My 16-year-old grandson lost his mom in a drug overdose about four years ago.
His dad is now going to prison for sexual abuse of a minor.
He wants to have a relationship with his dad.
Is that good or not?
Um, I'm not going to say whether it's good or not.
I'm gonna put it more in the context of, I, I, I want a connection with my dad, and I would help my child or my grandchild in this situation give a language of what are they hoping to get out of that?
Maybe they're looking just to have a parent in their life and maybe that, that even though the, the parent had issues, right?
I mean, illegal behaviors, obviously inappropriate behaviors.
What is the child hoping to accomplish there? Right?
They still have memories, they still have positive experiences maybe with that, with their father in that situation.
So I, I, again, I don't know if it's necessarily good or bad, it's more of I would want to understand what the child is hoping for.
Maybe the child tries and, and it feels like it's not very productive or effective,
or maybe they would resent you as a grandparent because you prevented them from having that.
Now, if you have very specific concerns, you, again, I encourage you to be open and honest.
My concerns, uh, in this situation would be this.
Obviously you're a 16-year-old.
At some point, you've gotta decide what kind of relationship you want to have with your father.
In reality, if they're going to prison by the time they get out of prison, most likely if for offending a minor, um, your, your grandchild's gonna be over 18.
And then they're gonna have to make that choice on their own anyway.
So I think helping them talk about it, helping them give a voice, remember, relationship is gonna be really important here.
And so helping them talk about it rather than implementing a rule or a guide would be my initial approach.
You want to focus on helping develop a relationship because with that grandchild, they don't trust, most likely, if I'm, if I'm extrapolating, I'm guessing here, this is total guess—they probably don't trust a lot of people.
Mom died of a drug overdose.
Dad has done illegal things with minors.
Who do I trust? I mean, that, that's a hard situation.
So if I was in that situation, I wouldn't know who to trust.
And so if you can't create an environment where they trust you and, and you're trying to help them explore and make sense of this world of loss and abandonment, because that's what they're gonna deal with probably for a long time,
unless you have the capacity to be a stabilizer, which by the way, I hope you're able to do, and I hope they allow you in.
But if I'm this child, if I, I, I try to put myself in—if I was in a situation—why do I want that relationship?
And maybe it's because I, I need some stability.
I need some place that I call safe.
And maybe you are already that grandma, and—but are they okay with that?
Will they allow you to have influence or not?
And so those are the types of questions I would ask.
And, and, and obviously we—right now we're having you ask a question, and I, I would ask a lot more questions before I give you, “This is what I would do,” but I, I, I would ask you a lot of questions.
I would get more information.
I try to understand your grandchild's desire for that.
And, and that's how I would initially approach that, Michelle.
But very complex. There's not an easy answer.
Uh, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's good or bad.
I would put it more in the context of what does it mean and what does it represent?
