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Q. What are "The Sandwich Years"? A. That time in mid-life when we function as parents to two generations. We must wisely ease out of the role of Mom and Dad toward our teenaged and young adult children. At the same time our own aging parents need us to act increasingly like parents toward them as their abilities decline. Q. What age range are we talking about? A. We have heard of persons as young as 25 and as old as 82. But mostly about 40 to 60. Q. What is the main thing we need to know in dealing with elders? A. How to honor them instead of either (1) ignoring them; (2) blowing up at them; (3) otherwise trying to change them; (4) giving in to unreasonable demands they may make and then secretly resenting it. One good example is Ruth's cordial manner of always answering repeated questions from forgetful elderlies as if the questions were being asked for the first time. Q. What if these elderly parents are downright mean and unfair? A. We offer a list of ideas in our book on how to give soft answers that turn away wrath, as Proverbs 15:1 urges. And, the wrath we thus defuse is mostly our own! For example, to stop from feeding an argument we can say, "I guess we disagree," and just let it go instead of having to have the last word. Or, we can borrow a standard technique from assertiveness training and repeatedly answer like a broken record to a pushy demand that, for example, we must visit Mom this weekend or it proves we don't love her. Simply repeat after each statement she makes, "I understand how you feel, but I won't be coming over this weekend." Q. What should we keep in mind in parenting our adult kids? A. More than anything else, what we call our vote of confidence. By that we mean an attitude on our part that, even if we think a kid is making a foolish choice, we are confident that the kid has what it takes to make the best of it and come out a wiser person. Q. Now the third part of the book talks about our relations with our peers in the middle of the sandwich. What are the key ideas there. A. We want our peers to encourage spouses to cherish each other. As they empty their nest they move out of the role of Mom and Dad back into the role of husband and wife, which they lived before the kids came along. They need to merge traffic, like cars entering a freeway use the merging lane to get up to speed with the ongoing flow of traffic and then enter it without colliding. In the book we illustrate this concept with an anecdote about one evening in our kitchen when our youngest son told us affectionately, "At least you two weirdoes have each other!" Q. Why did you folks write this book? A. Because as counselors, speakers and writers we always have our eyes open for what we can learn to convey to others from any experiences we have. Three of our four parents have died in ways that involved us considerably. We deliberately sought to glean God's wisdom in the circumstances. It's as if we traveled through a jungle, not as tourists, but as photo-journalists for National Geographic. Q. What else have you written? A. Dennis has written two other books. The first one is called "The Strong Willed Adult". It talks about self-discipline for those of us who say with the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, "What's the matter with me that I fail to do the things I promise I'm going to do and repeatedly do the very things I swear I'm not going to do?". The second book, "Vitality Therapy", presents dozens of techniques that non-professional Christian counselors can use to make the most beneficial use of even quite limited counseling opportunities. Ruth has written a book called "Chipped Dishes, Zippers and Prayer." Each chapter in it tells a story in about half a page - something from Ruth's experiences as a mother, wife or a little girl. Then Ruth follows the story with a short prayer that puts it into a perspective that is often poignant, sometimes humorous, but always thought-provoking. Q. How can people get in contact with you if they might like to schedule you to speak or maybe even make an appointment for counseling in person or by long-distance telephone? A. They can call us at 630-688-3331 and leave a message on our answering machine if we do not answer. We will get back to them. They can also e-mail us at dennislgibson@yahoo.com. Read An Excerpt From The Sandwich Years Free Book Downloads and Resources For more of Dr. Gibson's books on counseling please click HERE To learn more about the authors click HERE
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