Florida High School Shooting. On Wednesday night, the eve of the horrific school shooting in Florida, I called my son, the Psychiatrist. “What can I do, as a grandparent?” I asked him. I called my granddaughter, a high school student. “How are you feeling?” I asked. I called several friends. “What can we do?” I…
DetailsI didn’t come up with the idea for the three words. But I know a good idea when I see one. This one comes from consultant Chris Brogan, who has been coming up with his Three Words for over ten years now. The three words frame the “big story” for the year. They simply and…
Details400 grandparents attended programs at Deerfield Public Schools this fall, to learn more about the school world of their 6th to 12th grade grandchildren. Grandparents of 6th and 7th graders at Shepard Middle School learned about social emotional learning and typical social media use at that age. 40 grandparents went to the annual Freshman Connection…
DetailsI Do Want my Grandsons to say “me too” to ending sexual harassment and standing up for women. I love my weekly calls with my grandson Ethan, a Rabbi at the Park Synagogue in Manhattan. When we spoke a couple of weeks ago, I opened the topic by asking for advice for an upcoming meeting…
DetailsMy son Michael, who recently became a grandpa himself, wrote this wonderful, deep, thoughtful letter to me. It was in response to, or perhaps to further ponder my last two blog posts about, how, at 89, I could respond to the events of Charlottesville, and about maintaining a culture of learning and teaching across the…
DetailsHow to teach, learn and care with extended family At 89 years old, I found myself thinking with pride the other day about how amazing the experience and intellectual power of my extended family is. What a wealth of knowledge we are collectively. I have learned about worlds far from mine from all of them.…
DetailsBy Jerry Witkovsky I watched the TV news–and witnessed the KKK, the Neo Nazi’s and the White Supremacists shouting their hate. It burns a hole in my heart and soul. What can I do about it at age 89? As I struggled with this, the following thought went through my mind: “When a Grandparent dies…
DetailsOmama Gina, our dance was through a flicker of time. So out of place in 1950s Newark; plump, romantic, pre-Raphaelite sprite, with garlands in her hair. We sprawled on her living-room rug, drawing rainbows and sunbursts, princesses and unicorns. And oh we danced, channeling her rebellious sister, the one who had beguiled Kafka. Gina’s (hard…
Details“Separate Realities” of Parents and Children San Francisco-based psychologist Joshua Coleman, Ph.D., is the author of When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don’t Get Along (Harper Collins, 2008). In a blog post for UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, Dr. Coleman recommends: Honor the ‘separate realities’ nature of family life.…
DetailsA few years ago, when I was a teenager, I fell in love with a boy who just really wasn’t right for me in any way. He was rude to my friends, but when they urged me to leave him, I didn’t listen. My mom saw the way he treated me (which wasn’t very good),…
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