This week's episode is our monthly one-on-one conversation. For our discussion, I have chosen to share a few questions and topics I recently had from grandparents. The first question concerns spoiling the grandchildren. Our second topic is the importance of knowing basic first aid and CPR, primarily pediatric CPR. The third topic is creating an enjoyable connection with the grandchildren as a Long-Distance Grandparent during Thanksgiving and the Holidays when you can not be there in person.
I also share my thoughts about how we, as grandfathers, can help our grandchildren connect with the veterans in our families and honor veterans, both living and deceased, in our community.
Links
Here is the link to Dr. Kerry Byrne's The Long Distance Grandparent: https://thelongdistancegrandparent.com/
Click on this link to investigate More Than Grand: https://www.morethangrand.com/
Welcome in to the cool grandpa podcast. This is the podcast where we talk to grandfathers, adult grandchildren, and experts in areas of importance to grandfathers. Whether you're a new grandfather, a seasoned pro, or somebody interested in learning about relationships, this is the place for you. So come on in, join us as we learn together, laugh together, and support each other on the cool grandpa podcast. Welcome in to the cool grandpa podcast. I'm your host, Greg Payne. I'm happy to have you here with me for this first of the month episode, which I always like to call our one-on-one conversations. This week, what we're going to do is go over some tips. And I'm going to answer some questions that have popped up on some of the Facebook groups that I'm a member of, as well as some topics that I've been talking to other people in my network about. So I think we're going to hit on probably three to five different topics. I know that talking with other grandparents, these ideas are not unique for just myself or for other people, but I know grandparents are talking about some of these things. So for those watching on YouTube, you'll notice I've got my Dodger cap on. It's time for Dodger baseball. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in a struggle against the evil empire, which is the New York Yankees. So go Dodgers. I hope we can close out the series. As of the recording, the Dodgers are up three games to one. I really hope we can close this thing out in New York. I don't want to give any team a chance for a big comeback and for the momentum to switch. So I'm cheering hard for my Dodgers. And I know this is a great time of year two for anybody that's baseball fans. And so hopefully it's also a great way to connect with grandsons and granddaughters, your sons and daughters, and your friends around baseball. I mean, this is a great opportunity to sit there and either, you know, give each other the business if you happen to have Yankee fans or, you know, as I receive from those Yankee fans, a little bit of smack-tock coming back my direction, especially after I lost the last night. So it's one of those things that's to me starts to fall into the fall traditions. And one of the big fall traditions that ends up happening in that people are oftentimes just encouraged about, right, is being there for everybody around Thanksgiving, everybody there for Christmas and the other holidays that happen at the end of the year. And for those of us that are long-distance grandparents, this can be a little tricky. Sometimes we get to go for one holiday and not the other ones. Sometimes we end up just missing having grandkids come and be with us or us being with them if we're traveling to their locations. And what are the things that I like to talk about with grandparents is the ability to use this technology that we have. Nothing replaces having little kids or teenagers, you know, running around playing soccer on Thanksgiving before the big, you know, feasting that goes on, watching the cowboys and whoever play or Detroit and whoever play, you know, some of these traditions, you just can't beat when you're away from folks. But I think as long-distance grandparents, what we can do is use some of the tools that we have at hand. So here are some tips and some of this I definitely get from Dr. Kerry Byrne from the long-distance grandparent. And what she is helping people do is really make sure that they have these connections. So let me jump into kind of my thoughts on this. Number one is make sure you send cards, you know, and grandfathers, make sure that your signature is in that card. Don't just leave it up to grandma to sign, you know, love grandma, love grandpa. Make sure your signature is there because having your handwriting and having your sample of handwriting is something that is actually noticed and is appreciated, especially amongst some of the older grandchildren that we have. The other thing too is make sure you talk to the parents before you send off treat bags, before you send off a big presence, before you do any of that stuff, kind of run up by the parents. See what their thoughts are on some of the stuff. There's parents out there that might want to really tone down the sugary snacks that kids get, which is is fine. I think for Halloween we've sent out gift bags that have like the, you know, the old gumball machine like spider rings and and skulls on rings and all the plastic stuff and some of that and have toned down a little bit of the sugary snacks. But that's in just talking with our sons and our daughter-in-laws about, you know, what do the grandkids want and then what do the parents want us to send them? The other thing to be careful of if you're a long-distance grandparent is feeling like you need to send a lot of presents and a lot of stuff to the grandkids because you probably don't. I know one of the ways that we tend to try to mitigate some of the grief, some of the thoughts of missing out with being with grandkids, is by going overboard with the gift-giving, right? If you're walking through stores, you're seeing things online and your heart and your thoughts are with the grandkids and you're like, "Oh, I bet you would love this and I bet he would love that and we want to get this." And the next thing you know, the kids are getting so much stuff that moms and dads are going to have to really manage those things. And we also, I think, as grandparents and it feels weird saying this, we don't want to compete with the kids, right? I mean moms and dads are the ones that should be, if you have to say anything, winning the holidays. And I don't like that term but I don't know what else to say. I mean I want my sons, I want my daughter-in-laws to be the ones where the grandkids