My grandchildren are 5 and 8. The 8 year old has spent lots of time with us since she was 4, but not so her little brother - who now wants in on the action. Problem is, Papa is not always very nice, particularly to the grandson. I don't want the kids to think that something is wrong with them and to understand (as much as possible) that Papa has a disease that makes him behave the way he does. I'm certain that many of you have had to address this issue before and I would appreciate some advice on how to present this to little kids.
As always, thanks for your insight and advice; I so appreciate all of you. TT
i am not sure how much this age could understand even if explained. what i would do for sure is never leave the kids unsupervised in the presence of the AD person. they can become quite intolerant of kids and noise and rapid movements. and the consequences can be very detrimental to the emotional welfare of the kids if they get hurt emotionally or physically. keep the visits low keyed and short and quiet and dont subject them to alot of activity at once. divvi
Well, I cannot keep this visit short and low-keyed as they will be staying with us for several days/nights. I just love my grandson and he so wants to come up with his sister that I couldn't say no. I'll just have to be vigilant. I have gotten in between grandson and dh before when dh lost his temper for NOTHING. I don't want to miss these kids growing up just because their grandpa has an illness. No, I just don't want to do that! By the time this is over I'll have nothing left.
Our youngest are 3 and 5. We kept our 5 years old (was 4 at the time) for a week last summer. We had a lot of fun, but it was exhausting keeping her quiet at times. Papa had fun with her but I had to limit it to short times. with our grandson - he adores his papa but 1/2 hour at a time around this active little guy was all he could handle. Then I had to either send hb to the shop or take grandson to do something else.
You should have it easier - you should have places to separate them as I live in a motorhome so do not. It will exhaust you and you will have to get organized. If your hb has a room that he usually stays in, let the kids know that it is off limits when you say so.
As for telling the kids, you should be able to explain to them that grandpa is sick and can not handle loud noises or rough housing, etc. If he gets angry you will have to step in quickly and explain it very simply to them. It can be done - and depending on the kids, it can work out fine. But, you will probably be exhausted trying to keep the peace.
We were fortunate. When they visited, our granddaughter would get a book (one of hers - she was five at the time) and climb in his lap and "read" it to him. Then she climbed down and got his hairbrush and brushed his hair, and he let her! He was so tender with her that we were all amazed. That weekend was extra special to all of us. He held her hand to walk to the door and when she asked him to pick her up, she did. Her parents had told her that Granddaddy was sick, but that was all.
However, my husband didn't talk - couldn't..so there were no conversations, nor did he ever display anger.
I can't really give advice on this one....just tell you what happened with us.
"Our heads have a tape recorder in them to help us remember, but Grandpa's tape recorder doesn't work anymore."
"Nobody can be good at everything, and Grandpa isn't good at remembering things."
For older children and young teens, you can say:
"Granpa has a disease called Alzheimer's that changes his brain and causes him to forget things and get mixed up, but he's still the same person inside."
"Alzheimer's isn't the kind of disease that you can catch. But it makes your personality change, so when you see strange behaviors, that's the disease doing it, not Grandpa -- don't take it personally."
Buy Maria Shriver's book "What's Happening to Grandpa" (or similar title). It was written exactly for a situation like you are describing. Make sure the children read it and that someone answers their questions and relates it to your husband. I gave it to our 7 year-old granddaughter and she asked some insightful questions the next time she came to our house.
TT, you are right, they will grow up so fast and it would be a shame for you to have to lose out on this time with them. In my humble opinion, children are more understanding and accepting than adults!! My niece and nephew were 6 and 8 when Lynn got bad enough that I had to explain different things to them. I think children, with their kind loving hearts, and open minds are more than able to understand.
It can be done! I was never able to have children of my own, and these are my twin sisters children. I couldn't love them more if they were my own!! I love them very much and so does Lynn! I was determined this was one part of our lives that Alzheimer's would not take from us and to have them in our lives. We had very little problems. In fact, my sister and the children even came to live with us!! We all lived together very happily for two years before he had to go in a nursing home. If anything, I think it helped the children become more loving and compassionate. And I know it was wonderful for Lynn, he loved having them here!!
The only problem we ever had was if Lynn lost his cool with me, my then 12 year old nephew decided he was my night in shining armor and had to protect me. Bless his heart!! ♥ Lynn was ALWAYS kind and loving to the children!! Always! But at times, as hard as I tried, they did witness his "abuse" to me. Having had to leave their own home due to a violent father, this was a tricky situation! How to explain that abuse and violence were NEVER acceptable, yet try to explain that Uncle Lynn was sick, so it was different....... in the end, the children explained it to me, better than I ever could have to them!! Like I said, children are AMAZING!!! They accept and adjust in ways that adults just are not able to!
