Celebrating Grandparents raising Grandchildren on National Caregiver's Month

Written by: Destiny-Joyce Quinsaat-Tobosa, Program Assistant, GRANDcares

“Family members, friends, and neighbors devote countless hours to providing care to their relatives or loved ones. During National Family Caregivers Month, we recognize and thank the humble heroes who do so much to keep our families and communities strong.”

President Barack Obama, NFC Month Proclamation 2012

We have just finished celebrating National Family Caregiver month! A month dedicated to family caregivers that allows organizations to raise awareness of family caregiver issues, increase support for caregivers, and most importantly CELEBRATE all they do! President Clinton signed the first National Family Caregiver Month Presidential Proclamation in 1997 and every president since has continued by issuing an annual proclamation recognizing and honoring family caregivers each November (https://caregiveraction.org/national-family-caregivers-month-background).

My name is Destiny and I am the GRANDcares Program Assistant in Maui County. I was introduced to the program back in 2017 when my mom started taking the classes in Kahului. Since then, GRANDcares has been very important and close to my heart. Currently, I can see my mom taking the tools she has learned from the classes and implementing them into her own life to help reduce the everyday stress she experiences from taking care of my niece. My mom often uses “Me Moments” to help her regain her train of thought and to help her calm down. She also uses the Action Plan in order to set and keep to her goals. The program has dramatically impacted the way my family dynamic is since we can all take some tips and use them in our day to day lives.

The Hawaii and Colorado GRANDcares programs celebrate and honor all caregiving participants – grandparents raising grandchildren and all other types of family caregivers.  

Many of the grandparent caregivers who have participated in GRANDcares find it difficult at times to think of and put themselves first. But even small self-care steps taken daily or weekly have made a big difference – both to themselves and their grandchildren. Here are some of the steps our grandparents have taken:

●      Take medications on time each day

●      Stop for 30 minutes to watch a show (Criminal Minds is a personal favorite of mine at the moment)

●      Know personal limits – and say “NO!”

●      Ask for and accept help from others

●      Talk to a counselor, friend or family member who is a good listener

●      Post notes around the house that are reminders that you are as important as the grandchildren you are raising

●      Hire a babysitter and go to a movie or sit on the beach

●      Take time out without feeling guilt

We honor and celebrate all that grandparents do and sacrifice to make sure that their grandchildren grow up healthy, happy and safe. You are not alone and we encourage you to continue your great work, to reach out to others in similar situations, and most importantly to stop to take care of yourselves so that you and your grandchildren can thrive.

GRANDcares Youth Club: A GRAND Kick off in Hawaii!

Written by: Jordyn Paa, Assistant Marketing Research Analyst, GRANDcares

Since 2015, GRANDcares has provided education and services to grandparents raising grandchildren. During our free classes, grandparents are able to learn and grow with other grandparents in the same situation, but what about grandchildren? GRANDcares launched the GRANDcares Youth Club on Maui in April 2018.  Within this innovative curriculum designed for keiki ages 8-14, who are currently being raised by grandparents, the youth build upon their leadership skills, self-confidence, communication skills and goal setting strategies. The GRANDcares Youth Club shares similar foundations to the 4-H Youth Club, which targets life skills to take care of “Head, Heart, Hands, and Health”. The motto of the GRANDcares Youth Club is “Grandfamilies Take Care of Each Other”.

One Youth Club member in particular, Kanai, highlights his experience with the new GRANDcares program. “It is a way to meet others who are going through the same situation. Sharing and learning from others can sometimes help with trials that may occur in your own life.”

Within the Youth Club, keiki get to participate in hands-on activities such as problem solving with paper airplanes, dynamic stretching, and tai chi. The classes for grandchildren run at the same time as the classes for grandparents.  The program was designed with the intention that families will take home what they learned in class and practice together to reach family goals and resolve challenges.

“I love socializing with others in the club,” Kanai said, “We’ve been trying to implement what we’ve learned in classes to our own lifestyles.”

