Helping grandparents bring up kids

By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Linda Kozol wants her granddaughter to get a good education and make good decisions in life.
Kozol of Wampum adopted her granddaughter, Kirstie Kozol, now 10, after the girl's mother, Lori Shearer, was killed six years ago in an auto accident. "She remembers her mom. For a while there I had her in counseling because she had a hard time," Kozol said Monday.
Kozol was attending a support group meeting designed to help grandparents rearing grandchildren and aunts and uncles rearing nieces and nephews understand children's behaviors and discuss their parenting experiences.
"To have a lot of patience is one of the challenges. It takes a lot more patience when you're older," Kozol said of being a grandparent rearing a child. Kozol, 54, who is single, is a clerk-typist in the Lawrence County recorder's office. "I try to be firm but loving. The way the young are today, it's a lot different than when I raised my daughters," she said, citing the drug abuse problem and other negative influences on today's youth.
"I hope to raise an honest and educated person and hope that she makes the right choices in life, and I know I'll be proud of her," Kozol said of her granddaughter, who is on the school dance team. She plays softball in the summer and has just started taking clarinet lessons.
Environment
The most important thing grandparents should provide for grandchildren they are rearing is a safe, secure and structured environment, said Janice Alberico, county extension director.
"The grandparents need to provide the structure because structure gives kids security," Alberico said. Structure means having an established daily routine and a well-defined understanding of what is expected of the child each day, she explained.
A secure environment means "having rules, consequences, following through and laying down a good, solid foundation for them to develop through their life," she added.
Alberico and Steve Landman, director of development for Cray Youth and Family Services Inc., a private non-profit social service agency that cares for the county's dependent, neglected and abused children, were facilitators of the support group meeting attended by 16 people and held at Challenges and Options on Aging, 2706 Mercer Road.
'The four Ws'
Advocating a loving and firm parenting style, Alberico said anyone in a parenting role should ask children the "four Ws" whenever the children leave the house by themselves: Where they are going, what they will be doing, who they will be with and when they are coming home.
Grandparents rearing children should try to get to know the children their children are socializing with and their parents, she said, adding that it's a good idea to call and verify that one's child is where he said he'd be going.
Structured activities, such as 4-H and Boy and Girl scouts are beneficial because children engaged in these activities don't have time to be on the streets, she said. In communicating with children, Alberico advocated asking children open-ended questions that require more than a one-word answer.
Rules should be based on orderly behavior and avoidance of harm to the child or other people or property, Landman said. Parents need to establish rules, tell the child the consequences for breaking them, and carry out the consequences, such as isolation of the child or deprivation of privileges, when the rule is broken, he added.
An issue that complicates parenting under these circumstances is "the conflict of wanting to be that grandparent or uncle and having to take on the parental responsibilities," Landman said. Because the child-rearing environment today differs from that in which they reared their own children, the generation gap is another complicating factor, he said.