The Value of Wrinkles - Isabel Tom

Well, how can you help children value and connect with the older generation?

They have this superpower. They have a supernatural ability to bless the older people in their lives. And I think when they realize how important they are and how much of an impact they have, then they're more inclined to connect with their grandparents. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, Isabelle Thom helps parents learn how to teach their children to value and connect with older family members or friends. The title of our featured resource is her book, The Value of Wrinkles, a young perspective on how loving the old will change your life. You can find it at fivelovelanguages.com. Again, fivelovelanguages.com. And Gary, this is our second conversation with Isabelle about a topic that you and I both agree is one that is so needed in today's world.

Well, I think it is, Chris. I think often of the younger generation who are searching for wisdom in terms of how to live life and how to make an impact on life and all of this. And there are older adults all around them who have all kinds of wisdom, but the young people are not turning to them. And sometimes the older people will try to develop that relationship. So, you know, this book is going to help, I think, parents help their children relate to grandparents and other older adults that they trust.

So, yeah, I'm very excited about our conversation today. Well, let me introduce her. She is Isabelle Thom. She is passionate about serving the older adult population between growing up in an intergenerational household and working in the field of aging. Isabelle has more than 35 years of experience with older adults. Her grandparents, who lived until 98 and 102, had a profound impact on her life. Professionally, she has more than a decade of experience working with health care organizations. She and her husband Kevin have three children. And you can find out more about her and the featured resource at the website FiveLoveLanguages.com. It's Isabelle Thom's book, The Value of Wrinkles, a young perspective on how loving the old will change your life.

Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Isabelle, welcome back to Building Relationships. Thanks for having me.

I'm so excited to be here. Well, in our first conversation, which took place, as I remember, near the beginning of the pandemic, we talked about your personal story and how the book Chris mentioned is basically a love letter to your grandparents. But for those who didn't hear that conversation, tell us why you wrote this book, The Value of Wrinkles.

Sure. So, you know, The Value of Wrinkles is really my story of how I came to appreciate the role of older people in my life and specifically my grandparents. I grew up living with them up until the age of 26 and was highly involved in helping to care for them as they got older.

And I think you shared earlier that they lived to 98 and 102. And I think as a child, I didn't really appreciate the fact that I grew up living with my grandparents. But in serving the older adult generation professionally, God kind of changed my heart. Well, He really changed my heart and gave me an aha moment where, you know, when my grandma passed away, I was 35 and she was the last living grandparent that I had. And by that time she had become, I like to say, one of my best girlfriends. And I realized just how blessed I was to have had older people just encouraging me, feeding, you know, into me and just there for such a long time. You know, they really built me up to who I am today.

And I'm so blessed because of that. Yeah. Well, today we're going to get really practical with parents. You want to help parents in the how to of this process of helping their children connect with older adults, right?

Exactly. I think a lot of times, sometimes parents may just say, call your grandparents and talk to them. And then, you know, kids are just kind of stuck in this situation because they have nothing to talk about.

They, you know, don't know how to relate and then nothing really happens. And as parents, I think we can get really frustrated. So I just wanted to give more strategy and direction and guidance to parents. Well, as we begin our conversation, you say that there are three words that are really important as we consider this topic. Realize, understand and prompt. Unpack those briefly for us.

Sure. So I came up with these words, first of all, from looking back at why I decided to stay in the field of aging. You know, I was 21 when I first started at a local retirement community, my very first job.

