GRAND Magazine - November/December 2017 - 36

grandliving
ability to deal with and learn from setbacks because
they're rescued from ever facing them.
How Oversharing Holds Us Back from Living
GRAND Lives.
Let's ask ourselves why we're really capturing every
moment. Is it because we're feeding our online persona, rather than engaging and experiencing life in
the moment, fully being with our grandkids and drinking in the joy of these fleeting moments? Are we taking
too many pictures because we're attempting to save
the moments we're failing to fully embrace and enjoy
as they happen?
Could we be living vicariously through our children
and grandchildren? Are we oversharing their lives in
lieu of living and sharing our own vibrant experiences?

impact of how we share the intimate, loving joy of our
privileged family life.
How many of us have shared photos or messages
from our children and grandchildren, only to find they
were embarrassed and uncomfortable? Of course,
supporting our kids and grandkids is wonderful, but
there's a difference between fostering growth through
support (as Bob's parents and grandparents so generously did) and oversharing private moments that our
children and grandchildren might well want to keep
private and intimate.
Perhaps worse, with all this oversharing, we're creating online identities, labels and personality profiles for
our kids-way too early.
In a bizarre reaction to this oversharing, kids today
see over-involvement as the status quo. They're
36 GRAND

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2017

hypnotized into being grateful when grandparents and
parents hover close by because it's become the new
normal. They even expect it.
Unfortunately, learning to rely on omnipresent
parents and grandparents has led to many overly
dependent children who "fail to launch," a term we
never heard in our childhoods. Some universities are
so plagued by students' overdependence that they've
even developed extended family dorms. They don't
dare alienate the families on whom they depend.
Let's ask ourselves if we are unwittingly participating in today's children's arrested development and
delayed independence. Too many of them are accustomed to and expect someone to swoop in to save
them and cheer them on. They don't develop the grit
and coping strategies that lead to resilience and the

Are we taking too many pictures
because we're attempting to
save the moments we're failing
to fully embrace and enjoy as
they happen?

Click here to continue reading

Relationships experts, world-class
coaches, and best-selling authors,
Dr. Judith and Dr. Bob Wright
are co-founders of the Wright
Foundation for the Realization of
Human Potential and The Wright
Graduate University and authors of
The Heart of the Fight

http://www.amzn.to/2bJyzbG http://www.grandmagazine.com/2017/10/are-you-over-sharing-and-under-living/ http://www.thewrightfoundation.org/ http://www.thewrightfoundation.org/ http://www.thewrightfoundation.org/ http://www.heartofthefight.com/

GRAND Magazine - November/December 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine - November/December 2017