Gone are the days of baking cookies or making crafts together. Although going out together for ice cream never goes out of style. My grandchildren are now 16 to 36. It’s not something to lament. As they get older their minds grow and their world of ideas expands exponentially. I love talking to them about…
Grandparents have a transformative effect on their family when they teach their skills, manifest their creativity and give voice to their passions. I set up my first Grandparent Connection School Program at Deerfield High School in 2009. The Deerfield High School grandparent program is still going strong. Over 300 grandparents attended the star event…
As older adults, we sometimes feel as if we’ve seen and done it all; there is little that surprises us anymore. An awareness of loss, of time growing shorter, may preoccupy us. But The Grandest Love takes us to an oasis in time and space, an oasis where promise – not loss – reigns. No…
Does it always seem like the current generation has it harder than the one before? “Life seemed more simple when I was growing up,” says one grandmother. “Probably the worst thing was chewing gum or a spitball.” Yes, I remember that rhyme about the difference between a child chewing gum and a cow chewing cud…”I see it now. It’s…
“Computers, history, how to hang free” are among things grandparents say they’ve learned from their grandchildren. And grandchildren, now young adults, cited “perseverance, to be giving, to go after my dreams” as valuable lessons learned from Grandma and Grandpa. A teaching and learning culture is one in which knowledge and experience are shared in all directions, from…
Only with Forgiveness In some instances, it will take more than shared delight over a new baby to wipe away years of contentiousness or resentment or to reopen lines of communication that have long been clogged. The reality is, some stumbling blocks in our relationships with our adult children may be products of a past…
