Episode 9: Becoming the Grandparent You Once Needed

Be the Grandparent You Once Needed

Host Grandma Queen welcomes listeners to “Grandparenting with Heart,” a space for grandparents to love gently, lead wisely, and build a legacy rooted in grace. She invites grandparents to become the grandparent they once needed—transforming, not repeating, the past by loving with awareness, reflection, and intention. Through stories of “giggle time” and speaking the words “I am proud of you,” she shows how small, consistent choices can create emotional safety and even bring personal healing. She emphasizes that children need emotionally available, present, gentle, consistent, and safe grandparents, and offers practical ways to do this: listen more, offer affection, be slow to correct and quick to comfort, make time feel unhurried, speak encouragement out loud, and repair after missteps. She closes with a prayer and previews a next episode on softness over strictness.

00:00 Welcome to Grandparenting
00:38 Be the Grandparent Needed
02:07 Reflect on Your Childhood
03:04 Awareness Is Your Advantage
04:13 A New Season to Slow Down
05:31 Story of Giggle Time
08:01 Small Choices Heal
09:57 Story of Saying Proud
11:22 What Kids Really Need
12:49 Grace When You Slip
14:00 Practical Ways to Connect
17:03 Legacy You Pass On
18:57 Prayer and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:00

Welcome to Grandparenting. We've had a space for grandparents who wants to love gently, lead wisely and build a legacy rooted in grace. I'm your host, grandma queen, a wife, a mom, a grandmother, and a woman of faith here. We talk honestly about family. Healing, emotional safety and the gift of second chances. Whether you are nearby or loving from afar, raising grandchildren, or supporting them from the sidelines, the space is for you. So take a breath. You are welcome here.

