Helping Grandkids Manage Worries: A Simple Tool for Grandparents

Grandparents have a special place in grandchildren’s lives and are often the calm in their storm, the safe place when big emotions bubble over. But what happens when you notice your grandchild is carrying more worries than usual? Often this is seen in their behaviour – meltdowns over small things, tummy aches that can’t be explained, or disrupted sleeping and eating. These can be signs a child is feeling anxious but doesn’t yet have the words to express it.

That’s exactly why the book ‘Is My Worry Worth Worrying About?’ was written.

The story is about a young boy who has always been a worrier, but after some big changes in his life, his worries feel even bigger and harder to manage. Through the story, readers are introduced to practical, step-by-step strategies for managing worries – no matter their size.

‘Is My Worry Worth Worrying About?’ provides tools and steps to follow that grandparents can easily use. Whether your grandchildren live with you, visit regularly, or just open up to you on the phone, ‘Is My Worry Worth Worrying About?’ gives a starting point and a simple framework to help them talk about what’s on their minds.

It is important to know at the time I wrote the story, I was helping a family member who had two young children who were dealing with a number of worries. So much so it was affecting their sleep, eating, behaviour and school work – all the things you would expect. After trying multiple strategies and always trying to focus on the positive, I had the idea of doing a “Worry Book” – a gratitude journal but the opposite. I felt like we needed to allow time and space for them to share what was going on.

Setting aside a quiet time in the evenings, the children were able to sit and express what they were worried about. Because of their young ages, these worries were written in their journals by their dad. Wanting to keep the bedroom worry free, this was done in a different part of the house. The journals were then put away in a chosen spot around the house symbolising the worries were out of their heads and physically placed somewhere away from them. Then, they went on with the bedtime routine leaving bedtime and the bedroom for positive affirmations and talk.

My family member would then bring the journals to me and we would sit together and work through them. We were able to come up with ideas for sorting or fixing the worries we could. A good example of an easy fix was the older child being worried about dad sleeping-in, meaning he would miss the school bus. The easy fix was to get him his own alarm clock.

Through this process, I found some worries were small and quite easy to fix, some were a bit harder to sort out but a solution could be found, and some were big enough we went to the school and got some extra support.

‘Is My Worry Worth Worrying About?’ was written one day after my family member left my house. In just a few weeks, this process had made such a positive difference, I thought it might help others. I wrote the steps we had gone through as a story and took a giant leap of faith sending it to a local publisher.

It was always important it be as practical as possible, provide as much information as possible, and be as easy to follow as possible! As the Aunty involved in this process, it is definitely something a family member can do with another family member, making it perfect for grandparents. There is a parent and caregiver support section included at the end of the book.

The beauty of this process is it works for any age. Getting things down on paper and ‘out of the head’ is always helpful to start with. Then you can work through the worries from there – some might end up being an easy fix, some might take a bit of thinking and to be honest, some worries are just worries. The idea is to lessen the amount of the worries if you can, because the emotions attached to worries are always big, heavy and negative.

My hope is you will find it super helpful, easy to follow and it will make a difference when we stop and ask ourselves – is my worry worth worrying about?

Is My Worry Worth Worrying About? by Becky Overeem, illustrated by Sarah Trolle, published by Little Love, RRP $20.00