When is the last time you spent 12 hours non-stop and still had energy to spare?  Yesterday?  Ten years ago?

Our age esteem soars when we are full of energy and vitality.   We feel good about ourselves when our energy seems boundless.  We are happier and healthier.

On my hour drive home from playing with my two little granddaughters ages 2 and 4 for ten hours – after my early morning drive to their home – I was still bubbling with energy.  I felt exuberant.

Why would I feel energized after such a long day?  One reason is that I did not babysit.  Instead, I played!   We spent the whole day having fun, doing what we enjoyed.  It was a powerful lesson on how to put more energy into your age esteem.

• Build into your day activities that you enjoy.  Roll in the grass.
• Find ways to make activities that you must do enjoyable.   Sing to your spinach.
• Change activities when your attention span tires and move onto something else.  Make cookies and then paint or draw.
• Move and use all parts of your body.  Dance with abandon.
• Create a balance between quiet activities and active ones.  Read a book and then play tag.
• Take a break in your day to nap or meditate.  Go to sleep after lunch.
• Drink often and have a small snack in the morning and again in the afternoon.
• Laugh with abandon.
• Hug others as often as possible.  This includes animals and stuffed toys.

If you practice the above you will put more energy into your age esteem and feel happier and healthier.  Enjoy!

Bonnie Fatio

Bonnie Across-generations, Grandparenting, Happiness at Every Age, Secrets to AgeEsteem age-esteem, Bonnie Fatio, feel energized, feel happier and healthier, put more energy into your age esteem

A friend of mine was pretending with her grandchild that they were at the grocery store.  My friend was the check out clerk and her grandchild was purchasing articles of food.  As the child brought them to her, my friend pretended to hit the keys on the cash register.  “What are you doing?” asked the child.  When my friend tried to explain, her grandchild said, “But Grandma, you do it like this”! and proceeded to scan each item with her hand.

Recently our 3 year old granddaughter received a little grocery store for her birthday, complete with an old fashioned cash register and scale to weigh fruit.  It also came with a credit card!  Modern?  Yes.  But how can a brand like Hello Kitty be so age inappropriate?  Whether a child is 3 or 8, how are they going to learn the importance of having the funds to pay for purchases if they learn that a plastic card is the same as money?

With the credit card debts at $775 billion in the US, and the equivalency of US$ 87.5 billion in the UK, $73.9 billion in Canada, and $40.4 in Australia (USA Today, Dec. 09) we would do better to have games that teach financial literacy to children.  We need to raise them to understand that money still represents compensation for an effort made or service rendered.

Do you offer age appropriate games?

• Look at the recommended age on the toy.  Companies have researched these ages.
• Play with your grandchild so she understands the game or toy, and you can see how she develops.
• Ask to see what is in the box so you can remove anything that is not age appropriate like the credit card in the grocery store package.
• Most bookstores have specialists in the children’s section.  Seek their advice.
• It is always age appropriate to make a photo book of the child, with or without text.

Remember.  It is never too early for age-esteem.  Age appropriate toys help foster age-esteem.

Bonnie Grandparenting, Personal Finance age appropriate, age appropriate games, age-esteem, credit card, Hello Kitty, USA Today

As grandparents we try hard not to spoil our grandchildren with “things”.  Instead, we offer them endless unconditional love, educational experiences, happy memories filled with fun and adventure.   As much as we laugh together and play together, we remain their grandparents.  This is important for their age esteem as much as it is for ours.

Recent studies at Yale University, USA and the National Institute on Aging in the USA show that the attitude that children have towards aging influences how they feel about age when they become older.  This means that our attitude towards our own age is an important factor for our little ones later in their lives as well as today.

In order to offer unconditional love to our grandchildren, we must love ourselves unconditionally.  This indicates that we love ourselves at the age we are and celebrate ourselves as well as our grandchildren.   Children feel this sincerity and what we get in return are

• lopsided hugs and sticky kisses,
• pet names that only a child could chose,
• questions and statements that melt our hearts,
• a chance to rediscover life through new eyes, and
• the privilege of knowing we are important in very unique and important ways to our grandchildren.