And I was trying to figure out what made me stay there. And so these three words kind of come from, you know, my own experience. So the word realize, I really feel like we have to help our kids to realize that they have the superpower. They have a supernatural ability to bless the older people in their lives. And I think when they realize how important they are and how much of an impact they have, then they're more inclined to connect with their grandparents. When it comes to understanding, I think we really have to help our kids to understand, you know, their grandparents and what they're going through or just older people in general. And I think this helps, you know, kids to be less likely to withdraw and to be fearful of other older people and their grandparents and, you know, aging is hard. So a lot of times we see a lot of things and when kids see things, maybe we haven't answered all of their questions, but when we do, when we take the time to do that, then I believe that there is more of an appreciation for the older generation. And then finally, I say prompt because I think as parents, we can't expect our kids just to naturally appreciate older people. They are very different, you know, both generations. And so I really think that we need to prompt our kids, our children to create those opportunities for this amazing, you know, grandparent and grandchild relationship to grow. And there's a lot of different situations, right? That is some, some children and grandparents live in the same town. Some of them live 300 miles away. And during the pandemic, of course, there's been a lot of super challenges in that area. So even with all the different situations, we really, as parents, need to work diligently at trying to help our children connect in a realistic and meaningful way with grandparents, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that helps us to build a stronger relationship with our aging parents, because when they see that we are teaching our children how to love them and how to relate to them, and how to connect, then they see that, you know, we also care and, and that makes such a big difference. I have to ask you Isabel, the pandemic, you would think with the isolation, especially with the fear that comes, you know, you don't want to hurt your grandparent or your older person in your neighborhood.

So you need to keep your distance, you need to stand outside the window and wave that type of thing. You would think then the pandemic has created a deeper chasm of relationship. But has it done that? Has it, in some cases, forced people to use technology that they didn't, you know, really want to the older generation to get closer or what have you seen in the last year or so? Well, it definitely has had its challenges. But I think what I've seen that really makes me so excited is that it's forced us to relate in a different way. So for example, if we are used to just visiting our, you know, visiting grandparents with the grandkids and just having dinner together, well, that's not as possible anymore.

Over this past year, it wasn't. And so we've learned how to relate, you know, using technology or learning to talk about different things. It's just put us in a different place where we have had to adapt and learn new ways and get really creative. And I think it has strengthened a lot of relationships too. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times best seller "The 5 Love Languages" . To suggest this program to someone, go to five love languages dot com. You can share a link to our program there. You'll also see our featured resource by Isabelle Tom. The value of wrinkles, a young perspective on how loving the old will change your life.

Just go to five love languages dot com. Isabelle, some cultures seem to value intergenerational relationships more than others. Where are we in the United States with this issue? Well, I think we're starting to see the value in our generational relationships, but I do believe that we have a long way to go. I think there's a lot of potential out there, but I think, you know, I'm an Asian American who is also a Christian. And so I was brought up to really value my family and to see that as a responsibility and family includes, you know, the older generation includes my grandparents. But having grown up in America, I also see that, you know, there are so many different issues that are at hand that we're supposed to focus on from fitness and our health to mental health to our careers and poverty and politics and all of this.

And so I think sometimes we can get very distracted and we can focus on those things. But then we forget to ask the question, what about, you know, what about our own family? And sometimes we forget to look at our own family and see what difference we're making, you know, in the lives of our aging parents and our aging relatives. Yeah. Well, why do you think developing intergenerational relationships is so important and how is it beneficial to those who are in the middle, you know, the parents in the middle between the children and the grandparents?

I think I could go on and on. So I'm just going to give you a couple of things here. But I think as parents and for those of us who are in the middle, and you know, for me, I have been the grandchild, but now I'm a mom of three kids. And what I see is that when we really focus on developing intergenerational relationships, it takes a lot of that responsibility and that pressure off of us as parents to feel like we have to take care of everybody's needs. So, you know, we've we've heard, you know, people say that it takes a village to raise a child.

Well, I think that village needs to include grandparents and grandparents have this gift of time and they can give attention when we as parents can't. I mean, even this morning and this happens every single day, I have to tell my kids, you know, they're four, six and eight. I have to tell them not right now. I can't. I don't have time right now.

We can do this later. But grandparents, oh, man, you know, they are willing to sit there and just watch my four year old count to 100 again. And I need that. You know, I need to my kids to know that they are special, that they are valued. But as a parent, I can't do everything for them.

So I think, you know, that takes off a lot of the pressure. I think, you know, for our kids, we need them to be part of the village. We need to build a stronger village for our aging parents. And I think sometimes we think that as the adult child, we have to do everything. But as our parents get older, you know, if we can train our children, and like I said, my kids are four, six and eight right now, and I'm training them to be part of that village, you know, to care for and love on their grandparents because they have such strengths.

