These are years of life’s lessons. We’ve been taught that the more of these we have, the more we learn. And the more we learn, the better people we become. We kind of grow up with our kids, all learning and improving together because that’s how families progress.

And then … the kids grow up. They grow up and they grow away. We blink, and they start leaving us, one by one. Our youngest ones suffer the most during this season because we yield to the burning desire to teach them all the things we believe we missed with the older ones. Wait, (we think) I didn’t do this part right, so I’m going to make up for that by repeatedly getting it right with the younger ones. Who, by the way, are doing just fine, but receive our guilt-ridden attempts anyways, whether they want them or not.

And then … our kids have kids. We wrestle with yet another layer of learning how to parent. This one is possibly the toughest one of all because it demands the most difficult response yet: Do nothing.

I’ve entered the ‘shut up and sit down’ season of child rearing. It requires me to sit and watch while my kids raise their kids. Sure, I get to be involved with the non-correction stuff. In fact, I’m encouraged by my kids to be a fun grandma. But when it comes to the hard-core child rearing moments, the times when a kid is behaving badly and needs correction, that’s when my role is to step back, say nothing, and let the parents take care of it.

In my mind, this makes perfect sense. Their parents know them better than I do, their parents are responsible for how their kids behave, and their parents are the ones who will follow through with decisions made regarding correction of misbehavior.

But by golly, there are times when I really, really want to get involved. I reason with myself that I’ve done a great job of raising my kids so I must know what I’m doing, right? I’m one of the important people in that young kid’s life, so I should have some say in how the kid is raised, right? I have great expectations for that kid which include behavior performances better than what I’m seeing, so I should do some correcting, right? I know so much more about raising kids than these young parents do, given all the kids I’ve already raised while they’re just muddling through the halfway point, so I should be able to share my massive knowledge with them for the good of everyone involved, right?

Well, actually, no. Apparently none of my reasoning is right. My kids are not only teaching their children about making wise choices–they’re also teaching me. With all the kindness and patience they can muster, they gently correct me when I overreach my grandparent role. They’re so kind about it that I can only be proud of them.

But I can also be annoyed. To myself. Quietly.

So I take a deep breath, and give my situation some thought. It doesn’t take too much pondering to realize I’m actually in a very good place. I can play games with my grandkids, teach them new things, go places with them, watch movies with them, take them out to eat, invite them stay overnight, tease and laugh and enjoy them immensely. And then when they misbehave, I can give them back to their parents. This is not unlike when they were infants whom I cuddled until they loaded a diaper or started to cry, then happily, gratefully handed them back.

I think I’m learning one more thing: This isn’t such a bad assignment after all.

This might be why it’s called Grand Parenting.