Age esteem is the perfect gift for every occasion.

Bonnie Across-generations, Grandparenting, Happiness at Every Age age-esteem, attitude, celebrate, grandchildren, grandparents, National Institute on Aging, perfect gift, unconditional love, Yale

For the last two years I have dyed Easter eggs with our granddaughter, Jessica.  Jessica is now almost three, so it was especially enjoyable dying eggs together this year.  It was so much fun that when I saw her last week she announced, “I want to color eggs today.”

As I opened my mouth to explain that we only color eggs for Easter, I abruptly closed it.  Why shouldn’t we paint eggs at other times of the year?   It is a good example of how we place limits on ourselves and nip creativity and an open mind.  Here I was about to instill a limit on the same child who I want to become confident, setting her sights high knowing that she can do anything she sets her mind to.

It shook me up.  Am I also influencing her age-esteem?

Our AgeEsteem is greatly influenced by limiting thoughts.  Examples abound with messages bombarding us showing us that youth is associated with opportunities  and age with obstacles.  Youth is freedom, age is a burden.  These limiting concepts are cemented into our minds. -  Even though we know these messages are not true.   Who says we shouldn’t travel alone, drive a race car, climb mountains, start a new business…?

Break down your personal limiting barriers.

• Listen to yourself when you speak out loud and to your thoughts.
• Filter your messages.  Are they limiting what you think can be done?
• Ask yourself why you think this way.  Has someone fed you this message often so you now believe it?
• Make a list of these limiting beliefs.
• Act on them.  Just do what you have previously limited yourself to believe you could or should not do.

My granddaughter and I will color eggs again next week.  Sometimes changing a limiting belief  is as simple as that!

Bonnie Grandparenting, Secrets to AgeEsteem age-esteem, AgeEsteem, creativity, Easter, limited thinking, limiting belief, open mind, tradition

Are you a good listener?

Grandparents play an important role as listeners for their grandchildren.  Studies show that an activity with their grandparents most often mentioned by adolescents  is discussing what is on their mind.  Apparently we grandparents are good listeners.  -  But do we listen well enough to the non-verbal as well as the verbal?

At a presentation during a Commission on the Status of Women parallel session last week I heard a 13 year old girl explain that she had been sexually abused for seven years.   The abuser was a family member as is often the case.   She could not bring herself to tell her own mother.   She had no one to confide in.  She explained to us that it was easier for her to now tell us, the audience, than it had been to tell her mother.

No child should experience abuse and no child should have to carry the burden alone, having no one to confide in.

Would you have guessed that something was wrong  if this girl had been your grandchild?  To be truly good listeners for our grandchildren, we need to:

• Love our grandchildren unconditionally; let them know we love them  and will stand by them no matter what happens.
• Really listen to what they say and discuss without judgment.
• Listen actively: nod our head; ask questions that show interest; repeat what the child says; say “hmm” or “I see”.
• Tune into what is not verbally expressed, the child’s body language.   We may even copy her gestures.  Are they congruent with what he says?
• With smaller children, play dolls or stuffed animals with them.   Be conscious of what they are saying as they act and talk with their dolls.
• Remember that good listening and encouragement to share their own thoughts and concerns helps to build your grandchildren’s age-esteem.

Bonnie Across-generations, Grandparenting abuser, age-esteem, grandparents, listeners, sexually abused

The average age of a first time grandparent in North America today is 48.

With today’s life expectancy being  78 in North America, (as opposed to 81.5 in Iceland and 41 in Zimbabwe) many of us may have 30 years or more of grandparenting ahead of us.   So  the question of how we want to fill the role of grandparent becomes an important one.

This is especially true since as today’s grandparents we are likely to be more educated than previous generations and also be active, self-confident with age-esteem and more globally aware.  We still have places to see and dreams to live.  Grand-parenting is just one role among many.

Bonnie Grandparenting, Life Stages - Ages age-esteem, globally aware, grandparents, North America, self-confident