GRAND Magazine - July/August 2019 - 22

grandparenting

Giving grandchildren grit- the surprising key
BY LINDA AND RICHARD EYRE

D

o you sometimes wonder what will happen to this next generation of children,
which includes our grandchildren? Sometimes it seems that they want
"everything" and want it "now" and refuse to wait for it or work for it!
And parents are sometimes not helping. Psychologists now talk about "Snowplow
Parents," who go ahead of their children, clearing the way of any obstacles that may
lie in their paths or make life hard for them. Kids are getting snared in what we call
"The Entitlement Trap." *

"

It turns out that the amount of grit a
child has is directly connected
to how much he knows
about his family narrative...

"

As we contemplate how different our grandchildren's
lives are from ours as we grew up we may wonder, "How
are they going to develop resilience when the going gets
tough? What can we do to give them some good oldfashioned grit?"
The key to giving children grit is a little
counterintuitive-something most of us would not have
thought of. It turns out that the amount of grit a child
has is directly connected to how much he knows about
his family narrative--about the lives and stories of his
parents, grandparents and ancestors.
Bruce Feiler, an acquaintance and one of our favorite
authors, explains this in a New York Times column from
22 GRAND

JULY-AUG 2019

March 15, 2013 titled The Stories that Bind Us. What we learned from the article is that
our children and grandchildren who have a strong sense of their family narrative not
only develop a strong sense of belonging and identity, they become more resilient-
they have more grit!
Of the research leading up to this, Mr. Feiler writes, "A surprising theme emerged.
The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all:
develop a family narrative." He
explains how researchers Dr.
Marshall Duke and a colleague
Dr. Robyn Fivush, created a "Do
You Know" list of 20 questions
for children to investigate what
they know about their families.
The survey included simple
questions like, "Do you know
how your parents met? Do you
know where your grandparents
grew up? Do you know some of
the jobs that your parents had
when they were young?

"

So, it is knowing
where they came
from that can give
our grandkids
resilience and grit.
Continued on next page


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GRAND Magazine - July/August 2019

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