Our next GRANDcares Youth Club in Maui starts on September 19 on Wednesday’s from 5:00 - 7:30pm. The classes are FREE and include dinner.  For children that are under 8 years old, supervision and activities will be available.  You can register yourself and your grandchildren by emailing grandcaresmaui@gmail.com.

Join our grandfamily community and meet some awesome Youth Club members like Kanai!  We hope to see you soon!   

Follow us on Instagram @grandcareshawaii or like us on Facebook @grandcareshawaii

Mindful Self-Care

By Sue Schneider, Family & Consumer Science & Community Development Agent, Larimer County Extension

Our culture has long reinforced the idea that self-care is selfish. We are taught to wear busyness and selflessness as badges of honor. Yet unfettered commitments to our jobs, families, and communities can often leave us overwhelmed and exhausted. Our burnout shows up in physician’s offices where 75 – 90% of all visits are related to stress. We want to find magic bullets to help us manage stress when we feel our lives spinning out of control.  But magic bullets don’t exist.

As we know, it can be really hard to turn around difficult circumstances in our lives. And making big changes takes time. But it is important to acknowledge that our difficult circumstances are not always the cause of our stress. Often, our reactions to our circumstances create much of our suffering. We tend to pour fuel onto our perceived difficulties when we view them with anxiety, fear, negativity, or judgement. We often catastrophize worst case scenarios, blame others or ourselves for things gone wrong, and numb ourselves to our pain through electronic devises, overwork, and substances. We turn away from our difficulties rather than leaning into them and learning what they have to teach us. In this way, we strengthen the habitual tendencies that aggravate our stress again and again.

In this video series on mindful self-care, we will explore another set of options; how to press the pause button, return to the present, work skillfully with difficulties, and prioritize our wellbeing in the midst of stressful events. We will learn how to deactivate the “habits of mind” that escalate our distress while strengthening our capacity for acceptance, self-compassion, ease, and joy. Mindful self-care means opening up space to attend to your own needs and developing health-promoting habits that serve your body, mind, and heart. Self-care takes practice and commitment. These videos can get you started by offering practical concepts and tools. Along the way, you will learn that mindfulness is not a magic bullet but rather a powerful guide for a lifelong journey back to the present.

Mindful Self-care: Part 1

Mindful Self-care Part 2: The Mindful STOP

Mindful Self-care Part 3: Leaning into distress

Mindful Self-care Part 4: Befriending negative thoughts

Mindful Self-care Part 5: Prioritizing self-care

2018 Free Days

By:  Gloria Sanchez, Adams County Site Coordinator

It’s springtime! Birds are chirping, days are longer, the sun is shining, children are ready to go outside, and summer is around the corner!  Many parents find themselves asking questions like, “What are we going to do? How are we going to entertain the kids? What will they do for fun?”  Well, not to worry because 2018’s free days are here!  For the last few years, the Denver area’s cultural institutions such as museums, gardens, and the zoo have offered FREE DAYS for the community.  These are days when admissions to such places are FREE FOR ALL to visit.  This initiative is largely welcomed by those on a budget and is especially convenient for families.  Every year, several institutions offer different days throughout the year for families to visit for FREE! The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District provides a calendar with a monthly listing of free days that can be found at scfd.org. For example, this month you can enjoy the Clyfford Still Museum (1250 Bannock St.) Friday evenings from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. 

But the fun doesn’t stop there!  As the days warm up, have a family picnic at the Hudson Gardens (6115 S. Sante Fe Dr.) or Chatfield Farms (8500 W. Deer Creek Canyon Rd.).  If you are an art lover, you can plan a visit to the Denver Art Museum (100 W. 14^th Ave. Parkway) or the Arvada Center Galleries (6901 Wadsworth Blvd.).  The Children’s Museum of Denver at Marisco Campus (2121 Children’s Museum Dr.) offers free admissions from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month throughout the year. 

