Seeking a Stable Home for a Child of Divorce

Q. We really enjoy our beautiful 3-year-old granddaughter -- a bright, outgoing and charming child -- but her living arrangements are quite untraditional.

Her father has had primary custody since the parents separated two years ago, but my granddaughter spends alternate weeks with her mom -- our daughter -- at our house, and two weekends a month with his parents at their house. Although she has her own room at each place, won't all these moves make her feel rootless?

Her schedule also is different at each place. We try to play with her, feed her, bathe her and put her to bed at the same time every day, but she doesn't have a regular routine at her father's house and when we get her back, she is cranky and difficult to deal with for at least a day.

To complicate matters, the father recently decided that he doesn't want to pay for her to be in any kind of day care or preschool and that she needs more "family time." So on his weeks, she stays with his girlfriend at his house while he is at work and she goes to day care/preschool when she is with us. We are concerned she is losing any consistent social and educational opportunities. Our daughter has tried to talk to him about it but he refuses to compromise or even to listen.

I know we are just the grandparents and that we don't have much say about any of this, but is there something we can do? Any suggestions we can make?

A.There are times when you have to accept the bitter with the sweet.

First the sweet: You get to see your granddaughter -- and she gets to see you, to live an orderly life for two weeks of every month and to be loved abundantly. This is just what she needs.

And now the bitter: Your daughter shares her child's living arrangements with her ex, but he's the one who has primary custody. Because of it, the divorce probably affects her even more than most divorced women, but no one may feel quite as sad or confused by it as her child. Your granddaughter may never tell you what she's thinking or even know how to put it into words, but if she's like most children of divorce, she probably still is hoping her parents will get together again, still wondering if she did something to make them break up and still afraid that they might leave her one day, the way they left each other.

The better you can get along with the father, his parents and his girlfriend, the easier it will be for her. It's more important for a 3-year-old to be in a peaceful home -- wherever that home may be -- than to take advantage of her social and educational opportunities.

Even though her father may not be as organized as you are or spend his money the way you think he should, he's trying hard and so is his girlfriend, who may have the toughest job of all. It can't be easy to be the unpaid nanny of a child who's the darling of six adults, all of whom have their own way of doing things.

Try reaching out to the girlfriend, perhaps with a note, to tell her that you'd be glad to babysit if she ever gets sick or needs to keep an appointment, or to help in any way. This is a small offer, but it may soften your relationship and may even make the father reconsider his nursery school decision.

Or perhaps, if the school means so much to you -- and if you can afford it -- you could offer to pay the tuition, since he may have taken her out of school because he didn't have the money to send her, and not because his daughter needed more family time.

You also could arrange for your granddaughter to have one or two play dates a week when she's with you so she could make friends in the neighborhood and you could get to know the other parents.

Each time you're with another family, you'll realize there are many ways to rear a child, that fathers and mothers approach parenthood in quite different ways and that children, bless their hearts, are much more resilient than you think. Even though it takes a day or two for your granddaughter to adjust when she comes back to your house, she's still bright, outgoing and charming. And she always will be as long as you don't say anything derogatory about her dad, his girlfriend or his parents. They are her family, too.

Questions? Send them toadvice@margueritekelly.comor to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.