You know, they're cuter. They're a lot more enthusiastic than I am. They have energy, creativity, time.

And honestly, I think my parents, my mom and my mother-in-law, I think they like hearing from them more than they like hearing from me. So I think, you know, that responsibility of just trying to take care of everyone's needs, it doesn't have to, we don't have to feel so much pressure. And then I think ultimately, you know, we want to teach our kids how to relate to people who are different than themselves. And that's a relationship skill, not just, you know, with their grandparents, but a relationship skill that helps them to thrive as they get older, you know, in the workplace, you know, in relationships.

And this is like one of the best ways to teach it. I feel like I feel like God has given us our family for a reason, and both generations on both sides. Yeah, I've always felt there's an advantage if you happen to live close to the grandparents, you know, so that they can sit with the children and do things and we didn't have that opportunity. Because our grandchildren live two and a half hours away.

But Chris, you mentioned earlier technology. And I mean, this has been great, you know, for us through the years in relating to them. In fact, our granddaughter now is in college.

And every Sunday afternoon, she calls my wife, her grandmother, and just kind of shares with her, you know, what's been going on this week and what you're facing, you know, and Carolyn talks to her and encourages her, you know, and when I'm traveling in different places, or when I was traveling before the pandemic, I would take pictures of places where I, you know, I would send them to her and send them to her brother, and then get a little feedback. In fact, just this morning, she's a senior in college, and they were having honors convocation, and she won two honors. And I sat there for a whole hour online, you know, watching all this happen, and then sent her a little text and said, you know, I just watched you win two honors. I am so proud.

We are so proud of you, you know, and she wrote back and said, Ooh, I'm glad you got to watch. Yeah. So, you know, it's just, man, and I think grandparents really want this kind of relationship. And sometimes we have to work harder at it too. But if the parents of the children are on our side and trying to help them connect with us, we can do it whether we're living close together where we're living apart, right?

So true. And in your story that you just shared, that's like a success story. And I'm sure there's so many moments like that that happen that, you know, that make you so happy that you have this relationship with your granddaughter. And I'm sure your wife too is just elated to be able to talk to her every single time she calls.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, do these benefits apply only in the family, that is grandparents and grandchildren? Or are there benefits in other contexts and other settings for younger children reaching out to older adults? Well, I think there's definitely potential in all areas of our communities and our lives. And the first thing I think of is actually in the church because I'm a pastor's kid. And I don't know how often, you know, I don't even know if there's a book out there that talks about pastor's kids, but we all know if you're a pastor's kids that our tendency is to want to run away from God.

And so, you know, all throughout my life, that has been a struggle where I did not like being at church. And when I, you know, look back on my life and my faith, I realized that it was my grandma who, you know, has really brought me to love the Lord and has taught me how to live out my faith, you know, even when things get hard. So there's strength in the testimony of an older believer. And, you know, I'm part of community Bible study. And one of the things that I love, and I can't say I loved it in the beginning, I wanted to hang out with the other young moms, you know, but I have come to see that, you know, I want older believers.

I love having a group now with, you know, I have a lady who's in her 80s, 70s, 60s, all of that. And I love that because it gives me a different perspective. You know, it gives me a long-term perspective.

So I don't hyper-focus on certain things like, you know, your career, your prestige, your relationship status, your grades. It just gives you a different perspective. And I think in the church, we can really benefit from that.

Yeah, you know, I saw that just this past Sunday. My daughter and her husband and my son and his wife both came back for the weekend because we were having a little celebration of my anniversary at the church. And several of their Sunday school teachers through the years because they grew up in the same church, came up to them afterwards, you know, and wanted to talk with them because, and our kids remember them and so glad to see them again. You know, so even as from all the way from the, you know, three and four-year-olds all the way through high school, these older adults were having an impact on our children. And the church is, it's an easy place for that to happen. And if we have that vision and older adults understand, well, here's an opportunity for me to invest in the lives of some young people. Wow. That's a major role, I think, in the church.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, I'm part of the millennial generation and I think we don't want a superficial faith. So, you know, when I hear the testimony of somebody who has lived, you know, 80 years, you know, and they have turned away from God and then come back to God and they have questioned God and then they, you know, have come to see that God is faithful, you know, I think that really makes a huge difference. I think another thing is that it just gives younger people a real way to serve.

