Hello, Reader!

I got a photo today from my youngest sister as she dropped my niece off at college. I’ve been seeing 😭 emojis all over Instagram from parents doing the same: saying goodbye as their child starts a new chapter.

Do you remember that feeling when your oldest child started off on a life without you? Whether it was college, or the military, or their first apartment…suddenly the whole family dynamic shifted.

Sometimes it’s an easy transition. My son was so busy working and socializing in the months before he started college that his absence was hardly noticeable. I also think that we had an advantage as a military family: we were used to having a key member of the family gone for months at a time.

Sometimes it’s not so easy. It can hurt to admit our children don’t need us in the same way. It can be lonely without them at the dinner table. And it can be painful to not know where they are or what they are doing most of the time.

It’s easy to make mistakes in our desire to stay connected. We sometimes fail recognize that the ways we’ve interacted with them for the last 18 years don’t work anymore.

But we adapt to this new dynamic. We learn new ways to relate to them. New ways to communicate. New ways to connect.

Navigating through changes in family dynamics is stressful! Especially when it’s an entirely new chapter.

(You probably see where this is going…)

Becoming a grandparent requires another major shift in how we relate to our adult children. Once again, there’s a new dynamic to navigate, and we can make mistakes. We’ve got to figure out how to interact with those adult children—and their partners!—all over again.

But just as my sister has me to share my hard-earned wisdom about daughters growing up, you’ve got me to share the wisdom I’ve gathered about navigating becoming a grandparent.

Thanks to More Than Grand, you can avoid the mistakes! If you don’t know the many ways we can help you, just ask and I’ll point you in the right direction. I read every email myself, and respond to every single question.

Warm regards,
DeeDee

P.S. Here’s a blog post about some of the most common mistakes new grandparents make: Grandparent Mistakes: 3 Ways You're Straining Your Relationship with Your Family​

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DeeDee Moore | Founder, More Than Grand LLC | morethangrand.com