How to Be a Good Grandparent: Mark Gregston & Larry Fowler

Here's what I was just thinking. If somebody was standing over there looking in this room right now, what would they think? It's an old people's convention.

That's what I thought. They're going to look in here and think, wow, there's a bunch of old people sitting around a table, but they wouldn't think what they should be thinking. There's a lot of wisdom sitting around this table. I'm glad you said that.

I mean, rather than just a bunch of old people sitting around. Were you offended at first? I was going, oh, wait a minute. Me too, right? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app.

This is Family Life Today. Dennis Rainey said to me five years ago when I turned 60, he said, best decade of your life is starting. And I sort of snickered like, yeah.

He goes, looked at me really with eyes like, don't underestimate this. You are stepping into a great decade. And he's right. So we have two men in there.

I'm not going to guess what decade, but I'm guessing it's somewhere around there. But wise. Very wise. Yeah. Sitting here, we got Mark Gregsten back and Larry Fowler. We've been talking about grandparenting teens. Mark's latest book. Larry's the legacy coalition guy with the Grandparenting Legacy Conference Summit. Yeah. Got it wrong.

Legacy Grandparenting Summit. Yeah. And it's coming up. Just around the corner.

Yeah. The weekend of October 19th, 20th, 21st. That weekend, various dates.

But it's live on a Thursday and Friday in Dallas, but then streamed to sites all across the U.S. and Canada then over the weekend. And you've got Mark talking. Do you know what you're going to talk about?

No, not yet. I mean, I figure it out by the time I get there. And so when I walk up, I know what I'm talking about, but I always like to kind of see the crowd first and kind of get an idea of who they are and what age they are. Because I think most people think grandparents are just, you know, a bunch of old people. And I became a grandparent when I was 45. And so it started early for me. But everybody thinks of grandparents like in their late 60s or, you know, 150 years old and, you know, and smell like dirty socks or something.

And I'm going, you know, that's not the grandparenting model that I've always had. So I like to look at the crowd and kind of go, how do we touch this group and really give some very practical tools to engage with their kids to help them get to a better place. Larry, is there a pretty good attendance at these? Yeah, we're anticipating well over 10,000 people that will be attending this at all the sites across the country. So we're praying for that anyway. Because we need this. There's not a whole lot out there on grandparents.

There's very, very little on grandparents. And yet there's so much to learn. And I know I've learned a whole lot from the previous summits that we've had and all the speakers, everything. Iron sharpens iron.

And we can sharpen each other. So we're going to have sort of a mini summit today. OK. It's our Friday fives. OK. These are always fun.

Yeah. You know, we have guests in and we're like, whatever area is there, sort of their expertise. We say, hey, can you give us five practical tips? And so we ask you guys to think about the five most important steps every grandparent can take with your kids and your grandkids. You know, give us a practical piece of wisdom that we as grandparents can do to help our kids or our grandkids.

All right. My first one is this. We got to watch our own walk. You know, Deuteronomy 4 9, that is the core verse for our ministry, starts out with Moses telling the elders of the children of Israel, watch yourselves. And we often have grandparents that come to us and say, what do I do? I'm not allowed to talk with my grandkids about God anymore.

That is such a common theme. Is it really? The parents are telling them? The parents are telling the grandkids, don't talk about God. And one thing that we can still do is we can still live it. Right. Even if we're not allowed to talk it, we can still live it.

And in fact, our living is always more important. And for any grandparent, Mark, I became a grandparent at 43, so I beat you just a tiny bit there. What did you do? Get married in junior high or something? Yeah. At a very mature 20. At a very mature 20. Back when you had hair? Back when I had hair. We had hair in our 20s.

Yeah, a lot of hair. But you know what? This ought to be the time in our life where the most godly we've ever been. Now, none of us are perfect. Most of us are still pretty messed up, but we ought to be better than we used to be, right?

We ought to be. And we watch our walk, and that's number one responsibility of a grandparent, a Christian grandparent. If our grandkids look at us and say, you know what? This thing of being a Christian isn't worth living. I watched my grandpa and grandma, and I don't want to have anything to do with that. Then we've lost everything else. So it starts with, we've got to watch the book.