And I think sometimes in the church, we think that, you know, to be a strong Christian, we have to go overseas and to be a missionary. But there are 54 million older adults in the US alone. And, you know, we can start with our grandparents. We can start with older people in our churches and make such an impact. So how do we build stronger intergenerational relationships?

What are some of the elements of that? Well again, I'm going to go back to when I started working at the local retirement community. That was my first job straight out of college. And there are two things that I saw. One was the frequency of my interaction with older adults. So, you know, I was seeing them every day and I was living with my grandparents at the time in the same house.

We were in the room right next door to each other. And so there was frequency. I saw them often. And that really does help. So for children who, and even teenagers and young adults who live near grandparents or just have regular interaction with their grandparents, that gives them a realistic picture of what older adults are like.

And that's very helpful. But I think what the other component that's really important is that understanding and appreciation for the older generation. And I think that's where parents can step in because I think they can guide their children to helping them to understand older adults more, helping them to understand what the grandparent is going through. And a lot of times we can just get stuck into serving the older adult, to serving our grandparents. Go help your grandparent with this. But I think really focusing on getting to know them as a person. And we touched on this earlier, but you don't have to live close to grandparents in order for this to work, right? Absolutely not.

I think definitely if you are caring for the physical needs of an older person for a grandparent, then being local definitely does help. But I think, like I said before, COVID has forced us to find other ways to connect. And so now we're not falling into the habit of just visiting and bringing something or having dinner.

And that's all. I think we've gotten really creative. And during this time, actually, I've been thinking about "The 5 Love Languages" and just the ways that we can love on the older people in our lives differently. So, I mean, I don't know if it helps to give some examples, but for words of affirmation, well, first of all, I realized that my kids, they have different gifts and they are different and they have different love languages. So, when it comes to words of affirmation, there are some kids, and I have one in particular who's pretty chatty.

And so when she calls her grandparents or her grandmother, she can have a great conversation with them. And that's tons of fun. We've done letters, written letters, and done more snail mail than we ever did before.

And it goes along the lines of quality time too. So, a lot of our quality time with my mom and my mother-in-law have been spent asking questions about their history. So, that part has been really fun for us because this year is my first year homeschooling. So, we've asked a lot of questions about what type of house did you live in when you were my age? Or what were your favorite toys to play with?

Or where did you get your clothes from? And so, I could go along, you know, the whole thing. I don't know if that's helpful. But, you know, there's so many different ways that we can reach out and it doesn't require just being there in person. Yeah.

I like that. Gary, even the example that you gave of watching this, I mean, you were giving quality time to your granddaughter as you're watching and then words of affirmation, I just saw you. But it's almost like you can, I don't think we think about, okay, what's my grandparents or what are my parents' love languages? What speaks most to them and to run toward that?

Talk about that, Gary. Yeah, I think obviously it goes both ways. Grandparents want to feel loved by their grandchildren just as grandchildren want to feel loved by their grandparents. And if we discover the love language concepts as adults, you can teach that to children easily.

I mean, you know, they get the concept. Daddy has a love language. Mama has a love language.

Grandmother has a love language. And when we get, we put that in the mix, we're meeting a real basic need that all of us have. And that is to feel loved by the significant people in our lives. So yeah, I think this has a lot of application there. I think it can get very fun too. Even when I think about like gifts, kids love wrapping gifts.

And if they wrap just anything, I mean, they could take a paperclip and send it to their grandparents and they would be happy, right? So I think it can be so much fun. I think now that we have technology as part of the piece, you know, that could be an acts of service thing where a grandchild is teaching their grandparent, helping them to figure out zoom so they can participate in choir practice every week still. So it can get so fun and so creative.

