New Release – Grandparenting Teenagers
When grandchildren are young, a sweet treat or new toy is enough to inspire their unconditional adoration. And then your grandchildren grow up. Suddenly they are teenagers and it’s not so easy.
With our differences in musical tastes, technology, formative events . . . one could say we are from different worlds.
Where Two Worlds Meet starts with the teenage years, recognizing that your grandchildren are becoming independent beings. It’s an action-focused guide to stay connected and even deepen your relationship with your grandchildren as you both age.
Parents will love this book too, as it helps grandparents respect boundaries as the grandparent, not the parent, and teaches how to develop healthy interdependence. All these ideas work whether you are in the same city or connecting from afar.
Each chapter includes hands-on tactics to put learning into action. It’s peppered with letters from grandchildren of diverse ages and backgrounds, sharing personal stories about a grandparent’s impact on their lives.
Grandparents can have a transformative effect on their family when they unleash their creativity, share their skills, and give voice to the things they are passionate about. Creativity is about bringing your whole self, including your vulnerability, to the relationship with your grandchildren as you enter each other’s world.
ISBN 978-1-60808-272-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-60808-273-5 (eBook)
Grandparenting Teenagers
6 x 9, 180 pages
Publication date: June 21, 2022
This book is available in paperback and eBook format:
~~~~~
Jerry Witkovsky (MSW, University of Illinois) is a beloved mentor to thousands of individuals and generations of families, thanks to 47 years of professional leadership, eighteen of them as General Director of the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago. In 1995 he was named one of the city’s “Most Effective Non-Profit CEOs” by Crain’s Chicago Business Magazine. Since his 1997 retirement, Jerry has focused his considerable energies on grandparenting facilitation—helping multigenerational families work (and play) together to create a rich family life.
Jerry believes that grandparents, when they share their creativity, commitment, and things about which they are passionate, can transform their families. He’s made it his mission to get that message out to as many grandparents as possible. He has spearheaded a growing number of school-based programs designed to strengthen connections between grandparents and their teenaged grandchildren and strengthen school communities. He turned that program into an online curriculum called The Grandparent-Grandchild Connection School Program. He writes the Legacy Column for Grand Magazine, the publication for grandparents. He’s a regular speaker for grandparents in The Jewish Agency for Israel’s Global Intergenerational Initiative (G2) on “How to enter your grandchildren’s world.”
Most recently, Jerry partnered with JCC Chicago to launch “Grandparents Write Your Stories.” Over 400 grandparents from 22 states and Canada have registered to receive writing prompts twice a week for six-week sessions, to inspire stories for them to share with their families. “In my grandma’s kitchen. . . ,” “My favorite game growing up was . . . ,” even “Puberty was (insert adjective) because . . .” were among topics that let the decades disappear as grandparents and grandchildren could connect around similar milestones— a first doctor’s visit; a first car. Virtual panels allow grandparents in the program to get help and connect with one another along their writing journey.
Jerry asked JCC Chicago and Jewish Child & Family Services to work with him to create a series of panels for grandparents on how they can help their families in the face of school at home. A first panel offered help on having honest conversations within the family on what grandparents want to do, what thei adult children really need, and how to keep it all safe with COVID. Additional panels covered technology for long distance connection and academic and social development with remote learning. Jerry wants to remove barriers for grandparents to enjoy every possible opportunity to help their families, watch them thrive, and to deeply appreciate each other as individuals.
“Always leave your campsite better than you found it,” is Jerry’s motto for life. One, because camp is in his blood, starting from when he created a day camp for children of US Military personnel while stationed in Japan after WWII, to becoming a Boys Club camp counselor and ultimately director of JCC Chicago’s Camp Chi. Jerry believes each of us has an obligation to leave the world, our communities, our families, better for having been a part of it. For grandparents, that starts with unleashing their full potential, drawing on their creativity and things about which they are passionate, to have a deeply meaningful relationship across lifespan with their grandchildren and adult children.
—
Deanna Shoss (MA, DePaul University) is CEO of Intercultural Talk, Inc. She helps non-digital natives (aka didn’t grow up with technology) promote their businesses or life projects with digital, intercultural, and real-life marketing. She starts with strategy and know-how to help them adapt to new communication technologies. Shoss takes an intergenerational approach that combines online communication platforms like websites/blogs, social media, email and video with partnership and community building, diversity, equity, and inclusion best practices and events/promotions IRL (in real-life).
Previously Deanna enjoyed 11 years in City Government (she personally got the dinosaur at O’Hare International Airport through security), being past President of the League of Chicago Theatres, leading Public Relations for McDonald’s Owner/Operators of Eastern New England and directing marketing for Jewish Child & Family Services and JVS Chicago. Deanna writes for the National Diversity Council and is the Tech Columnist for Grand Magazine. She speaks Portuguese and is a certified Body Pump instructor.
While some may eschew an approach to relationships that draws on an academic framework, Shoss has seen how applying intercultural and intergenerational communication skills at home allows family members to understand and connect with one another more deeply. Perspective taking, curiosity, understanding that intent and impact do not always match, self-awareness, these are the tickets to closer relationships with loved ones. Deanna herself practices these skills daily as part of an interfaith, intercultural family. . . and in enjoying a close relationship with her mother.
Deanna recently launched a Facebook Live/YouTube Live show, Intercultural Spark, that features interviews with people about that spark within each of us that drives us to spark change in the world through your business and life projects.