are over the moon with maybe some of the gifts that they might receive from mom and dad. Now that doesn't mean I don't want to get them anything good. That doesn't mean I don't want to spoil them but I want to be measured about it. I want the kids and the grandkids to be over the moon with whatever it is I get them. But it's, I don't want to overdo it. I don't want to overshadow the hard work, the effort, the thoughts that my adult sons and daughter-in-laws are going through. So, a couple of things to keep in mind. The other thing too that I did last year that seemed to be a big hit was, so I was using the program Zoom but other video programs have different filters they can do different backgrounds. And what we did when we were talking to the grandkids last year around Christmas time is I had three or four different backgrounds of Christmas scenes, right? Of Santa's workshop, you know, trees all decorated, different things like that. And so during the conversation and these were grandkids that were five and under, I would switch up that background every once in a while. And so what that did was it really kept the conversation fresh because when the grandkids would see a new background, we could talk a little bit like, "Oh, hey, where's the reindeer? Where's the presents? Where's this? Where's that? What's going on?" And then we would talk a little bit more and visit with them a little bit more and then we would change the background again and it would be something else that we could play like almost a little bit of an eye spy. But it kept the grandkids engaged a little bit longer than maybe the two to three minutes that you might reasonably expect for really young grandkids. The other thing when it comes to videos, video chatting, is recording those. So again, with Zoom and I think some of the other video applications that you use, I don't know if you use Teams or whatever, you can record some of these conversations and then you've got that recording that you can put in your archives. You know, I've got the recording from last year. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. But it may be something there that during the holidays, I might want to pull up and watch and just kind of reminisce. And then also maybe a few years down the road call the grandkids in when they're in their tween state and go, "By the way, here's some pictures of you and here's some of the things that you are doing." And so that might be something fun for us to look at and have that digital memory. The next thing that has been coming up recently was talking about what we do and when we go for on-site visits. And whether you're a long distance grandparent or you're just somebody that lives in the neighborhood and you're watching the kids, one thing that I want to really encourage the grandparents to do is get some basic first aid training. Okay? And some of that basic first aid training is also going to include CPR. If you haven't done CPR training for a long time and you may have been a lifeguard when you were 16 years old and you took CPR, not a lot changed since you've taken that, but it's good to do a refresh. And when you have grandkids, especially young grandkids, it's good to go ahead and get that certification for pediatric CPR. If you haven't done that before and when you're working on those small CPR training dummies that they have for infants, you know, you got to get in practice of at what stage do you do what version of CPR and then with infants, how do you do like just two finger compressions? How do you make that work if there was an emergency? The other thing too is first aid, sometimes there's new products, new things out there that you just want to make sure that you're aware of. I mean bumps and bruises and booboos and stuff like that really hasn't changed. It's clean it out, put a band-aid on it, put some compression on it if you've got a little bit of bleeding, maybe even put some ice on it to help stop some of the bleeding. But there's some things to do and some different ways to do them that have evolved maybe since we were in our teenage years or our twenties or whenever maybe we've had CPR and first aid training before. So I would have it as a way to make you feel comfortable, make you feel prepared should something happen while the grandkids are staying with you or while you're watching the grandkids at your children's house. And that way everybody's just comfortable that if a situation comes up and you're making that 911 call that you have a plan in place, you've seen this before at least, you've worked through a scenario similar to what you might be experiencing and you can keep a cool head and do some first aid until help arrives. So again that was one of the things where somebody was talking to me about how to make their adult children more comfortable when they go to visit or when they're watching the grandkids or when they're doing some of these activities with grandkids. And the first thing that jumped in my mind is it's the old Boy Scout thing, it's be prepared and it's being able to have a little bit of an ouch pouch that you carry in your car for bumps and bruises, it's having that first aid training. So it's something that as you go through it, it'll be great to communicate with the with the adult children about like oh hey I didn't know this is kind of the new method, this is the new thinking about this particular item. The next thing I want to talk about too is this idea of spoiling the grandkids. I think both dating more from more than grand and myself along with other people are in the camp of spoiling is not necessarily a good thing, especially with young kids. And what I mean by spoiling is the point of treats, the overdoing of gifts, the overdoing of some of our signaling of affection. And I understand that from a grand parenting perspective and a grandfather perspective, a lot of times spoiling for us with the grandkids is our way of showing affection for them. We're not with them most of the time day in and day out. A lot of times we may only see them once a year or a couple of times a year and a way for us to try to signal that we care for somebody is by getting stuff and doing stuff. When you're gone on a long business trip, sometimes you'll come back with items that you purchased. And you may have had a chance to go to a fancy department store when that was still a thing and get items to bring back to show the affection, to show that you were thinking of that person while you were gone. And it could be a spouse or it could be your children, whatever. I've even experienced that for a little league. Having a coach that had