Yeah. And depending on the child, you know, our granddaughter is really artistic. And so, I mean, when she was really very young, she would do paintings, you know, and give those to us just, you know, simple things that they're different developmental levels. So yeah, the whole thing of gift giving grandparents love to give gifts to grandchildren.

Okay. But grandchildren need to learn how to give gifts to the grandparents as well. So what are as a parent who's trying to help a child who's still in the home relate to grandparents?

What are the key components of fostering these these kind of relationships? I think one of the components is just to get away from that service project mentality and to realize that there are benefits, you know, this is a mutual thing. So, you know, we can serve your grandparents, but they also have so much to share with us. So a lot of times in our, in our culture, we just think of it as what can we do to help the older person?

So just to see it as a two way thing, I think that frequency piece that I mentioned before, just realizing that, you know, saying good morning, even if it's a 30 second conversation, and you do that every week, wow, what a difference that can make. And then just to remember that we as parents, we're like the playmakers, we're the connectors to bring the two generations together. And, and really, that's my goal to help parents to know how to do that.

Yeah. And you mentioned earlier, the whole concept of questions and teaching children how to ask questions, because they don't necessarily know what to ask, you know, they're in the process of developing their own vocabulary and everything else. But I think if parents can list a series of questions that you can ask your grandmother on this phone call or in this next visit, you know, and then come back and tell us what she said, you know, or what he said, that'd be another another component. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . We're talking with Isabel Tom today, author of The Value of Wrinkles, a young perspective on how loving the old will change your life.

Find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Isabel, we're talking about helping parents connect their children with grandparents and sometimes other trusted adults in their lives. Intentional. Is that a good word to describe what you're trying to do in this book?

Absolutely. I think we need to be intentional about it instead of just kind of throwing in grandparents and grandchildren in the same room and expecting them to be able to relate and connect on their own. So what do you see as some of the major challenges that parents face as they try to get their kids to appreciate and respect and honor and interact with their grandparents or with other older adults? Well, I think one of the biggest challenges that I see, one of the major challenges is first for the older adult, for the grandparent. I think a lot of times in our society as someone ages, they don't see their own value. And so they kind of withdraw and isolate themselves. And sometimes they may ask, you know, why does it even matter that I'm involved as a grandparent? So I think that's why parents need to be the playmakers, need to be the connectors because we want our parents to know how special they are and, you know, how much of an impact they can make. And so I think it's really easy for them to feel disconnected.

And I'm going to bring in your book, Screen Kids, because I did read that. And, you know, there are so many distractions out there that prevent our younger generation from being able to have relationships. Right. And obviously technology is a huge piece of that. So, you know, I think we have to we play a part in just helping to bridge that understanding. I think on the side of the, you know, the child or teenager or young adults, you know, the challenge is sometimes they really don't care. So to be honest, growing up in a multigenerational household, I was thinking about myself growing up, you know, I reaped the benefits of having my grandparents there to give me attention, but I wasn't really thinking about how I could reach out to them. You know, so I think there's this piece where parents, we can make this into a really beautiful relationship.

But like I said before, I don't think it happens naturally. And I think what we can do, for example, a lot of times grandparents may feel disconnected or, you know, they may look on their grandchildren and say, you know, they're always on their phone. But I think what we can do as parents is, is to make our children look good to their grandparents. That's true. Our kids have things that they need to work on and we are trying to help them to build character and things like that. But even saying things like, Johnny, the other day he was playing in a soccer game and you should have seen him, you know, he kept getting back up and he kept trying and he, you know, he finally was able to score a goal or, you know, he just gave his best and it was awesome. You know, so just highlighting and encouraging our kids at the same times to just build that relationship. No question about it. Technology is a challenge in this whole process.

You're right. Because some children, even if they go over to their grandparents, they're pulling out their phone and they're sitting there on the couch, you know, with their face in the screen and grandparents are saying, thinking, well, I thought they came over here that we could talk and we could play and we could. So I think grandparents and parents need to get together and kind of talk about, you know, what do we want to do when the kids come and not just let them sit around on the screen all the time, right? I think that's why we have to be intentional about it because then the fallback is to take out, you know, the iPad and let them watch something while you're at your grandparents' house. So yes, definitely being intentional and just realizing, you know, I think those stories that grandparents have, we have to kind of pull them out because they could come from when, you know, the older person was five, but they may not, they may have not have thought of that for a while, you know?

