Welcome.


Hi everyone and welcome to Bristol Grandparents Support Group blog. Although we are Bristol based we have grandparents from all over the UK and beyond as members.

It is estimated that over one million children in the UK are denied contact with their grandparents due to family breakdown which may have been caused by divorce/separation, alcohol/drug dependency,domestic violence,bereavement or family feud.
Every child has the right to have contact with their grandparents
if they wish and unless proven unsafe for them to do so. To deny contact from a parent or grandparent has to become as socially unacceptable as drink driving.
I hope to keep you up to date with what is going on in BGSG and I shall continue to campaign for the rights of children to have a loving and meaningful relationship with both parents and their extended family. So please join in as good to hear your views, not just mine!
I also will support via Skype.
There is no membership fee to be part of Bristol Grandparents Support Group.
Esther Rantzen says, " To every grandparent, links of love can never be broken in our hearts."

Please contact during office hours.
07773258270


Saturday 15 March 2014

Danger of the written word.

Writing this blog and the FB groups brings with it a responsibility and I don't always get it right, for which I apologies.
I use these pages for keeping people up to date with what is going on, and for offering a place where people can share their stories, feelings and to hopefully get support.
There is one big problem with communicating this way, very often I write quickly, I write from the heart and I make spelling mistakes, and grammatical errors, but one thing that can happen is that the written word is misunderstood.
When you face someone we all pick up on how a person is really feeling and by watching facial expression and body language we can actually 'speak' to one another without the use of words.
Recently when inviting thoughts and opinions on a subject, it was misunderstood, completely.
The result can be of some of us being left saddened and hurt.
I know that what ever I do I can not possibly please everyone.
The trouble with a situation like this is the ripple effect on others.
BGSG is a support group, a group of people to support one another, to boost each other on those particularly bad days, a safe place. It can't be a place where a difference of opinion upsets others.
So yet another note to self, re-read and re-read before writing anything.
One of my aims is not to be someone who is just at the end of the phone or computer, to give a 'stick a plaster on the wound,' reaction to a grandparent who needs support, but to be someone who is there for as long as it takes to walk along side them on this difficult journey.
I want to be someone who recognises that every person is unique, although it is estimated that a million grandparents suffer being apart from their grandchildren, it is not helpful to say things like, "Oh yes I have heard it all before,"the truth is that every individual family has their own loss.
We will often  say ourselves, or it will be said to us, " you need to get back to how things were before," it isn't a case of moving on or returning to normal.
Things will never be normal or back to how they were, but we learn to live differently and to except what has happened and for it to be part of our life.
Life throws numerous experiences at us on a daily basis, some good some heartbreaking but they all make us what we are today.
So I would just ask please that anyone reading these posts, that I want to get it right but sometimes I falter.

Jane
www.bristolgrandparentssupportgroup.co.uk



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