a business trip and went somewhere and then came back and brought a bunch of stuff that was related to little league stuff. And that was really cool. So remember when you get tempted to go in and just keep doing special treat after special treat after special treat, you might want to ask yourself like where is this really coming from? Is this coming from a place of the grandkids really don't get any of this kind of attention? Or is it coming from a place within you where you're feeling like you're not providing for them and you're missing out and it's a way of almost expressing grief through spoiling the grandkids? I would also say too is ask the parents. When you have a grandchild come to visit you or you're going to visit the grandkids and you're going to be spending the day together, ask them a little bit about, hey, do you guys mind if I do this, this and this and this? I mean, that could be a day of spoiling, but it could also be when you ask permission that you get the thumbs up. It's looked at as spoiling, but then it's also looked at like, oh, they're going to have a great memory with grandma and grandpa because they went to iHop for breakfast and then they went to the amusement park and they had cotton candy and they rode the rides and they did all these things and then at night they went over and they did a special trip to the ice cream store and got a two scoop sunday. Whatever that might be, all of that might be spoiling, but it could also be a way to when you're communicating with the parents as a way of having like, this was like the best day of their five-year-old lives. So it's something to think about and then also, like I said, just if you're feeling the urge to really go overboard and you want to do something extra ordinary, beyond a two scoop sunday after lunch, ask the parents, get on the same level as what they're expecting. The next thing I want to talk to you about and this is coming up in another week is Veterans Day. So I've talked with grandparents that are a bit concerned about grandkids and people in general just taking Veterans Day even Memorial Day for granted. And I think in the United States, Veterans Day is a little bit of a weird holiday and what I mean by that is it's not a holiday that typically anybody besides banks and government get off. Veterans Day for us is Remembrance Day for most of the other parts of the world. It's the signaling of the end of World War One. And so that's where Remembrance Day comes in for some of the other countries. For us, it's a day to recognize anybody that's put on the uniform. It's a way for us to recognize. I would even include the moms and dads that let sons and daughters go and serve and went through that sacrifice and spouses and even the kids from people that put on that uniform. So one of the great things that I love with living here in Georgia is that so many of the small towns put up crosses or stars of David for soldiers that have gone off and have served their country. Not everybody that has a marker put up dies. Some of those folks are just folks that are served. And these typically come out Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veterans Day in a great way that we can help our grandchildren understand and I think show respect for veterans is by talking about any relatives that we might have had that had served. What were their stories? What did they do? What did they sacrifice? What did they go through? The other part of that too is to be proactive and maybe spend the weekend before like this week or this year, Veterans Day is on a Monday. So we would be talking that 9th and 10th, Saturday, Sunday, leading into it. Maybe it's a way for you and your grandchildren to go visit the local national cemetery and see if you can volunteer. Again, Veterans Day is different from Memorial Day so we want to make sure that we maintain that distinction. But it could be a way to go clean up graves. Good to do a little bit of service at graves could be a way to help out. The other way to help out would be if local VFWs are doing an activity. Maybe you can go serve and dish up hot dogs and hamburgers and baked beans and give some meals for folks that are coming out that have served their country. But it would be a great way for grandparents to have that connection with their grandchildren by sharing stories of people within the family who have served and then being able to find a way to go out and actively participate around this time and during that day so that as we get further further away from World War II and Korea and even Vietnam, some of the, I think, the cultural impact of remembering those veterans starts to lessen a little bit. And that's no disrespect for the people that fought and painted on in Iraq, Afghanistan, War on Terror, Desert Storm, Desert Shield, all that kind of stuff. It's just those were different from, I think, how we remember, how we grew up with grandfathers that had been in World War II and Korea and Vietnam. And so I think finding ways to connect with grandkids that way and be of service is something that would be an awesome experience and a way to bond. So I hope these topics and these thoughts on these topics have been helpful. I'm going to put a couple links into the show notes that will be for the long distance grandparent and for the more than grand so that you can check out those sites and get more ideas about how grandparents, especially new grandparents, can be supportive of grandchildren and of the parents. And then also, too, look for a special episode coming up next Friday. Sorry, I had to think about where everything was calendar-wise. Next Friday, I'm talking with an individual who has dedicated a lot of his time and a lot of his life to talking with World War II vets from New York City and in that area around New York City. So that'll be a fun conversation. Look forward to that next week. And if you have any comments, any questions, anything you want my two cents about, be sure to shoot me an email or leave me a comment on this episode and I'll be happy to get back to you on that. So, until next time, remember to stay cool. Thank you for listening to the Cool Grandpa Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do me a favor and share it with a friend. That's the best way you can help us to expand our community as well as get the news out about how valuable grandpas are in the lives of those kids. If you'd like to leave me a comment or shoot me a potential topic for this podcast, please go to www.cool-grandpa.us. Look for the comments tab, fill it out, hit submit, it's as easy as that. Until next time, remember to stay cool.
