Doing work on those issues is extremely important. We are averaging between 14-16 grandparents per meeting. Since we are an open group, we also continually have grandparents joining. Other grandparents who started with the group and no longer have their grandchildren living with them come back occasionally. We have a potluck dinner and we provide child care so the grandparents can really enjoy an evening out.
Grandparents deal with it in different ways.
Some of them cry, some isolate themselves, some will talk to other grandparents who they know are parenting their grandchildren. The grandparent support groups serve as a wonderful vehicle to assist these grandparents in talking about their anger, resentment, and embarrassment. Sometimes grandparents may need to talk privately about their own feelings. Grandparents call me and come in and talk about their feelings that become too personal to talk about in the group. Often these feelings hinge on their personal relationships with their own children and how they deal with not having that relationship with their children at a deep personal level.