Grandparents Parenting Grandchildren: Here's Your Sanity-Saving Permission Slip

Amber Weigand-Buckley, bestselling author of #Sisterhoodoftheshortyellowpencils: Mental Health Mayhem, One Sticky Note at a Time

A Lens of Perspective from a #Shortyellowpencilgirl i.e Bipolar Beauty, Neurospicy Wife & Mother and Woman who continually pushes herself beyond her own limits, against her best sensibilties

I want to say up front: I’m not a grandparent raising grandchildren myself. I don’t have the lived experience, and I’m not going to pretend I do. What I have is a front-row seat — to the stories, the late-night messages, the quiet “is this normal?” questions — and a deep respect for what this community carries. So I made this check-in not as someone in the trenches with you, but as someone who keeps showing up to listen, and who wanted to hand you something useful on the days it’s hard to think straight.

Four things I keep hearing grandparents need permission to let go of. And four things I keep hearing they need permission to believe instead.

Four Things Worth Letting Go Of:

1. What may look like defiance might be dysregulation (there's a difference). A child who’s lost a parent to loss, addiction, or removal is carrying more than any of us can see. What looks like back talk or a slammed door is so often panic with nowhere else to go — not disrespect aimed at you.

2. “Because I said so” works less now. A kid who’s been through instability needs the why behind a rule before they can follow it. Connection before correction — “I need you to do this because…” — tends to go so much further than a flat command, especially with a child who’s still learning who he can trust.

3. Punishment isn’t discipline anymore. Time-outs and harsh consequences land differently on a nervous system that’s already on high alert. For a child who’s experienced trauma, isolation can feel like abandonment instead of a lesson. Calm, consistent boundaries teach far more than punishment ever did.

4. Therapy isn’t a last resort. What used to feel like “private family business” is one of the most loving things you can offer now. A counselor who understands trauma or grief isn’t a sign you’ve failed — it’s a second set of hands helping you carry something too heavy for one person alone.

Four Things Worth Believing Instead:

1. Grief is allowed. You can love this assignment and still mourn the retirement you pictured — the travel, the slower mornings, the season you thought was finally next. Both things are true at the same time, and neither one cancels out the other.

2. Your body gets a vote too. Less stamina, slower recall, a back that doesn’t bounce back from the floor the way it used to — that’s biology, not failure. Asking for help with carpools, late nights, and the physical load doesn’t make you any less capable.

3. You need your own person, too. A friend, a support group, a counselor — someone who’s just for you, not for the child, not for the family logistics. The caregivers I talk to who have their own person tend to last longer in this role, and last happier in it.

4. "I don’t know” is a full sentence. You don’t owe anyone — including yourself — perfect answers today. You’re doing something genuinely hard, later in life than you planned, with a heart that still shows up. That counts for more than you know on the days it doesn’t feel like enough.

Download the Printable Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Printable Here

Amber Weigand-Buckley—a #shortyellowpencil girl living in a neurotypical world—is an Amazon #1 bestselling, award-winning author and founding editor of Leading Hearts magazine,

Her new book, #SisterhoodoftheShortYellowPencils: Mental Health Mayhem One Sticky Note at a Time, is ultimately a book about capacity—what happens when yours runs out faster than everyone else's, and why that was never something to be ashamed of. She hosts multiple podcasts including #RandomDevoThoughts and lives in Springfield, Missouri. Find out more at shortyellowpencilrx.com.