Grandparenting Teens

There are natural communication barriers between grandparents and their teenage grandkids:

- gray hair meets sharpside cut and appreciation of different cultures flies out the window

- hurtful words stab at a grandparent trying to help

- memories are missed and arguments explode in a family

Both grandparents and grandkids face these triggers, but from opposite sides. And sometimes they result in kids getting into drugs, kids smoldering in unexpressed anger that deepens into depression, and kids even harming themselves The kids want attention and relationships; grandparents want to help.

Help is available from author and well-known family expert Mark Gregston who has worked in teenage and family ministries like Young Life and his own program Heartlight for over forty years. For Mark it's all about relationships. Teens need to find out why they think no one understands them. And teens need help to guide them through this contradictory world. Mark has written the resources that help grandparents love their teens and to relate in genuine, honest, life-changing ways. In God's way.

Gregston doesn't say he is an expert, but the 3000 families who have journeyed through his residential facility and his nationwide radio audience will say he has a gift for working with teenagers. He doesn't say it's a gift. It's from Christ. But his book can show you practical tips about how to start grandparenting God's way.

Mark teaches skills like getting everyone to listen, really listen. Teenagers learn to paint the honest, big picture of their perspective, so no one's left out of their world. They learn gratefulness instead of giving grief. They recognize when their grandparent understands their troubles and then become their role model for life when everyone else turns away. And everyone finds their point of contact, their bond. Gregston's stories will entertain you. They will teach you; they will move you; some will change your life.

This book is as much for the teenager as it is for the grandparent. But Mark has found out that when Christ has called a grandparent to parent teenage kids, there's no one who can do it better.