Parenting Advice

My Granddad and Me - The Best Time I Ever Had
By Jerry Elrod

One of the best times I remember ever having was a trip taken with my father and grandfather to the Ft Worth cattle yards. We loaded a calf to take to the yards and little guy though I was, they allowed me to go along.

How exciting it was to be included, to be thought grown up enough and ready enough to go on such an adventure with the big men. An added bonus of the trip was that my grandad had promised to buy me a new pair of cowboy boots. Oh, I was so excited. I was ecstatic. In fact, more than the the trip itself, the boots today stand out as the most remembered symbol of that journey.

In those days, over back roads, with no interstate or four lane highways, the trip was longer than it is today. We departed home before daylight. That was also a novel experience for me to be awakened in the middle of the night and to get ready for what seemed to be a very long journey.

We took off. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at one of those roadside cafes that were usually found in small towns or just on the outskirts of one. Savoring the memory is almost as good as whatever we had for breakfast that early morning.

When we arrived at the huge Ft Worth stockyards, one of the teeming centers of agricultural and commercial activity back in the 40’s, my eyes grew large. I was captivated by my surroundings, the sounds and sights, but not so much the smells. The real purpose for the trip was nearing. Soon they would unload the calf to be sold.

After that, it would be off to shop for my new cowboy boots. What an adventure, what an undertaking, what a thrill. We had lunch somewhere, don’t really remember much about that. But it was over that lunch that the tenor of the day changed.

Dad told me that we wouldn’t be getting those cowboy boots. Something had passed between Dad and Grandad that I was not quite able to fathom. I’m sure now that it had to with money. It may have been that the calf didn’t bring as much as he had hoped. It may have been that dad knew my granddad’s circumstances well enough that such an outlay was just not wise. Likely my Dad had suggested that the boots, as badly as he knew I wanted them, was an unnecessary extravagance. Grandad was, I think, just as disappointed as I was.

Today, all these years later, I think about the best time I ever had when I remember going to Ft. Worth. I also remember learning a hard lesson that day, a lesson that has never left me. The joy of the day was not in some anticipated gift of boots, but in being encouraged to grow up and to know that disappointment is a real as anticipation.

Article provided by Dr. Jerry D. Elrod. For information on retirement, Baby Boomers and everything related to Seniors, please visit my web site at http://seniorcitizenjournal.com and my blog at http://seniorcitizenjournal.blogspot.com

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Have Fun With Your Grandchildren Without Breaking Your Back
By Janet Martin

In previous decades, the bond between grandparents and grandkids was strong. It was not surprising to see little kids flock around their grampas or grammas and listen to interesting stories about the war or about fairies, heroes, legends and almost everything under the sun. But along with the popularity of the television, Internet and video consoles, the generation gap between grandparents and grandkids had started to become wider.

However, despite the seeming impossibility of bridging the generation divide between kids and their grandparents, there are actually a lot of things you can do about it. The first thing grand dads and moms need to do is to be more aware of the latest technological advancements enjoyed by the youth of today. Knowledge about what children are interested nowadays would help seniors break the ice with the little ones.

Creative ideas and fun activities are always the best when grampas or grammas want to lure the kids into spending fun moments with them. In order to achieve this, however, seniors need to maintain their imagination and continue to become physically active.

If you want to be a cool grandparent and would want your grandkids to have fantastic time with you every time you are together, you might want to consider the following activities:

Collect Things Together

Since it may be difficult to play hoops with your very active grandkids, you can share their love for sports by being a treasure throve of information or trivia about their favorite sport or athletes. Watching a live baseball game with them or attending their school games would really help you score big points with your grandkids.

If your little ones are interested more on trivia and not in playing games, you can probably bond with them by collecting basketball caps, jersey, and trading cards, among other things. By bringing them to book signing sessions and to libraries or museums that cater to their interests, you would be building a stronger bond with them without breaking your back or dislocating your shoulders.

Have A Hobby Or Craft

Woodworks, insect and rock collecting, science experiments are some of the hobbies and crafts that you may want to have with your male grandchildren. For the little girls, you can probably teach them to sew, create a scrapbook of your family, or make fancy jewelries and other girly stuff. Photography, painting, pottery and bird watching are also hobbies that would interest your grand kids, both boys and girls alike.

Try To Play With Them

Do not ever think that playing puzzles, toy cars, role playing and assembling Legos are juvenile activities that you would not enjoy with the kids. If you really want to have an idea on what interests your grandchildren, as well as on how to guide them in making the right choices, you need to get involved with them without getting too smothering.

