Category Archives: Grandparenting

Create A Family Value’s List

Posted in Chidren, family, Family Values, grandkids, Grandparenting, Life by

 What are your top five family values?  What traits do you hope your child or grandchildren will have as an adult? 

 Using the following five strategies in the acronym “TEACH”  can help you decide which traits really mean the most to you.

T- Target the value you want to apply right this minute in your home. Focus on only one at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed and spin you wheels trying to do to much. Many moms and grandmothers target a different key value each month. Write down your choices so you don’t forget.

E- Exemplify this value in your own everyday behavior. The easiest way for children and grandchildren to learn any new value is by actually seeing it in action. So intentionally start looking for ways to tune up your chosen value anytime you’re with your children or grandchildren.

A- Accentuate the targeted value in simple ways. For example, if respect is your targeted value seize the opportunity to make a point about treating all people with dignity by showing respect to the people in your life. 

C-Catch your children displaying the value and praise them for it. ” Hey, I know it was hard to admit you broke your brother’s hockey stick. I appreciate your honesty.

H- Highlight the value of the value. ” I loved how you smiled at Grandma today. That was being really kind. Did you see how her face lit up? Whenever you’re kind, it helps make the world a better place.” Whenever you highlight a value be sure you name the value and tell your child exactly how they made a different.

Here is an example of a few values : assertiveness, caring, charitableness, courage, excellence, fairness, friendliness, dependability, determination, generosity, helpfulness, honesty,industriousness, kindness, joyousness, politeness, tolerance, understanding, unselfishness, wisdom, purposefulness and a hundred more words that describe family values. This is something that grandparents can do to.

Don’t Forget To Relax With Your Kids

Posted in Chidren, family, grandkids, Grandparenting, Time, traditions by

Suppose your children were asked what one thing they really wish they could change about their family. That very question was asked of eighty-four thousand students in grades six through twelve who recently completed a USA Weekend survey.

 It turns out that almost two-thirds of kids surveyed said that what the kids said was they wanted was not just more time but relaxed time. The kind of time a kid would consider as just plain “fun.” No expectations, no stress and no frantic pace. It’s the kind of time that creates family togetherness that relaxed, carefree time is also what kids crave and need.

Here are a few simple ways to create relaxed family time.

  • Nighttime rituals: read a nighttime story; remind each other of the best part of the day; give hugs and kisses goodnight.
  •  Special greetings and ways to say “I love You”: rub noses for an “Eskimo kiss“; create your own family funny hugs.
  •  Celebration of successes: hang a flag on the front door when something special has happened to a family member:use a “fancy” plate at the dinner table when a family member has done something to deserve recognition.
  •  Birthday memories: each family member chooses his or her favorite birthday menu, cake, outing, and song to be piped through the household as a birthday” wake-up” call. Some families even hang a family member’s shirt on a flagpole or broomstick stuck in the front lawn to let the world (or at least the neighborhood) know it’s that person’s special day.
  •  Frivolous fun: Fly kites on Groundhog Day; play practical jokes on April Fool’s Day.
  •  Sports and outdoors: Go fishing on Father’s Day; be die-hard Chargers fans together.
  •  Volunteering and service projects: bake an extra turkey for Mrs.Jones on Thanksgiving; serve Christmas Eve dinner at the homeless shelter or help out at another,less “popular” time of year. Help your favorite charity as a family once a week or month.
  •  Enjoying each others company: spread a rug or towel on your living room floor,gather the troops, put on some up beat music, and serve simple sandwiches, finger food, and boxed drinks. Who says you have to go somewhere to have a good time together?
  •  Family Game Night: dust off the Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, Monopoly, Candy land, Go Fish, or that old deck of cards. Older kids might like Trouble, Uno, Kerplunk, Risk, or Porker. Some families hold Family Game Night once a week for thirty minutes to an hour. Have an assortment of games and let a different family members choose what you play each time.

I read the other day that research has proven that doing simple rituals enhances our feelings of togetherness and family belonging by almost 20 percent. What’s more those home traditions and customs also increase our kid’s social skills and development. So what are you doing to keep memories of your times together for your kids?  Good ol’ fun sounds like time spent at grandma’s house. Doesn’t it?

The Golden Princess

Posted in family, generational changes, Grandparenting, Humor, Travel by

Baby Boomers are cruising to places like Alaska, the Caribbean, New Zealand, Australia, and Italy and where ever the cruise ships will take them.