Don't lose out on this precious time. I agree with Charlotte, if your husband has an area that is his comfort zone, it should be respected. This worked wonders with us. If Lynn was having a particularly hard day, the children did not go in his room. The house is plenty big enough that this was never a problem for us. If the children need to work off some energy, they can always go outside or to a park etc and play and scream to their little hearts delight :D
I believe where there is a will, there is always a way. My niece was only 7 when Lynn needed constant supervision. She on her own decided to be Lynn's keeper when they were together. AND she decided it would be better to make her Uncle Lynn feel that he was watching her, instead of the other way around. So she would ask her Uncle to hold her hand, and he gladly and lovingly did! I have so many pictures of them together, hand in hand, each thinking they were the one looking after the other.....*tears*.. Love, it's amazing isn't it!
Today, my niece is almost 13 and my nephew is turning 15..... TO THIS DAY, when they go to visit their Uncle Lynn, a HUGE smile lights his face and a twinkle comes into his eyes. He does not know his own children!!! But he still knows them. THAT speaks volumes to me!!!
Just the other day my niece, who now looks much different from the little girl she use to be! helped feed her uncle and then without a care who saw her, danced while she sung Cotton Eye Joe to him. He was laughing right out loud... priceless!!! My nephew, he is now 5' 11" and Lynn looks at him for the longest time..... that look that says, I know you are very special to me, but who are you? Then Derek always takes down his picture from the wall, a picture of him when he was younger, and goes to his Uncle and says, it's me.... Derek, and something clicks, you can see the change in his facial expression and the spark in his eyes. Then always Lynn gets that huge smile and says of course it is!
It is harder for Derek, in his words " he is my Superman, there is nothing he couldn't do!!! it is hard for me to see him like this" Yet, he still goes to see him.... when his own children rarely do. So, hmmm maybe it isn't that our loved ones forget important people in their lives, but that those people, stop spending time with their loved ones! I think it must have a huge impact if they see someone daily or just once a year.
Wow, really went off the track a bit, guess I needed to talk about this.... thanks for listening :D
The moral of my story, Children can handle Alzheimer's better than most adults!! Be open, and talk talk TALK! And there is no need to miss out on this precious time with your loved ones ♥
Thank you all for your advice and comments - I can always count on you. I ordered Maria Shriver's book and will be reading that with them next week while they are here. I'm also planning on having my grandson up in July for Vacation Bible Study for the first time, too. He apparently has a little friend in school who talks about God to him and now he wants to know and I am only too happy to lead the way.
AND - it changes. For a while dh was very impatient with the grandchildren and I thought we would have to avoid seeing them; now he is much milder and pleasant and just enjoys looking at them. With the older grandchildren, we did our best to explain and help them understand about the disease. But a couple days later the five-year old asked me "Is Opa getting better now?"
Very timely discussion. We have our 2 grandchildren visit weekly for about 4 or 5 hours (late afternoon over supper time). Lately I've noticed that DH doesn't have as much patience with them. One time recently, the 6 year old wanted to play outside but DH wanted to sit and drink his coffee (for 40 minutes). Another time, 6 year old asked to do something else and DH said no and wouldn't budge. The 8 year old told me I needed "to go and talk to grandpa"-----she realized he wasn't being very understanding of her younger sibling. Tough moments sometimes. Overall I know that hubby enjoys having the children visit but his stamina isn't what it used to be and it sometimes feels like there are 3 children present (one in an adult body). After the last visit, I've decided to try and have supper prep all done before children arrive . . . and phone them evening before to see what activities they'd like to do while here. Maybe that will help things go better? I like Charlotte's suggestion of sending hubby off for a bit of quiet time when the children's energy becomes more than he can handle. I hadn't thought of that and I think it could work well. It is so good when hubby does connect well with the grandchildren-----he often still does but sometimes he suddenly switches almost in mid stream from enjoying them to becoming immovable about continuing on with the activity. Last visit when he started to come unglued I realized it was because he wanted his dinner. It was about 20 minutes later than normal because 8 year old was busy doing something with me. As soon as I served hubby his dinner, he started right into it . . . didn't wait for the rest of us at all!
Yeah, my dh gets jealous of the attention that is paid to the grandkids when they are here. I'm with them this weekend without him and will be bringing them home with us for spring break next week. I've beeen talking to the kids about grandpa's illness and that they need to make some adjustments to keep peace. They seem to understand, but, we'll see. I do not want to give up my grandkids as I love them so much and realize that if you don't spend time with them, they forget you and I want to be a part of something when this is all over. So, I'm going to see how this works and pray that it does.
My grandkids accompanied me to a Continuing Care Community today to "check" it out. They wanted to know why we were going there and I said that Papa and I "may" be moving in the near future so I want to see what our options are. They were such good sports about and ourl 8 year old grand daughter (going on 40) said that she really thought this place was great - she approved -:). I love these little critters and they are such a good diversion from the stuff at home; altough I do miss dh terribly. So many emotiions all the time - I don't see that oging away.