Venture Outdoors

Going for a hike, playing in the park, visiting zoos, taking picnics and having nature trips are outdoor activities that you and your grandchildren will definitely enjoy. Planting trees and tending to your garden are some other activities you could share with the little ones outdoors.

Since kids nowadays are always cooped indoors with their video consoles, DVD, television and computer, inviting them to bask under the sun during spring and summer can really be good for their health too. However, before you take them to such activities, you have to make sure that you are physically fit and strong enough to be responsible for their safety while they are with you.

Arthritis and joint pains should not hinder you from having fun with your adorable grandkids. There are many natural supplements, including Flexcerin, that are safer and effective not only in easing pain but also in improving the health of your joints.

To know more about Flexcerin, simply go to http://www.flexcerin.com/

Janet Martin is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and published author. Many of her insightful articles can be found at the premiere online news magazine http://www.thearticleinsiders.com

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African American Grandparenting
By Candis Reade

African American grandparenting is one of the cornerstones of black culture. When parents are forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, the grandparents step in as babysitters and surrogate parents. When the community needs advice, guidance, or comforting words to get them through their difficult days, they turn to the wise words and invaluable experience of their elders. However, increasingly African American grandparenting has meant taking custody of their minor grandchildren when the parent is unable to care for them. There are several reasons a grandparent may choose to do this.

1. They don’t want their grandchildren in foster care. If the parents have been arrested or have lost custody, the only options are usually a relative’s home or foster care. Foster care tends to be impersonal, and children often are separated from their siblings. This can add to the trauma. Grandparents do their families and their communities a huge service by stepping up to parent the parentless.

2. They want to pass down black culture and traditions. At a time when many black folk are forgetting their roots, African American grandparenting increasingly means being a gatekeeper to the history of this distinguished culture. Grandparents know that they have a lot to offer a child, and their influence has been a huge aid in maintaining the richness of the black community.

3. They feel they didn’t raise their own children correctly. This belief, although usually incorrect, leads them to a sense of guilt and a need to correct what they perceive as their mistake. These grandparents often become the most conscientious, generous, and loving caregivers as they do everything possible to give their grandchildren the best of everything.

4. They feel an emotional attachment to their grandchildren. When grandparents function as babysitters and free daycare, they become used to having their grandchildren in their life on a daily basis. If something happens to those grandchildren’s parents, the grandparents still want to maintain their bond.

5. They want the very best for their grandchildren, and are sure they are the ones who can give it to them. This is the most common and strongest reason for becoming a grandparent caregiver. It is almost impossible to refuse one’s grandchild the love, care and stability they need. Grandparents in the black community have a lot of love to offer their minor grandchildren. This love has the power to make up for any number of misfortunes and separations. Often, this love can single handedly hold a family together in the face of incredible adversity.

Grandparents continue to have a valued role in the black community. African American grandparenting offers the stability and wisdom to maintain black family traditions while training the next generation for education and success. They perform a service in their community that both indispensable and invaluable.

Candis Reade is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about African American Grandparenting, please visit New Grandparenting Today current articles and discussions.

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Grandparenting Activity Suggestions - Build a Great Cross Generational Relationship
By Colleen Kitchen

Calling all parents and grandparents: Are you stuck for a suggestion for activities grandparents can do with their grandchildren? Look no further — you have found a big list of things to do. Surely there will be at least one of these things that captures someone’s imagination. This is only a jumping off place, to spark you to think of many other ideas. If you know of a great activity for grandchildren and grandparents to do, please write to me: I’d love to hear it. Here is my list:

• trip to a lake or the beach
• if Grandma or Grandpa are tech-savvy, try a cross generational blog!
• digital photography
• excursion to the zoo
• a movie (good or bad) but if it’s bad, the G.P may wish to host a “bad movie party” (I have a whole article dedicated to bad movie parties)
• amusement park
• a big jigsaw (with snacks of course!)
• shopping
• produce a video
• if Grandma or Grandpa have any musical skills they can play music with the kids
• baking cookies or doing crafts at the grandparents’ house
• have them come to your house and make a meal that you can all eat together
• visit an old folks home. If the kids play any music have them perform. Most old folks home residents love this
• ancient arts such as knitting, crocheting
• involve the kids in volunteer work such as a soup kitchen
• depending on the age of the kids, Grandma and Grandpa can take them on a weekend camping trip and make you a bit of couple time
• golf, croquet, other games that arent too strenuous or risky for older folks
• let Grandma/Grandpa plan and host a child’s birthday party
• help Grandma and Grandpa with cleaning or home improvement projects and get an excellent meal out of it.
• gardening
• a hike to a nearby natural place, assuming Grandma/Grandpa are up to it
• a trip to the park
• fishing, boating, swimming and other water sports
• a trip to a museum appropriate for children
• scrapbooking
• a trip to a spectator sport such as a baseball game
• let Grandma and Grandpa take the kids to their soccer or baseball game
• some Grandmas and Grandpas might even want to coach kids’ sports
• state or county fair — extra special if grandparents help the kids prepare an entry in it
• a train or bus trip is always fun
• hunting (older kids, of course)
• music or art festival

I hope you were able to find at least one idea on this list that is appropriate for you and thanks for reading.