So really trying to pull out these stories and to help the older person just to see how much value they have, how many, how much experience they have to share. And, you know, it can be really exciting. You could probably make a movie out of every, you know, grandparents' life.

Yeah, I agree. There's so much there, you know, that, but they have to, you have to pull it out. You have to ask questions as both as parents and as grandchildren. I hear a lot of grandparents who are frustrated or feel neglected by their children and grandchildren. How can grandparents communicate some of that hurt in a constructive way rather than, you know, just coming across as condemning their children, their grown children? Yeah, I think that is, you know, you probably can speak on this better than I can, but I would say that, you know, I've noticed that sometimes the older person wants to spend time with their family. You know, they want that relationship, but a lot of times they may withdraw and they don't, they don't want to burden their family. So they don't say anything, but it can come out in different ways.

It can come out in frustration. Sometimes they just call, don't call because, you know, they don't want to bother them. But I would encourage the older person to just keep doing what you're doing, you know, keep calling and checking on your adult child and checking on your grandchildren, keep writing them letters, keep texting them. And, and I think it might be worth trying to be more direct because, you know, my kids are young and I'm trying to do all the things. I'm trying to handle so much responsibility sometimes. And sometimes it's hard to figure out the hidden message that, you know, our parents or aging parents want to spend time with us.

So, you know, sometimes we need somebody to be direct with us. My mom has said to, I have two older sisters and she has said before, I want to have dinner with you, like not with the kids around. So for her birthday, you know, my, it was three girls, her three girls, and then her, and we had dinner with her. And I think she really appreciated that undivided attention that sometimes she doesn't get because all of her grandchildren, she's got nine grandchildren and they're all running around. And this has been an important piece for her to communicate that to us, you know, my dad passed away six years ago. So even as she's grieving, that is one of the ways that we have been able to support her. But sometimes we just needed to hear from her because we didn't know what she needed.

We didn't know what she wanted. You know, when I hear grandparents say they have nine grandchildren or 15 grandchildren or 20 grandchildren, I'm asking myself, how in the world do you relate to 20 grandchildren? You know, we only have two. One of the things I've done with my grandson through the years is every summer I ask his mother if it's okay if I can take him on a trip somewhere. And sometimes it's just a day or two, sometimes it's a whole week we go somewhere. And we both have memories of that, you know, you're building memories. And then another thing we do is we take the initiative to, and many grandparents do this, I think, to have a vacation spot where we take the grandchildren with their parents on vacation for a week.

And we go to the beach, of course, here in North Carolina. And our grandchildren now say, you know, one of our best memories growing up is our week at the beach together. So building memories with them. But as grandparents, we can take initiative to, you know, at least throw out the ideas of things that maybe we'd like to do with our grandchildren.

Absolutely. I think that communication is just so important. So what are some specific things that parents can do to help their children value and connect with grandparents and other older adults? Well, when I think of helping them to realize what impact that they can have, and that they have a superpower, and I do use those words with my kids, I say, you have this superpower, you know, to bless your grandparents. When I'll just give you a story is when I was when my kids were, my older two were one and three, I had brought them to, I would bring them to a nursing home sometimes to visit an older friend that we had. And before, you know, we would be in the parking lot before we went in, I would tell my daughter, who was three, I would say, you know, all you have to do is to smile and to say hello. And I think when we just point out either what they're already doing that brings their grandparent joy, or what they can do, you know, all you have to do is smile and just say hello to them. You know, I think that gives them this, you know, energy to want to make a difference and to want to bless the older person in their life.

Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman and thanks for telling a friend about the program. Maybe you know someone who would benefit from our conversation, send them a link to FiveLoveLanguages.com. They can hear the program and see our featured resource, The Value of Wrinkles, a young perspective on how loving the old will change your life.