Speaker 0:38

Today we are stepping into something deeply personal and quietly powerful. Something many of us didn't always put into words, but we feel it. I'm talking about the opportunity to become the grandparent you once needed. Many of us didn't grow up with emotionally expressive grandparents. Some were loving. But distant. Some were strict, some were quiet, some carried burdens we never fully understood at the time, and they were doing their best with what they had. But if we are honest, there were moments. We long for something more. Maybe you wish they listened a little longer. Maybe you wish they noticed you more. Maybe you wish they were softer. They were more affectionate and more present. And yet here you are. Now you are a grandparent, but a grandparent with perspective, with wisdom, with love, with a heart that has lived long enough to understand what truly matters. So today's episode is actually an invitation, but a very important one because you don't have to repeat the past. But you can transform it. In fact, you can now become the grandparent you once needed. Let's take a quiet moment together. Think back just for few seconds. What do you remember most about your grandparents? Was it their tone? Was it their presence? Was it their absence? Or they are rules or they are warmth. For some of you, they are beautiful, sweet, and loving memories, moments of comfort, memories of laughter, moments that still feel warm to you even right now. But for others, there may be gaps, unspoken things, moments where something was missing, not out of cruelty, but out of limitation. And here is something important to understand. The longing you once felt. Was not wasted. It was forming something inside you. It was teaching you. Even then, what really matters now here is a powerful truth. I want you to hold onto today your awareness. Now is your advantage. You are not loving from survival anymore. You are loving from reflection and grace. You now see things you didn't see before. You understand things you didn't understand before. You feel things more deeply now and that awareness. Gives you a special gift, the ability to choose differently. But hear this, being the grandparent you wish you had does not mean criticizing the past. It means responding differently in the present. You have to remember that you are not here to repeat the past, but you are here. To plant something new, something softer, something loving, something wiser, something creative, and something more intentional. There is something important to recognize about where you are in your life right now, because when you were raising your children, your life was full. It was busy, it was demanding, sometimes overwhelming. There were responsibilities pulling you in different directions. You were making decisions quickly. You were responding to the things in the moment. You were doing the best with what you knew at the time. But now. Things are different. There is more space for you to think, more space to notice things, more space to respond with intention. You are no longer in the same season, and that truly matters because this season gives you something very special and powerful, which is the ability for you and I to slow down. To notice things you may not have noticed before to respond differently. To choose connection more deliberately here, this gently. This is not a second child to be perfect. It is a new opportunity to be present in a deeper way. Let me share a story with you. Before I share this story, I want to say something I've been asked a few times. People often say they love the way I share stories, and the truth is many of these stories come from real conversations. I have had with people over the years through my line of work as a minister, as a lawyer, and a counselor. I have had the privilege of listening to many lives, many journeys, and I have learned something very important. We don't only grow from our own experiences, we can also grow from the wisdom of others, learn from what worked and sometimes from what didn't work. And I carry those lessons with me not to judge anyone, but to understand and to become a better person. Right. So back to the story I want to share. Many years ago, a woman I know once shared something very honest with me. She said her grandmother was a strong woman, but also a very stand one. There was love, but there was also fear. So she always felt like she had to behave perfectly around her grandmother. She couldn't relax. She couldn't be too playful. She couldn't just be herself. Years later when she became a grandmother, she made a quiet decision. She said to herself, I want my grandchildren to feel joy when they see me. Not pressure. So she created something simple and called it giggle time. Every time her grandchildren visited for five minutes, they would laugh, they would dance, they would make silly faces, tell jokes, nothing serious, nothing structured, just joy. And now when her grandchildren arrives to her house, they don't walk in quietly. They run in shouting. Grandma is giggle time. You see the point of this story is that what this woman once lacked as a child, she chose to give, and that is what healing often looks like. Nothing heavy, nothing complicated. She chose to give joy, sometimes becoming the grandparent you wish you had doesn't look dramatic. It looks quiet. It looks simple. It looks small. It looks intentional. Just make some intentional changes. It looks like choosing patience when you feel like reacting. It looks like listening more when you feel like correcting. It looks like softening your tone when you could have been fair and often. No one applauds those small moments. It looks small that you may not realize it just how much it is changing things around you. Often, no one notices them immediately. But they matter because those small choices create a different emotional environment and children feel that difference. They may not say it out loud, but they feel it in the way they relax around you, in the way they open up to you. In a way, they come closer instead of pulling away. Sometimes healing is not loud. Sometimes it is simply consistent. You see, there is a shift that happens in this stage of our lives. A shift from reacting to reflecting on things, A shift from surviving to understanding things, to a shift from doing the best to choosing your best. That shifts matters because now you can love with intention, not just instinct, but you can pause, you can notice things, you can just adjust around. End. Then you can say, this is what I needed, so this is what I will give to my grandchildren. Let me share another story with you. A woman once said something that stayed with me. She said, I grew up in a home where no one ever said, I am proud of you. Although she did well in school, she helped at home doing home chores. She tried her best, yet those words were never spoken to her. Years later, she