Check out the dinosaurs, mummies and awesome exhibits at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (2001 S. Colorado Blvd.), and if you visit in the summertime, be sure to bring a towel and enjoy the splash pad in the adjoining park.  If your grandchild is a little builder, your local Home Depot also offers workshops on Saturdays mornings (registration required).

While all of these are amazing ways to spend your days, don’t forget you can always visit your local library, take a walk or bike-ride on a nearby trail, or just go run around at the neighborhood playground.  There are many free options or low cost activities that you can do with your grandchildren.  I have only mentioned a few, so check out the rest on the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District website at http://scfd.org/p/free-days-calendar.html.

GRANDcares Phase Two: Positive Youth Development

     GRANDcares program is excited to announce the completion of a newly developed curriculum for children ages 9-12 years old.  The six-week educational intervention was developed by teams from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Colorado State University.  The curriculum was created outside of the box, and the classroom is transformed into the “GRANDcares Youth Club”.  The program features interactive classes that are packed with lively learning activities.  The GRANDcares program is implemented in three phases; strengthening self-care for grandparent caregivers, developing communication and leadership skills in grandchildren, and increasing the ability of service providers to meet grandfamilies' needs.  The GRANDcares Youth Club will launch off the second phase for the national pilot program funded through USDA.  In 2016, the first phase of GRANDcares, was introduced to grandparents raising grandchildren in Hawaii and Colorado.  The first phase is ongoing and the six-week course for grandparents will run simultaneously with the Youth Club.  

A unique element of the GRANDcares Youth Club is that it was designed specifically for grandchildren being raised by grandparents. Research indicates that many children being raised by grandparents may encounter greater risk of behavioral and emotional hurdles.  There are many reasons for this, often the event of losing a parent or being taken away from a parent, is a traumatic experience for young children.  The GRANDcares Youth Club deliberately created activities for youth to strengthen their resiliency, or the ability of a person to recover after experiencing trauma and to overcome problems and difficulties.  The GRANDcares Youth Club is rooted in recognizing and enhancing young people’s strengths while promoting positive youth development.  Each week of the club provides hands-on learning experiences, that have been curated to build leadership skills, encourage self-confidence, practice communications skills and learn goal setting strategies.  Based on similar foundations of 4H Clubs, the GRANDcares Youth Club also helps youth develop and practice important life skills.  By providing “tools” for life skills, they will have more resources to cope with daily situations, make important decisions and enhance their quality of life.

In September 2017, the Youth Club was tested for the first time on the Big Island, Hawaii.  (Photo above) A small group of youth volunteered to be the first to experience part of the Youth Club program as the team reviewed and edited the curriculum accordingly.  Just last week, the first team of Youth Facilitators for the program were trained at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on Maui.  The GRANDcares Youth Club begins on Thursday April 5- May 24th, 2018, 5pm-7pm on Maui.  The classes are 90 minutes and prior to this, the grandfamilies are invited to talk story and enjoy a free light meal together.  Currently on the Big Island, GRANDcares program’s first phase is underway with grandparent caregivers until March 31^st.  Dates will be announced soon for the Youth Club on Big Island.  To find out more information contact grandcaresmaui@gmail.com

This week, a team from Hawaii is traveling to Colorado State University to train Youth Facilitators.  The GRANDcares Youth Club will launch in Colorado on March 28^th (kick off!) at 4:30-7:00 pmThe program will run until May 9^th in Fort Collins.  For more information contact Jana.Carson@colostate.edu   There is no cost to join the classes, but space is limited. 

Written by: Christine Spencer, Site Facilitator, GRANDcares Maui

One Layer of Being a Grandparent Raising a Grandchild: Shame and Guilt

By Gail Engle, Founder of Grand Family Coalition 

& Jana Carson GRANDcares Site Coordinator

My child has failed as a parent!

There is nothing more devastating than feeling this in your heart. You know you have done everything you thought was right. You did the best you could; you’ve given it your all. You know that like everyone else, you have made mistakes and that your own life has gotten you into some sticky stuff, but still the questions creep in and take over. “Was I that bad of a parent? I thought I taught them better than this. Why?! What went wrong? Where did “I” go wrong?”

