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15/11/2011Book Review: How to be a global grandparent

Book Review: How to be a global grandparent One book offers sound advice for grandparents and parents alike on how to make sure you don't leave family members behind when you move abroad.

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Essential tips on relocation

As the world appears to get smaller, families are increasingly offered the opportunity to move abroad and experience some of that fabled expat life. Whilst preparations for this exciting yet daunting adventure progress, families often forget to take into account what could happen to those left behind.

What concerns do they have about their relationships whilst living apart?  How do they cope with this new situation? Living miles apart, either in the same country or on a different continent can cause difficulties for the whole family.  Research has shown that grandparents find it especially hard to be separated from their grandchildren. Having experienced this dilemma first hand, Peter Gosling, himself a global grandparent for almost 20 years, and Anne Huscroft, a well-travelled expat and relocation expert, decided to combine their unique view points and write How to be a Global Grandparent.

Their researches enabled Peter and Anne to discover how people, from all over the world, coped with a situation that provided them with new challenges. 

Unsurprisingly, some coped better than others in learning how to find new ways to keep those special relationships active.
 
The first part of the book addresses such issues as when to go out and visit the newly expatriate family, which is not always straightforward or easy to organise.  There can be many pitfalls when visitors find themselves totally immersed in a new culture and a new family unit.  To ensure you’re invited to visit more than once, read the suggestions on how to behave while you’re there.  Don’t forget that overseas families often struggle to fit visitors into their new lives and routines, no matter how glad they are to see them.  Just as important are issues relating to what to do when the family descend during the summer holidays.   How will you deal with being used as somewhere to sleep and eat whilst your family catches up with their friends back home?  How can a compromise be reached to accommodate everyone’s requirements?  Using feedback and real-life experiences (both good and bad) from families worldwide, the book makes some practical and often “relationship saving” suggestions for survival.

Grandparents can enhance their relationship with their grandchildren by utilising simple tips.  Peter and Anne, together with their families, utilised many of the suggestions explained in the book before coming up with the idea to share their findings with others who need to deal with the situations they faced.  Some solutions worked more successfully than others.

The second part of the book talks about communication and the all important bebenfits of the internet. Remember that children are often way ahead of adults in their use of the computer and will expect grandparents to keep up with them.  Becoming familiar with new technology may be daunting but this gentle introduction will assist even the most reluctant computer user.  For example, during her second expat experience in the Netherlands, Anne “distance taught” her father how to use email effectively, by sending easy-to-follow instructions or talking him through what to do next, so that he could maintain independent contact with his grandson.

Anne knew the ideas worked when her son commented, “It made no difference to me when we lived overseas.  I didn’t feel any less close to my grandparents.  We were just living further away than when we lived in different cities in the UK, that’s all”.

Other suggestions offer no-cost solutions in using the telephone and a webcam (web camera) to look at one another whilst you speak.  

Above all, the authors hope that their book will help families make the most of what can be an enriching experience – that often proves to be great fun as well!

How to be a Global Grandparent was released in March 2009 by Zodiac Publishing. Peter Gosling continues to research, write about and photograph his favourite subjects while Anne runs REO-Solutions Limited.  

Full details of the book are available on the website: www.theglobalgrandparent.com

www.reo-solutions.co.uk


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