Live it. You know, a couple of years ago, Ann and I wrote a parenting book. I'm sure you guys read it. Yeah, right.

You don't need books out there. But we had a chapter on teenagers. So this is to parents, not grandparents. But we were talking about how, you know, your teenagers pull away, and a lot of parents freak out.

Like, what's going on? Well, they're supposed to. They're becoming adults, so that's natural. But as a parent, you often think at that point, well, we're sort of done. They don't want me around.

They want me to drop them off five blocks from the school. I'm sort of exiting their life. And our advice in that chapter was three thoughts. Pursue, pursue, pursue. They want a relationship.

They're saying they don't, but they want. Listen, listen, listen. Start asking questions and stop telling them stuff.

And the third one was what you just said, Larry. Model it. Model it. They're watching your life. You don't have to preach it anymore.

Live it, and they're going to be drawn to that rather than what you say. You're saying the same thing is really true for grandparents. Yes. So that's number one.

Mark, you got number two? Yeah, you know, I'm hardly perfect, but I have learned what's important. I have learned to laugh a little bit more. I've learned to let go of some things. I've learned which hill to die on and which hill not to die on. And I've learned that it's my job to create an atmosphere of change, and that's probably my number one goal. And so the life that I live, spirituality is not something that you do. It's something that you are.

So it encompasses everything about you, you know, how you engage with people, everything else. So I want to create, and this would be mine, a home of rest. I want my grandkids to know that you can rest when you're at our home.

When Jesus said, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and you'll find rest for your soul. So there's no rules in our house. You park anywhere you want.

We live on a piece of land. You park anywhere you want. You do whatever you want.

You trash everything. It doesn't really matter anymore. I don't make comments about what they're wearing, whether I like it or don't like it. I don't make comments about blue hair or green hair. I don't care.

I want the relationship to be there. The stupid comments that they make, I leave it alone unless they ask me something different. I don't feel like I have to hold them to rules.

I don't feel like I have to share my opinion. I feel like I am there to give them a sense of encouragement, to let them know that they're loved beyond any other kind of love that they'll ever find from any other grandparent or person. And I want them to know that I'm there to be a part of their life.

And if you want that, then that's what I want, and I'll make that happen in some way. And I spoil them rotten, and I give them things, and we watch the movies they want to watch, not mine. And it's not, well, let's have a special time where Mark shares.

I don't do that. This is about them. It's not about me. So when they come to our home, it's let's eat what you want to eat. Let's go do what you want to do. Let's spend time doing what you want. Let's have fun. Let's enjoy the time together. And I want to make sure that that happens. And I do anything I can to make that happen. I mean, this is the time that I don't play golf.

I don't because it takes too much time. And I would rather pour my time into my grandkids' money. I'd rather spend money on them because that's going to be the legacy that's left to create experiences, to do anything that I need to do to engage with them. But when they're with me, we're going to have fun.

It's going to be a place of rest. Not a whole lot of, well, let's go get them, and let's do this, and let's do that. They live in a world that is demanding so much of them that I don't want to be a part of that. I want them to learn to relax. I would love to have one of your grandkids on right now.

I'd love to hear what they say about that because it's got to be a haven. There's not a day that goes by that they're not sending me, hey, this is where I am. This is what I'm doing. My granddaughter just wrote me and said, here's a picture of me with my boyfriend on the beach and no engagement yet, you know, kind of thing. And I'm going, well, tell him to get off his rear end and start getting this thing moving.

But it's the constancy of relationship that I want. And so people complain about texting. Well, then text them. I get a message from my grandkids, even the young ones, 10, 11 years old.

I get messages from them all the time because I want them to know I'm interested in who you are and what you're doing. Marc, mine goes right alongside yours. And it has been that as a parent as well of creating a haven in our homes. I think especially in our culture, there's so much chaos and confusion. And so I want my kids to come home. And when I and this fits my personality, I think it should fit who we are. I want to create fun and joy.