My friend Ruby‘s nick name is the “Golden Princess.” Ruby announced to her family and friends that she has decided to go on a Princess cruise instead of going to a nursing home. When we asked her why? She quickly answered, “It’s better than a nursing home and cheaper too!

She went on to explain to me that a nursing home costs about 200 dollars per day. The cost aboard a Princess cruise? About 145 dollars per day(with senior-citizen discounts). Add 10 dollars per day for gratuitous, and you’re still ahead! Make that 15 dollars and the staff will be begging to treat you like a queen!

She considered these amenities:

1. Ten great meals a day (the last one at midnight even has an ice sculpture!). If you can’t make it to one of the great dinning rooms, you can order room service and have breakfast in bed every day of the week.

2. Free toothpaste, razors, soap, and shampoo.

3. TV repaired, lightbulbs changed, mattress replaced. Energetic young men and women will fix anything and everything and apologize for your inconvenience.

4. Free sheets and towels every day without asking.

5. Free housekeeping and friendly folks come in each day to clean the bathroom, make the bed, and vacuüm.

6. Three swimming pools, a work out room, free washers and dryers, all without maintenance fees or other costs.

7. Floor shows and other entertainment available every night.

8. The opportunity to meet new and interesting people every seven to fourteen days.

9. Treated like a customer, and not a patient. “Yes, ma’am! “Of course, ma’am!” Will there be anything else, ma’am?”

10.The opportunity to travel the seas and visit exotic places.

Like most baby boomers I’ve given serious thought about the golden years. I have decided that becoming a “Golden Princess” on a cruise ship is the most appealing way to go. 

Grandparents Can Bring Back Letter Writing

Posted in Chidren, generational changes, grandkids, Grandparenting, Letters, Technology, traditions by

In this age of cell phones, Email, faxes, letter writing is an all but forgotten practice and most young children have never written a letter.

 Now days we talk to our friends on our cell phones it rarely occurs to us to write a letter. When was the last time your received a nice long juicy letter?  Having grandchildren is an excellent opportunity to revive an old custom.

One of the most important things to remember about letters is that they are both a form of communications for the present and a record for the future. Ask your grandchildren to keep a copy of your letters, but to be on the safe side, keep a copy yourself. When I was a young girl my grandmother and I wrote letters. I would read her letters ( and my replies) they were full of grandmotherly advice. I still have a few of the letters she sent, and I treasure them dearly, even though they are more than forty years old. I only wish they contained more details.

Even if your grandchildren don’t appreciate the letters now they will in the future. Letter writing is only one way of fulfilling your role of family historian. Don’t limit yourself to writing standard letters. Even your youngest grandchildren can look at pictures and if you have the skill of drawing you can send one of your drawing to them. 

As they get older you can send them picture letters where the message is conveyed by a few pictures or drawings about things they are interested in. If there’s a cartoon or comic strip you think your grand-daughter would appreciate send it to her. As they get older you can send them a disposable camera with an addressed and stamped mailing envelope and ask them to take pictures of anything they want and send them to you. And don’t forget to send pictures and postcards when you travel!

Once children get used to the idea that there may be letters arriving containing news, pictures, stories and other treats intended especially for them, they will come to look forward to them. Despite all our technological advances, most people I know feel a little rush of anticipation when they open their mail and hidden in among the bills, solicitations, and magazines is a personal letter or a post card.

Twentieth-century technology has vastly changed out ability to communicate over distance. Although it hardly seems believable today, at the end of World War Two only half of American homes had a telephone. Even in the late 1950s as many as a quarter of households had no telephone. Our grandchildren will probably find it just as hard to imagine that in 1990 only 27th percent of U.S. households had a computer!

 For hundreds of years or at least since pens and paper became commonplace and people who wanted to get in touch with other people separated by distance had only one way to do it. They wrote letters it was the only means of long-distance communication, at least until the telegraph was invented in the 19th century. 

Today the schools are considering replacing cursive writing with texting and key boarding. Grandparents can start hand writing letters and have their grandchildren write back to them. There are hundreds of fun subjects to write about while creating letters that in the future will become keepsakes.

Time Is Marching On

Posted in generational changes, Grandparenting, Movies, relationships, Time by

One of my favorite cinematic scenes is in the movie Steele Magnolias.  

