12 ways grandparents can be everyday mentors

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12 ways grandparents can be everyday mentors

grandparents as mentors

January is National Mentoring Month. The National Mentoring Month website provides oodles of information and plenty of reasons why mentoring matters, noting that — to name just a few — kids with mentors:

  • have better school attendance, better attitudes about school and a better chance of going on to higher education;
  • are 46 percent less likely than their peers to start using illegal drugs and 27 percent less likely to start drinking...
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40 Things to do when visiting your grandchild's house

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40 Things to do when visiting your grandchild's house
Jim and I chatted with our grandsons via FaceTime the other night, and one thing I mentioned to Bubby and Mac was that they should come up with some ideas for fun things to do when PawDad and I visit them next month.

 40 things to do when visiting grandchildren


As I don’t want to leave the boys fully in charge of the agenda for our visit, I set out to make a list of options myself. I first considered perusing...
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Growing boys

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My grandsons continue to grow and mature in ways that continually astonish me. This past week, Megan provided proof of the rapid rate of growth for both Bubby and Mac.

Bubby — who is age 5, remember — made a to-do list of all he hopes to accomplish during his Christmas break from kindergarten:

child's to do list

Translation, per Megan...

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Grandma's secret revealed

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I told you not long ago about a group I belong to, a group that has a secret. Today I'll come clean, for I've finally been given permission to do so.

boy telling secret

That group I belong to — that one in which all members agreed we'd keep the secret a secret but I'm the only one who didn't tell a single soul — is my immediate family. We were all sworn to secrecy...

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What being a grandma looks like in my world

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Those of us with grandchildren all share the same title: grandparent. Though we share the title, what being a grandma or grandpa really looks like for each of us is, like the names our grandchildren call us, unique and crafted to fit our individual worlds.

Here is what being a grandma looks like in my world:

toddler in mom's bootsMac wears Mommy's boots.I'm known as Gramma to my only two grandchildren, Bubby, age 5, and Mac, age 2. One of the top defining traits of my grandma experience is...

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