And so even with our kids, we would do the weirdest, craziest things that that was sometimes as teenagers, it was a little risky, too. And so I'm seeing that with as a grandparent, too. I want them to come in the door and I want them to know, like, man, I love you. You know, like, you're amazing. I love how God has created you. I love that.

And I'll be specific. I love that you're funny. I love that you're smart.

I love that you take a while to think through some of the things you're going through. But then I also like to take it like we will golf. Dave will golf with our son because he needs a break. They're at the stage of little kids. But the grandson's with us and hits his little ball.

Yeah. And I'll go along and I'll kind of play with him. But we, you know, we're in the golf cart and we see, you know, this tunnel that you go through with your golf cart underneath this road. And right beside it, there's this another pipe that's full of water coming out. And I go, the next time we come, we're going to bring our boots and we're going to walk through that tunnel.

You guys, he's four. He goes, what? I'm like, yeah. We're going to, like, we're going to walk through that whole tunnel. And I'm like, we're in a country club. You're not allowed to do that. And you're like, we're doing it.

Which is even better. I don't care what happens. It's even better that we're going to do it. You know, it'll be a little scary.

But that's, those are the things they remember. You are a rebellious little thing, aren't you? She is. Oh yeah. Wow.

It's not against the law. And so I'm like, this will be so fun and I'll never forget it. And they're little.

They're all eight and under. Yeah. So I want that to be the bridge of, when we go to their house, we don't know what to expect, but we know that we'll be loved, we'll be seen, and we're going to laugh. That's great. And we'll have great adventures. Yeah. We were out in Denver visiting our four.

Our middle son is in Denver. And they said, hey, let's go to a trampoline park, you know, that they go to. And so we go in this place. And there's climbing walls and there's trampolines everywhere. High ropes courses. And she was a gymnast. And, you know, next thing I do, I look over and she's bouncing. I mean, 10, 20. I mean, she's way up in the air doing gymnastic flips.

And my middle son, he's gifted, dude. I mean, that guy can run up a tree right now. It's just amazing.

He's like, and so they're doing this thing. Next thing I know, Ann's like, I'll race you. And there's this trampoline that goes like 30 yards straight. And then at the end is a trampoline wall.

So you hit it and bounce back. And so I'm watching her and I'm like, this is. I forget. I forget I'm getting older. This is not going to end well. And the grandkids are loving it. Look at Nani running with Poppy.

Or their dad. I wasn't running. I was watching. Yeah. And she's sprinting. I don't know why. Because she's getting killed by our son who's in his 30s. He's way ahead of her. And she's coming up on.

And again, you don't know this. I'm watching this from behind her. And I'm like, the wall, she's getting close to the wall. She's not slowing down. And so she's going to bounce off that thing. And she face plants. I see her go down. I'm like, that didn't look good. Yeah, she tore her labrum.

She's going to have surgery in a couple months to get it all fixed. Oh, wow. Yeah.

You know what? They probably remembered that. What a sacrifice. Yeah, what a sacrifice for your grandkids. Remember when our grandmother raised our dad and she wiped out so bad? But she laughed about it.

I mean, it was awesome. But I do think when our kids and our grandkids come into our homes. I mean, the culture is just shouting and trying to pull them in with empty promises. But if they can feel the security and love and identity of this is who I am. And my grandparents love me and they see me. And my parents, I think this is true for parenting too. Like you're in the phase of you're still disciplining and training your kids.

But man, you need to bring joy into that home because that's a magnet. I wasn't used to the grandparenting thing. I mean, my grandparents were as old as dirt.

Yeah, what is that? I mean, it's like you turn 65 and you're dead by 66. Exactly. And they were just duds.

And they're boring. Oh, I don't remember my grandmother, who was part of the Oklahoma Land Rush, ever saying a word to me. She just smiled and give you a piece of cake. That's all I remember. My grandfather, I don't even remember anything.