Truvy Jones (played by Dolly Parton) is standing on the porch of beauty salon talking with young  Annette ( played by Daryl Hannah)  “Honey”  Truvy says, ” Time is marching on-and it is marching all over my face.”  

No words were truer than this time is marching on and not only is it marching all over my face but it has taken over my whole body. As I recognize this phenomenon of aging I’m reminded that I’ve earned every wrinkle. Every year their numbers increase. We’ve been together so long, that we are becoming good friends. But not such good friends, that I wouldn’t agree to have them  removed. Like un-friending a friend on Facebook.

I’ve  always wondered if wrinkles could talk what they might say? Perhaps the lines on my forehead would say?  I waited up for my children when they missed their curfew, started driving or went out on their first dates.

 However, there is another way to look at these characteristic indention. Maybe the lines on my forehead show how much time I’ve spent thinking about those I love or studying the world around me and finding it good. The lines around my mouth might come from the many times I ‘ve stood in awe and smiled at a beautiful sunset over the ocean.  Or smiled at a flower as it began to bloom as I walked through the rose garden in Balboa Park in San Diego and smiled at how wonderful creation is. I’m sure that some of the lines around my mouth and eyes are from the gift of laughter. Anyone who knows me knows I laugh a lot.

Perhaps the lines around my eyes are laugh lines memory boards that hold the experiences of my life that I have enjoyed and participated in the most.  Occasionally my girlfriends and I would get together. We use to laugh and joke with each other about ageing.

 Now many decades later we wish that the beauty secrets in ” Grandma’s Little Beauty” remedy books would do the trick. But the reality is it takes money, money, money, to remove all our lines. What is a girl to do these days with all the choices we have?

Women Aren’t Perfect…

Posted in family, generational changes, Grandparenting, relationships by

 It’s a new day twenty-century grandmothers are a new kind of breed. I know – I am one. Look around you and you will see that Baby Boomers are changing the face of grandparents. Many have discretionary income and are shrewd in the ways of the world.

Yes, Baby Boomers have a lot of experience and wisdom to share. To state the obvious we are rich in years. Years of love, laughter, joy, sadness, trails, and temptations many years, many lessons.

We’ve seen a lot, from the invention of the television to the landing on the moon, from laptops to smart phones.  Baby Boomers are empowered by the fact that we have become the single largest economic group in the United States today. We are educated and increasingly well-preserved. Our social cultural and economic impact on our country has been unprecedented in history.

They can afford spending money on life’s little luxuries. Don’t be surprised when you see Baby Boomer’s hop on their motorcycles to take a road trip or find them spending an evening in front of their fifty inch flat screen T.V. home theater system or booking a trip to Paris. I am convinced Baby Boomers are at the early stages of what promises to be a long-term  and lucrative love affair with life. They aren’t just writing a new chapter of their lives they’re writing brand new books.

If you’re a first time grandmother, beloved veteran, or a grandma in waiting, you have at one time or another felt the impact, of being part of the  Baby Boomer generation. Like me you might have realised that it doesn’t matter how well-educated you are, how many children you have raised, or how many books you have read about parenting, that in some ways you feel like you are a sham.

Oh! I don’t mean to offend anyone, but do you just find yourself shaking your head and wondering how you did it all?  I sure do! Do you agree that some women just can’t admit they didn’t do it all? I think that the reason some Nana’s are a sham is because they never admitted that they didn’t have it all together when they were young mothers. And they are not about to admit they don’t have it all together as grandmothers either. I can’t help but wonder if this commercial had something to do with the perfect mother and grandmother syndrome.

Do you remember the retro commercial Enjoli ? ” I’m a Woman” it was popular in the 1980’s. It goes something like this: I can put the wash on the line, feed the kids, get dressed and hand out the kiss’ and get to work  nine to five cause I’m a woman. Enjoli the new eight-hour perfume for the twenty-four hour woman.  I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan and never, never let you forget you’re a man.

So as young mothers if we were all that, then being a grandmother should be like a walk in the park. Or is all just a sham?  I wonder! Maybe we can’t do it all, and it would be better to admit it. It’s hard for women, to allow the  people in our lives to lend a helping hand. I wonder! How much of a role does the media play in our lives?

When Letters Were Written…

Posted in family, generational changes, grandkids, Grandparenting, Keepsakes, relationships, Technology, traditions by

Writing letters can be a lot of fun. When we write a letter to a friend or a relative, it’s called a friendly letter.  A friendly letter (or informal letter) is a way of communicating between two people. Who are usually well acquainted.