This shame and guilt will consume you and make you angry. You want to fix it and make it go away. You want to make it all better. Your child only wants you to listen, but listening feels like you are condoning the behavior—the behavior that has caused you and so many others such stress and pain. Instead, you shake your finger, scold them, and think you can shame them into making better choices. You can’t. It doesn’t work. The more you try, the more you push them away. This makes you feel even worse. Sometimes the idea of being one big happy family can feel so hopeless and far away.

These are some of the many thoughts and feelings that I as a grandparent raising my grandchild experience. I have heard many of the same things through my interactions with other grandparents in similar situations. It can be so difficult not to blame yourself. It can be so hard not to place all the responsibility for our child’s choices and actions on ourselves.

It makes sense that we would want to fix the situation, but one of the most important things to keep in mind is to remember that this is not your fault. This is not your undoing.

This may be one of the most difficult things you will ever have to do. But as one wise grandmother told me, “I never lost hope, and I never will.”

We are resilient.

A Love Story Begins in Honolulu 1969

It was nearly fifty years ago on the sandy shoreline of Waimea Bay, Oahu where Carter fell in “love at first sight” with Pauline.  Pauline is from Hawai’i and Carter was stationed in Pearl Harbor at the time.  He caught his first glimpse of Pauline when she was resting in a tree!  She climbed up there to overlook the waves that would someday make Waimea Bay a legendary surf spot.  That night in 1969, Carter went home to his military platoon where he told his friends, “I’m going to marry that girl.” 

And if you ask Pauline about that day at Waimea Bay, she will say the same, “It was love at first sight.”  They are still married.  They moved to Maui, raised children together, worked long careers and then retired. Pauline was a school teacher and Carter retired from the military and worked for the Postal Service. The last thing they expected after retirement, was to become parents for a second time around in life.  There was a tragic and fatal car accident and suddenly they became full time guardians to their two-year old grandchild.

“It really wasn’t easy at all.  Financially and emotionally. But with support it got easier,” Pauline said, “We didn’t know any other families like us, but we found community resources and support groups.”

In their search for answers, they stumbled upon the GRANDcares program that launched educational interventions on Maui and Big Island, Hawaii in 2016.  Pauline and Carter were among the first group of grandparents raising their grandchildren who graduated from the seven-week pilot of “Powerful Tools for Caregivers-Grandparents.”   The classes in the GRANDcares’ program focus on reducing stress, strengthening communication skills, dealing with difficult emotions, and goal setting strategies. 

The next GRANDcares seven-week program begins on Thursday April 5- May 24^th 2018, 5pm-7pm.  The classes are 90 minutes and prior to this, the grandfamilies are invited to talk story and enjoy a free light meal together.  On the Big Island, the grandparent seven week classes will begin on Saturday February 17th-March 31^st 2018, 10am-12:30pm.  Additionally, this spring the GRANDcares program will introduce Youth Club for children 8- 12 years old who are being raised by a grandparent.  The seven-week program offers a complementary curriculum to what the grandparents will learn.  Also beginning on Maui April 5^th 2018, the classes in Youth Club are designed to build leadership skills, encourage self-confidence, practice communication skills, and learn how to set goals.   Registration for both grandparents and grandchildren are now open until April 1, 2018.  For more information or to sign up, email grandcaresmaui@gmail.com.

“I loved getting to know the other grandparents, that was my favorite part about coming to the classes,” Pauline stated, “One of the most important things that Carter and I learned, is not to be afraid to ask for help.”

Since 2016, Pauline and Carter have been advocates for grandparents raising grandchildren in their community.  They have continued to attend GRANDcares’ classes and have used their personal experiences to teach other grandfamilies in the program.  Their impact has been immeasurable, very much like their love. 

Photos and story by Christine Spencer, GRANDcares Site Facilitator, Maui County