Just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Isabel, let's continue with what we were talking about in the last segment, and that is how parents can help their children, you know, reach out to honor and honor their grandparents and have a ministry in their lives. Talk a little further about that. Well, I think one of the key pieces that I often see that is missing when we're trying to, you know, help our children to appreciate their grandparents or appreciate older people is just helping them to understand what's going on. So I think this doesn't have to happen when they are with their grandparents. It can happen, you know, at home.

It's something that can happen daily. It's just to encourage them to ask those questions. So, you know, they may ask something like, you know, why is grandpa so angry? And then that gives you the opportunity to say, well, you know, sometimes when you're older, it can be hard because there are a lot of different things that are going on. And whether it's a sleep issue or the fact that maybe, you know, grandma just passed away and that was hard for him, you know, you have that opportunity to explain to them what's happening.

For me, when my grandma, when I lived with her, she would always pick through the trash and I got so frustrated because we couldn't throw anything away. Now, as a child, if somebody explained to me, you know, that she didn't have a lot when she was younger, that would, you know, kind of connect the dots for me and help me to understand them and not to judge it as, you know, oh man, grandma always does this. It just helps us to understand and value them more. So also that fear piece. So one time when we were visiting the nursing home again, when my daughter was three or four, we saw a man and he was sitting in a wheelchair and he had a hook as his hand.

And frankly, I was a little scared too because I had never seen anybody with a hook as a hand, but you know, I'm glad I ended up talking to him and he ended up explaining to us that, you know, his arm had been amputated and the hook actually allowed him, you know, to pick up things and do, you know, do different things that he needed to do throughout the day on his own independently. And so I think when we talk to our kids and we learn alongside with them, that really helps them not to be afraid. Teaching the children to ask questions can be really, really key.

How about this on the anger situation? What if a five-year-old, a six-year-old says to the grandfather, grandfather or whatever they call him, why are you so angry? Coming from a five-year-old, they may make him think, you know.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I've had situations where I've heard children say things that, you know, adults are not allowed, wouldn't be allowed to say to the older person. So they're, I like to say, you know, they can bless without baggage. There's so much grace in that relationship because we expect children to be immature.

We expect them not to know things. And, you know, it can make the grandparent laugh and I'm, I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, he used that story when he's talking to his friends or talking to somebody about how funny his grandchild was because their grandchild, his grandchild asked him, why are you so angry? Yeah, right. Now we've been talking more about the kind of younger children, but this does apply all the way through the teenage years, right? Oh, absolutely. You know, when I, that's actually the time when I, it kind of, I connected the dots and I realized, wow, I can have such an impact on, you know, my grandparents and in the older generation.

It was when I was in my twenties and I think, you know, teenagers and young adults, they are often really zealous to make a difference in the world. But then there comes a point where they may say, well, I can't drive. I don't have money. You know, I don't have a job.

I can't travel. My parents won't let me do anything. But in this context, right, they can, they can make such a difference right in their own families. If I could talk to every single youth group in the world, I would, but you know, even looking at the verse in first Timothy, first Timothy 5, 4, you know, it says, it talks about widows and it says, if she has grandchildren, you know, children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them.

This is something that pleases God. You know, I think that would help a teenager or a young adult or college age kids just to see, you know, that this might be an area or it is an area where we can really serve God and it doesn't have to require any of the things, you know, going overseas or anything. You know, we often call these parents who have children at home and have aging parents, we call them the sandwich generation. They're caught in between that. And sometimes they feel overwhelmed with all that they've got to do with their children. And then, you know, the needs of the of the older adults and the grandparents. What word of encouragement can you give to people who are really struggling with that pressure? Well, you know, when you're in the role of raising kids and then also caring and supporting for aging parents, and especially if you're aging parents, you know, have a lot of physical needs, that's all that is a lot, you know, but if God has blessed you with parents and children, then, you know, by helping to build those intergenerational relationships, then I think that's a gift that God has given to lighten your load, to, you know, to ease the pressure of all the responsibility in there. And, you know, when your kids may grumble, like I was saying when I was younger, I did grumble to my parents.