There was no influence. So when we become grandparents, you know, you at age 22 and me at age 46, Larry, you just go, how do you do this? And it's not based upon what I know. But you start looking and you go, what do they need? That's what I want to do. Do you think part of it is to how we failed as parents? And we're thinking, I'm going to make up for that. I'm going to be better as grandparents. Well, this gives us a chance to do that. Right.

You're right. When we're grandparents. Yeah, you know, that's mine. It isn't really the mulligan with the grandkids, although that's awesome. It's apologizing to my kids, the parents of the grandkids, about the ways I failed them. To try to do whatever I can on my side as a grandparent, but also as a dad, to have a great relationship with my son. And I have three sons.

Two of my sons took me to a golf outing years ago and we had lunch. And it was interesting because they looked at each other and I'm like, uh-oh, I think they're going to say something to me. They've talked. You get one of those feelings, you know? And they go, yeah, dad, we feel like we need to say something to you. I'm like, okay, what's that? And they said, we feel like you gave your soul to the congregation and not to us.

I mean, something like that. It was just like you cared more about the congregation than you did us. And I was a pastor and the church got big.

And so I'm preaching and they're sitting there. Anyway, here's all I know, guys. The second it came out of their mouth, I knew they were right.

There was not a thing in me that was going to get defensive. I'm like, I don't know exactly what they mean yet. I'm going to find out. But that statement is true. And so I said, tell me more.

What do you mean? Which we, you know, we always say to parents, that's three words you should memorize. Tell me more. And I think grandparents, same thing. Tell me more.

When your grandson or daughter's over, tell me more. You know, what do you feel in that? So I asked them, tell me more. Bottom line was they just felt like, you know, you were so vulnerable sometimes in your sermons and you'd share this vulnerable, authentic mistake or sin you committed to thousands of people. And they said, we turned to each other and go, have you ever heard that? He's never said that to us.

But he's saying it to all these people that are strangers, basically. And so I had to own it and say, I am so sorry, you're right. So I think it's those kind of things where now as a grandparent, if we have something broken or a barrier in our relationship with our son or daughter who are raising our grandkids, do whatever you can. You can't guarantee you're going to restore that. To be able to go, let's go and say, I need to sit down and I need to own up something. I think I hurt you in this way or I said something. Do whatever you can to restore that relationship. I don't think we wait till our kids have kids, Dave.

No. Like grandparents, because every one of our kids could come and complain. They totally did that to both of us. Where I feel like almost all of us in our 20s, we see the brokenness in our own lives and we can point out like, oh, that's because of something that happened with my family growing up or my parents. I remember our son was in seminary and I called him for some advice on something. Yeah, this was a good night.

I remember that one. And I said, hey, so I'm going to do this talk to moms. And what would you say? He goes, mom, I don't want to talk about this. I'm like, oh, oh, OK, what's going on? He goes, I'm just struggling, mom, about my own home situation right now. And I'm taking classes and these counseling classes about why I'm so broken, you know, and all of a sudden, like, wait, wait, wait, what?

What happened? And he goes, you are so fearful about our behavior and what we weren't doing or what we were doing. I feel like you didn't want to know my heart and what I wanted to come home and tell you. I'm so afraid or I'm giving into this peer pressure and I don't think you could have handled it. I remember my son telling me a few years ago, you know, here I am speaking everywhere, doing everything.

He goes, dad, you were never there. There it is. You know, and I just I just kind of looked at him and I thought, you know, you're absolutely right.

I wasn't. And I think that pushes you to admit those mistakes. And the sooner that you do that, then something can begin to change. And my daughter comes to me and she goes, dad, it's almost like about her kids. It's like you like our kids a lot more than us. And I go, well, I do.

I mean, and they go, no, really, I'm serious. And I go, me too. But there is something it gives what Tim Kimmel says that that Mulligan, you get a second chance in life.

I get to improve what I messed up on. So if that's true, just because I didn't have a great relationship with my parents doesn't mean that my kids can't have a great relationship with them. And so here they are. They're gone now. I didn't allow that to happen. And so I regret that my kids really didn't have grandparents involved in their life.

