Modeling a healthy marriage through difficult times is an important life lesson for your Grands. Every human being and every marriage will face difficult times. It’s part of living. Part of our job as parents and grandparents is to prepare young ones for their own adult lives. We do them a disservice if we never consider and prepare them for the difficult moments of life.
Here are six lessons you can model and share with your Grands:
Leaning on God and other family members is not weakness. Show young ones how to pray for God’s help and love during troubled times. Teach them to discuss problems and struggles in healthy ways. At age-appropriate times share struggles you might be facing and how you are praying and talking with trusted family and friends.
Searching for solutions instead of dwelling in struggles often makes for quicker resolutions. Teach Grands how NOT to engage in pity parties! So frequently we fall into the trap of complaining and whining about difficulties. Remember, young people hear our comments even when we think they’re not listening. Grands can learn courage and perseverance if they see us face a struggle with resolution, honesty, and sincere efforts to find solutions. Even when you’re struggling this can be a great model of a healthy marriage.
Looking for lessons in the trials. One hard reality of life is that some difficult times are sometimes of our own making. Help grandchildren to understand this by sharing how you evaluate difficult times and look for what you might have done differently. Modeling this rather than lecturing means so much to the development of young hearts and minds. Unfortunately, it’s easy to criticize and pick apart someone else’s life choices. It’s not always easy to evaluate our own choices, see the difficulties that flow from them, then learn the lessons so we don’t repeat the process.
Standing may be the only option. There are times where we each must simply weather the storm. We must stand our ground and face difficulties until they pass. Perseverance is a developed habit and skill. When you have such times in your family, talk to Grands about the importance of being steadfast and enduring until the difficulty passes especially if you want to have a healthy marriage.
Remind them hard times will pass and rough patches will end. The longer we live, the more we discover the truth of this lesson. We look back over our lifetimes and see the cycles and seasons. We may laugh about old people telling stories about walking to school uphill both ways in snowstorms, and yes, that’s not possible, but there is value in sharing some former difficulties and how things worked out and better times came again. Hope is a powerful inducement to keep going. The hope of making it through a difficulty strengthens all of us to keep moving forward.
Finally, add to all the above, the comfort of having a life partner to help overcome the troubled times. When you share each lesson above, include how being married and having a companion with whom you can share each experience has made life more dynamic and fulfilling. How did it help to talk with your mate? When did you cry together? When did you simply holds hand in bed and pray? When did you both work long hours to care for your family during a crisis? How did God meet you both and strengthen you to the tasks at hand?
One of the great comforts of marriage is having a partner with whom to share both difficult and good times. Let your Grands know there is value in enduring relationships.
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