Grandparenting Children With Disabilities

Childhood disabilities, particularly cognitive disabilities, are on the rise yet social programs and services to help US families respond to disabilities are not. Many families turn to grandparents for assistance juggling work, family responsibilities, and specialized therapies. This book is based on in-depth interviews with grandparents who are providing at least some care to grandchildren with disabilities. The analyses will help to better understand (1) under what conditions grandparents provide care and support, (2) what types and intensities of care and support grandparents provide, and (3) the impact of that care and support on grandparents’ social, emotional, physical, and financial wellbeing. In this fascinating and provocative book, Madonna Harrington Meyer and Ynesse Abdul-Malak take readers on a deep dive into the complex lives of grandparents who care for their disabled grandchildren. In Grandparenting Children with Disabilities, their interviews reveal the joy, meaning, and purpose grandparents find in caregiving, the challenges and frustrations they encounter, and the many ways they compromise their own health and well-being for the sake of their grandchildren. Drawing from theories of cumulative inequality and from their deep knowledge of the US policy context, the authors lay bare the systemic failures that leave families of children with disabilities without adequate support and that place the most vulnerable among them at grave physical, emotional, and financial risk... Jane McLeod, Provost Professor, Indiana University Grandparents in the U.S. already take on far more parenting responsibilities as compared to their peers in other countries. Grandparenting Children with Disabilities demonstrates that the intensity of these responsibilities is compounded for those whose grandchildren have disabilities given limited policy supports and a society still largely unaccommodating to those with disabilities. This book beautifully navigates the tension between the love these grandparents have for their grandchildren and the challenges they face caring for them. Pamela Herd, Professor, Georgetown University Grandparenting Children with Disabilities offers important insights about the lived experience of older adults who care for and care about their grandchildren...The authors skillfully integrate the stories they tell with consideration of macro social structural influences and life course perspectives... I recommend it highly! Eva Kahana, Distinguished University Professor, Case Western Reserve

This briefs offers a comprehensive view of the journey of grandparents of children with disabilities by employing a wide range of theoretical approaches such as intergenerational relationships, positive psychology, psychoanalytic views and models of stress. It presents a multidimensional view of grandparents, which begins with the general role of grandparents in the family and the transition to grandparenthood, as a major life event. The briefs moves on to discuss grandparents’ roles under unique circumstances such as illness or disability in the family and then deals with perspectives of parents of children with disabilities on the role of grandparents. Finally, it reviews attitudes of professionals toward grandparents and concludes with suggested intervention strategies for working with families on intergenerational relationships.

Older adults caring for developmentally disabled children have special needs. Are you and your agency doing all you can to help? Grandparents as Carers of Children with Disabilities: Facing the Challenges provides the first comprehensive picture of grandparents caring for children with developmental disabilities and their related requirements. Here you'll find information on the mental and physical health of these caregivers, highlighting their unique needs and the roles that agencies and advocates need to play in order to meet them. This unique volume will assist practitioners, administrators, and policymakers in including the needs of this group into planning and service delivery efforts. Grandparents as Carers of Children with Disabilities: Facing the Challenges takes an incisive look at: characteristics of these carers and the children they care for children in kinship care and their special needs the effect of kinship foster care on caregiving grandmothers the approach of Latino grandparents to bringing up children with special needs the service needs and provision issues of grandparent carers In this book, here is some of what you'll find: data from a school-based comprehensive multigenerational program in East Harlem, New York City, which explores environmental stressors associated with children coming into kinship care, discussing the impact on grandparent caregivers, with a focus on health status and access to care correlates of self-reported depressive symptoms among urban Latino grandparent caregivers a survey of grandparents (mostly African American, mostly female) caring for children with developmental disabilities in New York City that focuses on health status, emotional state, use of formal and informal services, and general life situation helpful charts and tables that put the facts at your fingertips a demonstration project that used an intervention model to determine how a three-pronged approach using outreach, support groups, and case management could be used to aid grandparents caring for children with developmental delay or disabilities ... and much more! As editors McCallion and Janicki point out, ”Primary childcare is rapidly becoming a normative experience of grandparenting. Grandparent primary care is found among all ethnic groups, and across all socioeconomic levels of society. Concern over preserving the family often causes grandparents to assume responsibility in spite of their limited financial means or own health conditions.” Grandparents as Carers of Children with Disabilities will enable you to provide these courageous, loving people with the help they need to do this extraordinarily difficult and often thankless job.