So what I find is I'm having to almost reparent my kids. Let's go do things. Let's spend some time. Let's have a special time together. And you've had those apologies with your kids as well.

I think that's good to do that. I apologize. It seems like every day is a new one. They're confronting me on something else that I messed up on.

And I think there has to become a point. I had to do this with my dad, especially, where he's not going to become the man that I always hoped that he would be. You know whose job that is? Jesus. He's the fulfiller.

He's my Heavenly Father. And I think sometimes as adult children, we need it. We can tell our parents, but at some point, we need to give them grace.

And they need to give us grace. Let it go. I mean, they're going to be better parents if they let it go.

That's what I mean. And it's not on us to say, you've got to let it go, because it's us saying it. But if they can get to that place, I had to do that with my dad. I had to get to a place where I'm going to forgive him and love him. Even though he really broke a lot of things in my life, I'm going to let it go and become the man and dad and now-grandfather God wants me to become. We have one more.

I was trying to figure out some way to get in a couple more on those. But so I'm going to settle on, we need to establish a family identity. As grandparents, I think that's one of our primary roles is to establish an identity, a joyful family, a family that does things together, a family that feels safe with each other. But as much as possible, we need to have the image in our mind that parents and grandparents are a team together impacting the youngest generations. And we're going to work together. And we do that through creating positive experiences, through talking about family history, whether that's good or bad.

The bad stuff is often the best learning experiences. But we say we're a family that's together and working to accomplish these things. One of our other speakers at the conference that's just coming up is going to be speaking about how grandparents respond to gender identity.

And what's the last word there? Identity. And she will say that the greatest thing that a grandparent can do to counteract the cultural challenges of all of that is to create an identity and family. That that is the significant, significant thing.

The more that they feel comfortable, I belong, I belong to this family, the less temptation there is to go find identity somewhere else. That's always been true. I mean, it was true with flower children back in the 70s all the way up to... See, we're old enough to remember those flowers. I know, you guys are too young for that. But I, of course, you know, grandparent at 22.

Yeah. But that's an important thing. And then for the grandparents, I have one other word of caution in regard to that. You're not in the driver's seat of the children, the grandchildren.

You're in the backseat. Don't be a backseat driver. Let the parents lead. And parents that are listening, you need to lead. And if you have your parents, the grandparents, that are taking the lead, then you need to get back into that rightful position of your leading in the spiritual impact in your children's, your family's life. And I'll just close with, I think, something we all agree on, and that is pray. Pray for your kids. Absolutely.

Pray for your grandkids, by name specifically, because God hears every single one of those prayers. Yeah, I've got to say, guys, thanks. You bet. Talk about old guys sitting around a table. This is a lot of great wisdom. And we're not old. Old guys? We are not old. Stop saying that. It's depressing. We should go on tour together.

I mean, everybody else is. Love it. I love it. Really, this is such great wisdom today, and I'm grateful for this conversation, even though we did start to tune them out there at the end. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Mark Gregsten and Larry Fowler on Family Life Today. You know, Mark Gregsten has written a book called Grandparenting Today's Teens. This is an excellent resource that really talks about what it's like to be a grandparent in today's culture. You can pick up a copy of that book at familylifetoday.com. And if you are a grandparent and you'd like some additional wisdom on how to pursue leaving a lasting legacy, really influencing generations of your family for Christ, you can attend the Grandparenting Summit.

You could go both live if you happen to be around Dallas, Texas, or you can get it in simulcast. You can head over to familylifetoday.com in the show notes to find out more about the Grandparenting Summit. You know, earlier this week, Brant Hansen was our guest.

He's a radio host, an author, and a speaker, and he's written a book called Blessed Are the Misfits. This is a book that's great news for believers who are introverts or spiritual strugglers or just feel like they're missing something. We love this book so much that it is our gift to you when you partner with us financially. You can go online to familylifetoday.com or give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And when you donate, we're going to send you a copy of Brant Hansen's book.

You can also feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like. Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. And coming up next week, David Ann Wilson are joined by Nancy Piercy to talk about real manhood and godly masculinity in our modern society. That's next week. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.