How Well Do Your Children Know Their Grandparents?

In today's society with our families scattered across the country, it is becoming much more difficult to keep in touch with our grown children and young grandchildren.

Most kids don't know much about their grandparent's early life. In fact, they most likely think of their grandparents as "old people," not as "real people."

One way to correct this situation as grandparents is tell them details about our own growing up. Talk about the games you used to play, such as checkers, cribbage and dominoes. Better yet, teach the kids how to play with you. What a great opportunity to spend quality time together and establish a true relationship with them.

I have already started teaching dominoes to my grandkids at 3 and 5 years old. Each time we get together, I plan to show them simple games that I always enjoyed. And no batteries needed!

Obviously, the age of the children and the frequency of your time with them will make a tremendous difference. But how much better to play interactive games with them than to plunk them down in front of a video game.

A delightful blog that I follow deals specifically with generations in different locations and how to use technology to bridge the distance. I recommend it highly to all grandparents. It is called http://www.grandparentstlc.com/blog/.

Labor Day Memories

We were delighted over the Labor Day weekend to have our son from South Carolina and our two grandchildren home for a visit. The kids are three and four years old, so they are at a wonderful age to express their amazement and joy at simple little things. The kids barely make it in the front door before they both make a beeline to the toy box in the family room that we keep just for them.

Apparently, the four-year-old chattered for miles about getting Cheerios at Grandma’s house. His Dad was confused, because Cheerios are not favored at their home. The mystery was solved once they dragged out the Cheerios storybook where the reader fills in missing buttons, wheels and eyeglasses with – you guessed it – Cheerios. To make it more educational, we count the number of missing circles on each page together.

Building memories like these are so simple, yet so important as children grow up. Fortunately, it is often the small things like a favorite book, game or puzzle that children will remember and look forward to. So keep that in mind the next time you prepare for the pitter-patter of little feet.

Playing Cards & Games

Whenever we started to run out of things to talk about after dinner (and perhaps a few of us had enjoyed a little snooze), we would clear all the tables and get down to the serious business of playing a card game called Euchre. We drew cards to determine partners, then assembled at various tables in groups of four. The head table would play until someone got to ten points. The winning team remained as partners at the head table, but the losers moved down to the lowest table and switched partners with the losers there.

The marvelous thing about this process was that everyone participated and had a great time, from about age ten up to the grandparents. By switching partners, we all had a delightful chance to visit with each other and enjoy the intimate camaraderie of family and friends. As always at the end of a wonderful evening, we would have one more opportunity to share another piece of Mom’s fabulous pie, a little coffee and a whole lot of love.

We often played a variety of board games as well with friends and family, such as the old standbys: Monopoly, Clue, Parcheesi, Scrabble, Sorry, Cribbage and Chess. One Christmas I received a Chess set and considered myself to be quite a competent player. However, that complacency was shattered one evening when elderly friends came by. Once I taught “Uncle Marce” the basic rules, we started a game. Within a matter of minutes, he had me in checkmate, so I humbly learned a very important lesson: You can in fact teach an “old dog” a new trick.