Blog - The Grandest Love

Use Your Executive Grandpa Power to Enrich the Whole Family

UncategorizedBy jwitkovsky June 3, 2015 Leave a comment

Get The Grandest Love: Inspiring the Grandparent-Grandchild Connection now in time for Father’s Day! Google ‘grandma’ and you get 113 million results; ‘grandpa’, only 63.5 million. Both numbers are astronomical, but in the world of kids and cuddlies, women still rule. (see original article here: http://patch.com/illinois/deerfield/using-your-secret-executive-grandparenting-power-enrich-whole-family-0 ) But, the truth is, being a grandparent tugs at…

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Dear Grandpa…What I Have Learned from You

Grandparents Matter, Speaking Engagements, The Grandchildren SpeakBy jwitkovsky May 28, 2015 Leave a comment

Being a grandparent makes me think of a Hasidic proverb that says “Old age to the unlearned is winter. Old age to the learned is harvest time.” Grandparents entering your grandchild’s world is your harvest time. As I head off to New York for a conversation at the JCC Manhattan with Rabbi Joy Levitt on “The…

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Mature Love vs Unconditional Love for Grandkids and in Life

Grandparents MatterBy jwitkovsky May 13, 2015 Leave a comment

Until very recently, I was calling the love a grandparent has for their grandchildren “unconditional love.” In talking with my son and others, I realized that many, including parents, may qualify their love for their children as unconditional. Now I realize the better word is “mature” love. Earlier this month I attended an event presented…

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Like a Grandmother

UncategorizedBy jwitkovsky May 1, 2015 Leave a comment

I never really knew my grandparents. My Grandma Lynette, the only grandparent alive when I was born, died when I was only four. My family has a canon of hilarious stories about Lynette, an intensely opinionated woman with four former husbands. But my foggy memories of her are merely the minty taste of Kellogg’s Grasshopper…

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Your “TLC” Teaching and Learning Dialogue

UncategorizedBy jwitkovsky April 23, 2015 Leave a comment

For TLC, Tender Loving Communication, with our adult children, someone has to make the first move. If it seems it’s hard to find time to chat, whether by phone or in person (pick up one child from swimming at 3:30 with just enough time to pick up the other at karate, before heading home to…

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Benefits of Grandparenting

Grandparents MatterBy jwitkovsky April 16, 2015 Leave a comment

Thanks to increased longevity, many of us may actually have 40 or more years to participate in the lives of our grandchildren! And that’s not the good news. Living near each other (or having the means to undertake regular visits) is no longer essential to maintaining close family ties, thanks to burgeoning communications technologies and…

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Grandparents Matter

Grandparents MatterBy jwitkovsky April 10, 2015 Leave a comment

As a family psychologist, I was struck by the fact there is often a key factor missing in society’s conversations about what makes individuals and families, and especially children, thrive: our deep need for intergenerational love and support—even in a determinedly self-reliant culture and digital age. Grandparents matter. Jerry Witkovsky gets this, and as a…

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Dear Grandpa, I at least respect your commitment to an idea….

The Grandchildren SpeakBy jwitkovsky April 8, 2015 Leave a comment

“We all have a Benny (l) in our families — the sometimes prickly, even adversarial family member who challenges our ideas and methods. A Benny helps us realize that even when it seems to be going wrong, it will come out right — as long as we are TRYING.” Susan Adcox, Grandparenting Expert for about.com,…

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Three Tips for Great Family Meetings

Family MeetingsBy jwitkovsky March 26, 2015 Leave a comment

With Easter and Passover on the horizon, families may be gathering from afar, making it a perfect time to hold a family meeting. There are many excellent resources, online and at your public library, for conducting Family Meetings; and all can be adapted to fit your needs and circumstances. Here are three tips to get you…

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Grandparenting with Love and Anxiety

Relationship with Adult ChildrenBy jwitkovsky March 16, 2015 Leave a comment

All it takes is a little TLC (“Tender Loving Communication”) “To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first…

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