Older adults caring for developmentally disabled children have special needs. Are you and your agency doing all you can to help? Grandparents as Carers of Children with Disabilities: Facing the Challenges provides the first comprehensive picture of grandparents caring for children with developmental disabilities and their related requirements. Here you'll find information on the mental and physical health of these caregivers, highlighting their unique needs and the roles that agencies and advocates need to play in order to meet them. This unique volume will assist practitioners, administrators, and policymakers in including the needs of this group into planning and service delivery efforts. Grandparents as Carers of Children with Disabilities: Facing the Challenges takes an incisive look at: characteristics of these carers and the children they care for children in kinship care and their special needs the effect of kinship foster care on caregiving grandmothers the approach of Latino grandparents to bringing up children with special needs the service needs and provision issues of grandparent carers In this book, here is some of what you'll find: data from a school-based comprehensive multigenerational program in East Harlem, New York City, which explores environmental stressors associated with children coming into kinship care, discussing the impact on grandparent caregivers, with a focus on health status and access to care correlates of self-reported depressive symptoms among urban Latino grandparent caregivers a survey of grandparents (mostly African American, mostly female) caring for children with developmental disabilities in New York City that focuses on health status, emotional state, use of formal and informal services, and general life situation helpful charts and tables that put the facts at your fingertips a demonstration project that used an intervention model to determine how a three-pronged approach using outreach, support groups, and case management could be used to aid grandparents caring for children with developmental delay or disabilities ... and much more! As editors McCallion and Janicki point out, "Primary childcare is rapidly becoming a normative experience of grandparenting. Grandparent primary care is found among all ethnic groups, and across all socioeconomic levels of society. Concern over preserving the family often causes grandparents to assume responsibility in spite of their limited financial means or own health conditions." Grandparents as Carers of Children with Disabilities will enable you to provide these courageous, loving people with the help they need to do this extraordinarily difficult and often thankless job.

When a new baby is born into a family, grandparents are excited about having a baby to enjoy and love. If the child is born with a disability, it can be difficult to know how to react and how best to help the child and the family as a whole. This book provides guidance on how to grandparent a child with special needs and give every grandchild the love and care they deserve and parents the added support they need. From coming to terms with a diagnosis, to helping with the transition from adolescence to adulthood, the book gives clear advice on grandparenting a child with special needs throughout their life. The author covers the medical, emotional and practical aspects of being a grandparent and explores important issues such as researching resources for specialized care, accessing financial and legal resources and, just as importantly, how to have fun and spend quality time with a grandchild with a disability. The book also addresses how to handle the diagnosis of a serious accident or progressive illness. Grandparenting a Child with Special Needs is a unique guide for grandparents keen to make a difference to the lives of their children and their grandchildren.

This book is for grandparents of children with visual impairments and perhaps with additional disabilities. It is intended to address possible concerns and to help appreciate some of the unique joys of grandparenting a child with visual impairment. Also available in Spanish.

Parentless Parents is the first book to show how the absence of grandparents impacts everything about the way mothers and fathers raise their children--from everyday parenting decisions to the relationships they have with their spouses and in-laws. For the first time in U.S. history, as the average age of women giving birth has increased significantly, millions of children are at risk of having fewer years with their grandparents than ever before. How has this substantial shift affected parents and kids? Journalist, award-winning television producer, and parentless parent Allison Gilbert has polled and studied more than 1,300 parentless parents from across the United States and a dozen other countries to find out. Through her pioneering research, Gilbert not only shares her own story and the significant and poignant effect that this trend has had on her and hundreds of other families, but also the myriad ways these mothers and fathers have learned to keep the memory of their parents alive for their children, and to find the support and understanding they need.

Through reading Grandparenting a Child with Autism: A Search for Help and Hope you will come to know a grandmother who has poured her heart and soul into searching for information and help for her granddaughter with autism. Kate Thomas shares candidly about the whole range of feelings and experiences from diagnosis to this present time. A thread of hope runs throughout the book, for there is hope for children with autism. Along with hope this book will offer many ideas for help?not only for grandparents, but also parents and family members, teachers, caregivers, and all that work with these children. Many practical suggestions are offered for ways churches can provide ministries for special needs children, communities can organize a social skills camp or plan a grandparenting conference, and much more. Kate shares an abundance of available resources, and offers excellent suggestions about how to apply them in day to day living.