Colleen Kitchen has lifehacks galore at Hub Pages and also offers many healthy recipes at her Dork Chow Food Blog.

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Grammies Are Wonderful People to Little Grandboys
By Dianne Wandruff Hansen

She has 12 grandchildren, but only 3 have lived nearby. Now those 3 are moving away…far across the country so that it will require serious travel plans to see them in person.

But Grammies are innovative and clear thinkers! This Grammie has a plan and she knows just how to keep contact with her little ones.

First off, she will send them away with a personal cd recording for each child. The recording will be of Grammie herself, singing, reading, talking just like she always does, affirming her love and giving sweet advice…reminding them never to forget her.

Then, next summer, she’s thinking of running a Cousin’s Camp. Oh, she’s innovative all right! She knows how to plan adventures on a childlike level because she remembers clearly how it feels to be a child. She loves adventure herself!

Besides planning creek hikes, boat floats, kayak trips, rope swinging at the lake, she will take picnics with good food. Not necessarily sweet, sticky food that undermines their health, but nutritious, fruity cookies or moist cake with honey butter for the frosting. Grandboys and their Grammies love such things, even though parents might turn up their noses. Parents are spoiled!

All during the year, Grammie will send the boys personalized letters and packages, each one illustrated and each one wrapped in brilliant colors, then completely covered with transparent tape to protect the pretty wrapping. They may be rough and tumble boys, but they like their bright colors, especially if sent by Grammie. She makes them feel so special and important, each one in turn.

Once, while they still lived nearby, she sent them a freshly dead snake! And again, the parents didn’t exactly appreciate the gesture… They can’t seem to remember the days she used to take them on walks in the country, pointing out interesting things like dead snakes, big crawling bugs, overhead skies. Why can’t they remember the feelings of excitement and camaraderie when a child and an adult share a discovery of something SO important?

Well, Grammie is not deterred, not at all. She has a plan and she knows what to do. She doesn’t want to be forgotten, so she innovatively thinks of ways to please the little boys, drawing their minds toward hers, filling their memories with pleasant pictures…remember the day we were so brave to go off the tree swing when the college guys were afraid to go? Remember how we paddled the kayaks so well when we’d never even been in a kayak before? Remember Grammie?

Family relationships involving the differing generations are so rich! These relationships make life memorable for a little boy. They’ll always remember being at Grammie’s house, remember her specialty cookies made especially for them. They’ll remember being allergic to chocolate and butter and Grammie making treats without chocolate and butter, making things to eat that completely circumvented the desire for common chocolate and butter!

Grammies are wonderful people to little boys, totally supportive, always loving, full of hugs and kisses and secrets…whispers of activities to come, firm guidance along the way. Naps, no fighting with the brothers, manners at the table, eating outdoors, camping on the lawn, building campfires in the backyard, reading interesting stories, and cuddling down in Grammie’s beautiful soft baby-blue feather comforter. Saying prayers and singing songs before sleeping, listening to her soft voice putting them to sleep.

Little grandboys revere their Grammies, minding them most of the time, learning to mind them for sure the next time…and asking her any question that they don’t know themselves. For instance, “Grammie, where’s Heaven?” “Why did Grampie die?” “Where will you go when you die?”

As for me, I thoroughly enjoy the relationship between a good Grammie and her little grandboys. I’ve observed several sets during my time and here’s what I have to say about that:

Give the Grammies and the grandboys plenty of space and free time. They’ll know what to do with it! They’ll thrive and grow and influence each other for the good. That’s the way it is when people love each other so strongly and unreservedly. That’s the way it is when grandboys and their Grandmothers admire and respect each other all the way to the end.

Thank God for Grammies! Thank God for YOUR family!

Dianne Hansen is a grammie par excellence; a homemaker for two; a gardener of huge, healthy veggies and brilliant ever-blooming flowers; a hiker/walker; and an anti-aging specialist.

She lives with her husband, David, in a romantic valley tucked up under the Canadian border…in northwest Montana.

See her online profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/diannewandruff

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