting for our senior years. There are programs that provide financial assistance at the state level, 'if you qualify'.
For some this is a hard avenue to take even if they qualify. We've worked and taken care of our responsibilities for years and now the thought of public assistance is a hard pill to swallow..
For some this is a hard avenue to take even if they qualify. We've worked and taken care of our responsibilities for years and now the thought of public assistance is a hard pill to swallow..
It doesn't seem fair to now have to be the disciplinarian instead of the one who gets to spoil these children, but what are the alternatives? If it wasn't for the grandparents stepping up and taking responsibility, most of these children would end of in foster care and where there are two or more they are very often separated.
There is a wealth of information on the web. You can start by searching the sites for your local state, county or city. Also there are senior associations that have some valuable information. Many churches offer help and there are support groups available.You can go to your search engine and type in keywords that will take you to informational sites. Some suggestions would be grandparents, parenting grandchildren, extended family, raising grandchildren--these are just a few suggestions.
If you go through your search engine, a good suggestion would be to bookmark the search engine results page and then go back and click on each site. You can save the ones that appear to be relevant to your situation by bookmarking them.
When you have saved several sites, then go back and study each one and take note of the information that addresses your situation. This may seem time consuming and it is but it will be worth it in the end.
Also look for blogs. I found several good ones by using two searches. In your search engine type in grandparenting/blog for one and raising grandchildren/blog for another. Both will get you excellent results.
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