[blu]

I’m probably a little more radical than most in that I’ve believed, since high school, that children should be removed from bad homes and raised in supportive environments that hired masses of grandparents as surrogate parents. Support older people who aren’t ready to retire, and give love to children who need it.

Oh lady, I'm so with you. Wanna know a secret? I'm finding it a great deal easier to practice unconditional love with my grandkids than I had for my kids when they were the same ages. I think it has to do with consequences for bad behaviour. With our kids, we always had to have a consequence, and sometimes it had to escalate..and after awhile, we realized that when we grounded one of our boys, we had, in effect, grounded ourselves ...cos only a fool would ground a teenager and then leave said teenager unsupervised, LOL

With grandkids, the consequence can be just one look, or, as I recently found out with the three year old, simply saying "Alright, I'm not gonna play with you, chase you, hide from the monsters, read to you or talk to you until you do X" It works instantly.

I think grandparents might make excellent substitute parents. Red Bull and a gym membership should be supplied!

[RitaOK]

Awesome, blu. You’re way too cool. Exactly right and so true, here, as well.

I was such a hair brain, raising my own, but they turned out to be the pride of my family and awesome! I could have been more everything, but I was strict, about funny things. Like patriotism, and faith, even though I was self centered, way too often.