became a grandmother, and one day her granddaughter showed her a simple drawing. It wasn't perfect. It was just a child's drawing, but she POed and looked at the drawing carefully and said, I am so proud of you. Her granddaughter looked at her and smiled and gave her a big hug, but something else happened in that moment. She said quietly. That has stayed with me. I think I said it for my granddaughter, but I also said it for the child. I used to be. And that is powerful because when she was saying that to her granddaughter. She was actually also saying it to the child within her. That is the power of this season. You are not just influencing your grandchildren. Sometimes you are gently healing something inside you. So the question here is, what do children actually need? I have come to realize that children don't really need grandparents who are impressive. They don't need constant entertainment. They don't need perfection. They need something much simpler and much deeper. They need grandparents who are emotionally available to them. They need grandparents who are present, grandparents who are gentle, consistent, and safe. Your grandchildren need to feel like I can be myself around my grandparents. I am accepted here. I am seen here, and that is powerful. You don't need to perform love. You simply need to embody it. Let's pause again for a moment. Just ask yourself gently, what did I long for as a child? What made me feel unseen? What made me feel safe? What made me feel small? What made me feel valued? Now, without judgment and without regret, ask yourself this. How can I give my grandchildren what I once needed? Not from pain, but from wisdom and love? Because often healing doesn't go backwards, it flows forward. There may be moments when you find yourself reacting the way you always have moments where your voice becomes sharper than you intended. Moments where you feel the edge to correct quickly moments where impatience. Rises. And when that happens, it can be discouraging because we are all human. We con, we constantly make mistakes. And you may think, I thought I had grown past this, but growth does not mean you never feel the old patterns. It means you recognize them sooner. And you choose differently more often. So when those moments come, be gentle to yourself. Give yourself some grace. Just pause, take a deep breath, and remind yourself, I am learning to do this differently because we have to understand that. Change is not about perfection. It is about direction. And every time you choose patients over pressure, every time you choose listening overreacting, you are shaping a different experience for your grandchildren. Let's bring this into simple everyday moments. Here are some gentle ways to become the grandparent you once needed. Number one, try to listen more than you speak. Sometimes children are not looking for answers. They are only looking to behave. Two, offer affection freely. Give a hug, give a smile, eye contact. These small things speaks loudly to our grandchildren. Number three, be slow to correct, quick to comfort. That is powerful While correction teaches Comfort, connects, and connection is what makes correction effective. Number four, make time feel unha, even if you only have a short time together. Let it feel calm and loving. Children. Remember how time feels, not just how long it was. Number five, speak encouragement out loud. Don't assume that your grandchildren already know that you love them. Say to them, I am so proud of you. I love spending time with you. You are doing so great. Your smile matters to me. Our family is better because you are in it. Remember this, children look to us for words that tell them they are safe, loved, and capable of doing things on their own. Last but not least, repair when you miss the moment. We are human. We don't get everything right and that's okay. What matters is what you do after a simple, I'm sorry, I should have listened better. That builds trust, not weakness. If you are listening and thinking, I wish I had done things differently, please hear this gently. You are not too late. This stage of your life is not about perfection. It is about intention. It is about awareness. It is about choosing love more consciously. Your grandchildren are not expecting perfection. They are responding to your presence and one day they may not remember every conversation you had with them, but they will remember something deeper. They will remember how they felt with you. Or how they felt around you. They will remember that they could relax when they are around you. They could remember, they could speak freely. That they could be themselves and they may say, grandma understood me, or Grandpa really listened to me, or I felt safe with them. They believed in me. That there is what we call legacy. Before we close today, I want to leave you with one simple truth. You cannot change what you experienced in the past, but. You can change what you pass on. That is powerful. And I want to repeat it again, that you cannot change what you experienced in the past, but you can change what you pass on. And sometimes the most powerful legacy is not what you received. It is what you choose to give anyway. Before we close, I want you to picture yourself years from now, your grandchildren are grown. They are sitting somewhere talking about their childhood, and your name pops up or your name comes up. What do you want them to say? Not about what you bought them, not about what you gave them, but how you made them feel. Perhaps they would say, grandma always made time for me, grandpa, listen, even when I didn't make sense, I could talk to them without feeling judged. I felt safe being myself. Those are not small things to hear your grandchildren or now your grown grandchildren say about you. Those are life shaping experiences because when a child feels deeply valued, they carry that into adulthood, into their relationship. They carry that into how they see themselves. And into how them love others. Even so, never underestimate what you are building in your grandchildren today. You are not just creating moments, you are shaping memories, you are shaping identity, and you are shaping legacy. I would like to share a word of prayer before we close. Lord, thank you for the wisdom that comes with time. Help us to love our grandchildren with tenderness and intention. Heal what was missing in our own childhood so we don't pass it on unconsciously. Teach us to give freely what we once needed, be it love, patience, gentleness, kindness, and presence. Let our lives become a safe place for our grandchildren's heart. In Jesus mighty name, amen. Thank you once again for listening to Grandparenting with Heart. In our next episode, we will explore softness over strictness why gentleness works. Until then, remember this, you don't have to repeat history, but you have the power to transform it. See you next time.