Grand-parenting is probably the greatest reward in a parent’s life.  Good parenting is a difficult job and somehow everyone seems to depend on you. Grand-parenting on the other hand, comes at a time in your life when you can give the little ones what parents often don’t have the time for – as parents’ lives are busy and everything needs doing yesterday – you know this because you’ve been there.  As a Grandparent the hard slog is in the past; financial and emotional responsibilities associated with the thousands of needs and wants of children over many years, are thankfully fading. And most Grandparents I know agree: 

If I had known Grandchildren were so much fun I would have had them first!

However, having said this, one can only be the grandparent one is allowed to be. And if the joy of contact with your cherished Grandies is stolen from your life completely and often abruptly, the results can be devastating, with the repercussions felt by every extended family member. Overwhelming grief and the powerlessness associated with the loss of Grandchildren through family disputes or death of a child and subsequent loss of Grandchildren is extreme. And the terrible trauma caused by the possibility that these little ones may think we have abandoned them is very often too much to bear. Most days /moments we run the entire gauntlet of emotions; anger, fear, shock, regret, sadness, depression, guilt, confusion, disbelief, and love too, for the parent/s who are controlling these events.
             Even though we live in a restricted modern nuclear family era, we are no less affected by disruptions to the extended family:

‘When you look at a family tree, every person that is within that family tree is born into a spiritual inheritance. And when that person isn’t there, there’s a void. There’s something missing on that tree. And that person has to be slotted back into his rightful position within the extended family. While that person is missing from the extended family, then that family will continue to grieve and continue to have dysfunctions within it. Until the rightful person comes and takes their spiritual inheritance within that family.’ (As discussed by Kevin Booter, Link-Up, NSW Aboriginal Corp. Ltd., in the ‘Bringing Them Home’ National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families, by the late Sir Ronald Wilson)

Whilst what occurs in traumatic circumstances of loss is a spiritual bereavement of an inexpressible kind, we encourage Grandparents to continue to send their children unconditional love with all the little pieces of their broken hearts. The sincere intention of the GranPower Website is to support grieving Grandparents. We welcome Great-grandparents, Granddads and Grandmas and we are here to provide a loving support network to Grandparents, and their support people, who have been denied contact with their Grandchildren. We distribute newsletters and share current information to over 60 families and various organizations, share court experiences, network with each other, organise picnics and BBQs, raffle hampers, Christmas parties and are at present constructing this world wide website with a view to establishing a Grandparent network and contact between Grandparents and their lost Grandchildren. For those Grandparents who wish to remain private, we do have a confidential register of contact for such time as when the children come looking for you. However if you would like to post your name/s and contact details on this site contact us.

If you would like to be part of a growing community of Grandparents who meet regularly for support, or become involved with a national body of Grandparent lobbying groups currently in the pipeline, or just have a chat we are committed to a non-judgmental, non-denominational, non-discriminative, respectful and strictly confidential environment of support. 

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