There are many uses and reason’s for writing a friendly letter and friendly letters will usually consist of a topic on a personal level. Friendly letters can be printed or hand-written. Hand written letters are known for many reasons such as a “The Dear John” letter or a “ The Love Letter.”

I grew up in the fifties and sixties when letters were written. Writing and mailing a letter, post card or a holiday card was the only way I could connect with my long distant friends and family.  Sometimes I would type a letter but most of the time they were hand written. I liked the personal touch. I wasn’t allowed to make  long distance calls unless I could pay for them. So, the price of a stamp it was. Except on special occasions I could pick one person to call for a few minutes.

The first hand written letter that I received was from my grandmother. She lived in Massachusetts and I lived in California. Being a long distant grandmother was definitely a challenge for her but lucky me she was creative a writer and her letters made reading and writing fun for me. I always looked forward to receiving her letters because she had a way of sparking my imagination. Who doesn’t enjoy having their imagination sparked?  It’s because of our letter writing that we managed to maintained a close relationship.

 The letters from my grandmother have become part of my favorite keepsakes. I read them and re-read the letters over and over. It seems like I have read them a million times but that would be an exaggeration.

My grandmother was a busy woman and she still managed to write letters to all fourteen of her grandchildren. She worked as a school teacher for over thirty years. She was known as Nana to fourteen grandchildren. She was happily married for over sixty years and the mother of four children. My grandfather wrote a love letters to her on each of their wedding anniversaries. She out lived him by two years and she kept every letter that he had written to her. How romantic is that? When I think about how wonderful those letters are I wish we still wrote letters today. 

A Poem Called Grandma Wings

Posted in Books, Dreams, family, grandkids, Grandparenting, Spiritual by

This is a poem called ” Grandma Wings” author unknown. The other day when I read it I started to image what it would be like if grandmothers really had Grandma Wings. I hope that you enjoy reading this poem and my thoughts about it.

“GRANDMA WINGS AUTHOR UNKNOWN”

 I wonder where you keep your wings? Are they in your closet, with the rest of your stuff?  Do you put them away, and just use them at night?  Do give them to grandpa to polish up bright? I know you have wings, for this is true. Because God, always gives them to Angles like you!  I wish that I had a pair of wings. That would be awesome. Wouldn’t it?

Can you image?  The places we could go if you had angel wings? If I had angel wings, I would go to the heaven’s. I would ride with my grandkids grandpa, on his heavenly motorcycle. What would you do?

 We know that angels exist. We know God uses them, to send his messages and the angles meet among us. The holy angels never draw attention to them-selves. They typically do their work and disappear. We are told, that these heavenly beings are invisible. Being created by God for his service. They are mentioned 294 times, in more than half the Biblical books. The books record the activities of angels as serving as warriors, guardians,delivers, messengers, instruments of praise. It’s awesome, to read that grandmothers have a lot in common with angles? Isn’t it?

Kids Say The Darndest Things…

Posted in Chidren, family, Family Values, grandkids, Grandparenting, Humor, Life, Moms, Women by

Kids Playing“Kids Say the Darndest Things” was a segment on a television show called House Party.  Art  Linkletter was the host on CBS radio and television for many years and his interviews were never scripted, the kids said what they really thought. It could have been called “Straight Talk.”  One thing we can count on is that children are still saying the darndest things and they never stop surprising us. Do they? Sometime you just have to wonder how do they come up with some of the questions they ask us grandparents. Don’t we?  Like for instance a few years ago a friend was telling me about a conversation she had the night before with her four-year old grandson while they where watching Cat In The Hat together.

He looked into her eyes and said, Nana you have lines on your face. Then she said, I’m an old person with old skin. You’re a little person, and you have young skin. She figured that was the end of the conversation but then to her surprise he said, Nana when are you going to get them fixed?  My other Nana is old, and she doesn’t have lines on her face.  Wow! He sure is lucky that his Nana has a good sense of humor. Isn’t he?  As she was sharing her experience with me, we laughed at how unexpected his response was. Then I couldn’t help but wonder. How would have Art Linkletter or Billy Crosby reacted if they had that same conversation with a four-year old boy? I can only image the audience laughing because he is such an adorable little boy and enjoys making everyone he meets laugh. This goes to show that grandparents need to remember kids say the darndest things and to keep a good sense of humor.