The T.E.A.M. Approach to Grandparenting and 3-Generation Family Management
Editor’s Note: The Eyres have written extensively over the years on Meridian about Family, Marriage, and Parenting. More recently, they have turned their attention to grandparenting and the effective management of 3-generation families. Meridian has been pleased to partner with the Eyres in offering an online course called Grandparenting101. If you are interested in the course, simply send a simple “I’m interested” email to Ey********************@gm***.com.
The interest in and passion for more proactive grandparenting is exploding. And it is not just happening in the Church. We find ourselves speaking to grandparents all over the country, and more than a thousand have enrolled in our online Zoom grandparenting101.com course. It feels to us like grandparenting is where parenting was 60 years ago—it is becoming an art and a skill, and people WANT it. Let us give you just one example:
The other day we were invited to speak to a group of CEOs of major companies in Houston. All of them were grandparents, and they wanted us to help them get better at it. Linda was busy getting ready for the wedding of our own granddaughter, so I (Richard) went on my own. The audience was full of questions and enthusiasm. Here is a brief summary of the evening’s discussion:
We started off by asking them two questions, 1. How would your grandkids describe you? And 2. What do you want your grandkids to remember you for?
Their answers on the first question ranged from “The old guy with lots of money” to “The lady with the big house and all those rules.” The second question got more interesting—they wanted to be remembered for their support, for their love, and for their deep interest in everything their grandkids did or wanted to do.
We had come prepared to suggest some even more specific answers to that all important second question about what we want to be remembered for as grandparents, and we wanted to create four memorable and penetrating mental images that they would retain and that would influence their priorities and their paradigms in leading and managing their three-generation families. So, we put this slide on the screen:
“We hope, as grandparents” we explained, “that we can be remembered first for being part of an effective team with the parents, and second for being all four letters of the acronym T.E.A.M.—The Trunk, the Ear, the Assembler, and the Match.”
As the Trunk, we are the connection between the branches of our children and grandchildren, and the roots of our ancestors. As we tell our grandchildren the stories of their great and great-great grandparents, we give them a sense of identity and belonging, and a confidence in their own resilience. Data and surveys prove that the most resilient and best adjusted kids are the ones who know about and connect to their ancestors.
As the Ear, we ask and listen with great interest and without judgement. We want to know everything about how our grandkids feel, about what they like and what they want to be. We take notes on what they say in our grandparent’s ledger, and they know that we think they are unique and special and that we will always be there for them. We take them on individual grandma dates and grandpa trips, and we reach them on their own communication preferences—text, facetime, and their personal social media favorites.
As the Assembler, we gather them for reunions, for dinners, for get-togethers of all kinds with their cousins who they bond with for life, and with their aunts and uncles who become parental back-ups. We assemble them electronically too, on Zoom calls or in Marco Polo groups and regardless of distance, we keep everyone in touch and up to date on each other.
And as the Match, we support them materially and financially in ways that motivate rather than spoil them, that stimulate initiative rather than entitlement. If we can afford it, after discussion and approval from the parents, we do a 50-50 match on money they earn and save (in a custodial Roth account or a 529 Education plan), and perhaps on their college tuition, or in response to “matching grant proposals” they submit to us for experiences they want to have but that they and their parents can’t afford on their own.
Now, of course this presentation would be applicable to all parents, irrespective of their religious belief or faith. But there is no question that in the Church, we feel an even deeper and more compelling spiritual motivation to become the best that we can be as patriarchs and matriarchs in our families, as the heads of three- and four- generation families, and as the links to the ancestors that made it all possible for us and for our families. Knowing and understanding our stewardship in doing all we can to make our families effective and faithful parts of God’s Eternal Family is the strongest grandparenting motivation of all.
We feel like there is a triple meaning in this T.E.A.M approach to grandparenting. First, it is absolutely essential to team up and communicate well with our children-the-parents. We have to recognize them as the responsible stewards of their children and see ourselves as offering the support they want and approve of. We have to shift our paradigm from being family managers to family consultants.
Second, we ought to team up with other grandparents who may have good ideas that we can learn from so that we don’t each have to rediscover the wheel. One key reason for our grandparenting101.com Zoom course is to pull grandparents together in an online class where we can all learn from each other.
And third, we need to all strive to get better and better at the four key grandparenting roles in the T.E.A.M. acronym, developing our ability to be the Trunk, the Ear, the Assembler, and the Match.
Of course, all of our situations as grandparents are unique. Your family and circumstances are different than ours, or than those of any other grandparent. But the key principles always apply, and the critical roles are all the same—we just need to find our way of playing them. As individual grandparents, we each have to figure out the specifics of our own T.E.A.M. approach to grandparenting, and thinking it through and coming up with our own strategies in our own specific situations is the first step in becoming a truly effective, proactive, difference-making grandparent. And that is a very important thing to be!
Richard and Linda are New York Times #1 Bestselling Authors who write mainly about family. To get a full overview of the Eyres’ grandparenting approaches and to find out about their grandparenting course and about their speeches and presentations on 3-generation family management, simply send an “I’m interested” email to Ey********************@gm***.com.