They may ask, you know, why do I have to do this? But, you know, they, as you teach them, as you guide them, as you help them to understand what's going on and prompt them, you know, they can help make caring for an aging parent so much easier. And I like to say that they're a secret weapon.

They are, they have that superpower. And when your parents, your aging parents, you know, when they feel valued, then you have built this trust that makes caring for them so much easier. And that's something that I've seen professionally. I've seen it in my own family, but I've seen it professionally in many other families, you know, that you build a stronger relationship and that just makes such a huge difference. And ultimately you are teaching your kids how you want to be cared for.

You know, this is a huge, this is a great investment. And that's what has happened in my family. You know, my dad passed away before my, my grandma did. So my grandma turned a hundred when my, you know, a month after my dad passed away and throughout my dad's cancer journey, my sisters and I, we really, you know, we took care of my grandma as a way to honor my dad. And he taught us how to do that.

And we took care of him as well. So there is a huge investment in trying to build those intergenerational relationships. Isabel, we talked earlier about prompting children, you know, trying to stimulate them to, to get involved with grandparents. Give us some additional ideas on that, how we do that and what kind of things we can do. Well, I think we can, you know, incentivize them if they're younger sometimes and that I wouldn't be afraid to do that. You know, for my kids, we have to, you know, play piano. We've got to do our Chinese homework and all these different things. And I add in there, call your grandparent. And sometimes, you know, that connection, um, it's just having them to build it into their daily routine. But I think also one of the fun ways that we can prompt them is again through story. So if my husband's going fishing with my son, he can say, you know, grandpa used to love fishing.

He was really good at it. You should, you should ask him about it and what types of fish he caught. Or even, you know, sharing things like when I was little, you know, I threw a lot of tantrums. You should ask grandma what she did when I cried all the time. Ask her what my consequence was, you know, and I think just bringing out, giving those opportunities for your parents to talk about their life and to share their stories can be a lot of fun. And I think our kids, they love hearing stories. And I think these are the things that in the long run they remember. I don't think they usually remember the things that we tell them, the things that we tell them to do, but I think they remember the stories and the lessons that are connected to them. You know, one of the things that I hear from grandparents at times is we feel a sense of responsibility to share our stories. But when we get those books that you're supposed to fill out, we're overwhelmed. You know, it just takes a lot of time.

And I get tired doing that. And I wonder if it can't be the grandkids that come in. Okay, you dictate to me and I'll type this out or I'll write this out for you so that it's a communal thing. Isabel, what do you think of that? Oh yeah, I've heard great stories about that. You know, even my mom has shared, you know, our parents, they want to leave a legacy for their grandchildren. And so recording it is one of the best ways to bless them.

So, you know, if you're homeschooling your kids, make this a project. I have, you know, a friend that I met that she's almost, she was almost 40, so she has a mom and she wrote a two page biography for her grandfather and then she saw him light up. She didn't have a great relationship before, but then when she saw her grandfather light up, she decided she was going to make this into a longer biography. So she ended up writing something called the slices of life.

It ended up being almost 20 pages. And she said that when she gave it to him, you know, he didn't say very much, but she said he was emotional and he was really appreciative of that. So I think that is one way that we can really honor our loved ones by helping them to record it for them, using our fast typing or technology skills to do all of that. And what a blessing that can be.

Well, these are great ideas. Isabel, thank you for being with us today. Thank you for taking time to write this book. I know it's going to help a lot of parents and consequently influence children and grandparents. So thanks for being with us today.

And I pray that God will use this book in a really powerful way. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

It's been fun. Mom and Dad, if you want to take to this task now and the challenge that Isabel Tom has given us, one way that you can do that is to read the book, The Value of Wrinkles, a Young Perspective on How Loving the Old Will Change Your Life. We have it linked at the website FiveLoveLanguages.com.

Just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, more help for parents who want to raise relationally healthy children. Dr. John Trent and Dr. Dewey Wilson will join us in one week. A big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, as a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry at Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.