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


Monday 21 April 2014

What's in a word?

The internet is an amazing place, if you have a question you only have to grab the lap top type a word into a search engine and the answers are there, in an instant.
We all know that when we find ourselves being denied contact that we do just that, looking for answers, advice and explanations.
Although it is of course a helpful resource it can also be a bewildering place.
There are a plethora of very learned people with lots of initials after their names, with degrees as long as your arm and are 'experts' in their field.
The problem is that all too often reading reports, articles and statistics can only be fully understood by those who wrote them.
I am not suggesting that we are incapable of understanding, it is that most of these reports are full of jargon and totally incomprehensible babble.
Obviously, this is my personal opinion.
As indeed are the reports ect, someones personal opinion.
Ok, so they may have years of 'experience' studied at length the various behaviours behind withdrawing contact of a child but…..
Does it help us?
Yes, I have no doubt that some people do find them helpful, but not for me.
The fact that a family member has withdrawn contact because they have some form of personality disorder, almost goes without saying, as most normal people don't behave that way.
As I have written before, we do need to look to ourselves, we may well have said or done something we regret and once we do that then we can try to look forward, allow the past to stay in the past.
There have been many families recently who have begun the slow process of looking forward, and I rejoice with them all.
It is not the words that are used to describe being separated it is the actions that are important, if precious time is spent wondering whether it is one form or another we tie ourselves up into knots, and once again heading down this report, that report to see where our individual stories fit.
I my lowly opinion there is no 'one size fits all' and to much analysis is not helpful when talking to distressed and desperate grandparents.
Jane
www.bristolgrandparentssupportgroup.co.uk


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