GRAND Magazine- Winter 2021 - 22

grandparenting

Being a secret-sharing grandparent
BY LINDA AND RICHARD EYRE

ll of us grandparents are teachers in our hearts, and we have
things we want to share with our
grandchildren. But, how do we do it in a
way that interests them and grabs their
imagination?
When we asked ourselves this question, we knew that the key to success was
to come up with something relevant and
identifiable and to connect it to some kind
of mystery and some kind of reward.
We knew the things we wanted to teach
them-the legacies of insight that we
wanted to leave in their minds and hearts,
but we weren't sure how to get them interested or keep them interested.
As we often do, we resorted initially to
a bit of bribery. We couched it by telling
our three oldest grandkids, who were ten
or eleven at the time, that there were four secrets that
we wished we had known when we were their age.
The word " secret " got to them a little more than some
" lecture " or " advice " or " principle " , but we still needed
more- more intrigue and more motivation.
So, we found some rare South American stones
at a rock hound place-small polished rocks that we
know we're different than anything they had seen-
and we named them the " Secret Rocks. " Then, at a
22 GRAND

WINTER 2021

1. " Joy is the purpose of life and a
choice you can make every day.
2. " Most kids are waiting for someone to lead them, but they just don't
know it yet. "
3. " Blood is thicker than water, and
cousins are more important than
friends. We will always stay close to
each other, set a good example for each
other, and be there for each other. "
4. " Good popularity comes from
being nice to everyone, and it lasts. Bad
popularity comes from only being nice
to certain people, and it doesn't. "

family reunion, we had s special meeting with those
three grandkids and told them that if they could
memorize the four secrets we were about to tell
them-and if they could give at least one example
of how the secrets might play out in a real-life situation-we would give each of them one of the Secret
Rocks and that rubbing their soft, polished surfaces
during the school year ahead would remind them of
the secrets they had memorized.
Those four initial secrets were:

That first discussion we had together
about these first four secrets was priceless. In the open, unguarded words of
preadolescents, they talked about followers and leaders and about how hard it is to go
against the crowd but how good you feel when you
do. They thought of examples among their friends of
click-ish, " bad popularity. " They had thoughts about
how they could decide to be happy, even when
they were having a bad day. They talked about how
much they liked each other and how glad they were
that their parents were siblings and that they would
always be cousins.
Continued on next page

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GRAND Magazine- Winter 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine- Winter 2021