IDS 495
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Rock-n-Roll Grandparents

Welcoming our Grandchildren Into Our Home
  1. We need to retrofit our surroundings to make them safe for our grandchildren.
  2. Often we will be called on to babysit our grandchildren.
    1. We should know their schedules, their individual needs, and the special ways our grandchildren like things to happen.
    2. We need to have a clear strategy on how we deal with them when they disobey.
    3. We should not use our time with them to override any quirky parenting styles that we don't agree with.
    4. When it comes to babysitting, we need to tell our children how often and how long we are available to babysit and then let them decide how they want to schedule that time.
  3. When our grandchildren come to our home, it is important to have a plan for how we will occupy them and have fun with them.
  4. When our grandchildren become teenagers we need to be committed to maintaining a connection to their spirits during this fragile and exciting time in their development.
    1. Their teenage years are a good time for us to focus on their hearts, not their hair; on their character, not their clothing.
    2. This is a time to spend more resources on them (special adventures, shopping, transporting them to events, making your home available to them for special occasions).
    3. They need someone who is a safe harbor for their inner worries (peer pressure, sexual temptation, fears of inadequacy).
Our Most Important Role: Showing Them the Way to God
  1. We need to pray for them every day.
  2. We need to pray that they will have tender hearts to the gospel.
  3. We need to pray that they will have gracious hearts to the people around them.
  4. We need to pray that they will have willing hearts to respond to God's truth as it is revealed to them.
The Grandparent's Prayer Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for creating families, and thank you especially for the gift of my grandchildren. I pray that you would protect and prepare them morally, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. I offer myself to be used by you in the lives of my grandchildren to bless them, to light the way, to be a good example, and to leave a legacy through them that lasts forever. Amen.