Episode 231: How to Foster Strong Relationships Between Kids and Elders with Isabel Tom
/In this week’s episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, I’m so excited to dive into a topic that’s very close to my heart: how to build strong, lasting connections between our kids and the elders in their lives, whether that’s grandparents or other important older adults. To guide this conversation, I’m joined by Isabel Tom, a mom, author, and advocate for strengthening family ties across generations. She wrote a beautiful book called The Value of Wrinkles, which inspired this discussion.
Here are some of the topics we covered in this episode:
Importance of meaningful relationships between kids and elders
Importance and challenges of growing up in a multi-generational family and modeling elder relationships
Navigating unresolved parent-child issues while fostering healthy grandparent-grandchild relationships
Parenting differently while managing boundaries with grandparents
Understanding and compassionately navigating relationships with emotionally distant or “checked out” grandparents by recognizing their life stage, losses, and needs
Resources:
If you found this episode meaningful, visit Isabel’s website at valueofwrinkles.com and follow her on Instagram @isabelctom and Facebook @thevalueofwrinkles.
Remember, helping kids connect with elders builds empathy, honors family stories, and deepens lifelong bonds.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Dr. Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent podcast, we are going to be diving into how to build a really strong and lasting connection between our kids and their elders, their grandparents, or other important elders in their lives. I think that this is such a beautiful topic and I'm so excited to be diving into it with you. to help me with this conversation, I have Isabel Tom. She wrote a sweet book called The Value of Wrinkles and has really made it her mission to help kids see the value in the elders and their lives. So Isabel, thank you so much for coming on the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Isabel: Hi Laura. So thanks for having me on the show. So I'm a mom of 3 kids. I'm a wife of a teacher, and I am the author of a book called The Value of Wrinkles: A Young Perspective on How loving the Old Will Change Your Life. I also created something called the Grandkid Investigator Kit, and I just have a passion for helping families to connect with their elders. I grew up in a multi-generational household and have worked in the field of senior care, so. I have a lot to talk about on this topic.
Laura: So tell me a little bit, just to start off, why you think it's so important for kids to have a relationship, a connection, and a meaningful connection with the elders in their lives.
Isabel: I have so many things to say about this, but I think maybe. So I think as kids, kids have a certain perspective about life and I think it's very short term. So maybe they're thinking about how they can get candy after school or what they can buy on Amazon next or all those types of things. And when you expose them and allow them to have a relationship with an older person, it gives them a different perspective that helps them. Maybe they wouldn't be able to consciously say how it helps them, but it allows them to gain another perspective that I think in the long term is going to help them to be resilient in life. You know, sometimes they might not even think about what's going to happen in 10 years or maybe what's going to happen when they, you know, are 50 or 70 and it just gives them a long term perspective I would say. The other thing is I feel like older adults, they have time, grandparents have time for their grandkids and they also typically really adore their grandchildren. And so in this world, you know, I'm a mom, how many kids do you have?
Laura: I have 2, they're 12 and 10.
Isabel: Yeah, so I, as a mom, I am so, I find like I have to tell my kids so often like, hold on a second, I can't do this now. I'm doing something else, I'm making something, and I think our kids do need this undivided attention that sometimes we cannot give. And I think grandparents are the people who have time, you know, a lot of them are retired or they're slowing down. And they want to give time to their grandchildren. So I think it's just something that allows our kids, I say, to have an extra layer of love and attention that helps them to build. Resiliency for life and just grow up better.
Laura: I think that that's how we are meant to grow, you know, so the human babies are primed to make at least 4 primary attachments. We're meant to grow up in a family where there are not just 2 people caring for us, you know, but lots of people taking care of us in a you know, our human biology was promised a village, right? And you're so lucky that you got to grow up in that multi-generational family home that many, you know, for the folks who are like me who are situated in, you know, Midwestern USA that just is not the norm, and I'm kind of curious about What your experience was like, in that? What were the benefits? What were the struggles that you maybe saw within your family? Are you doing that with your own family? Like, what, you know, just tell me a little bit about your experience.
Isabel: Yeah, so, just so your listeners know, I grew up living with my grandparents. They were 68 and 71 when I was born. I'm the youngest of three, and when they passed, there were 98 and 102. And so I lived in the same house with my grandparents. I was away for college for 4 years, but I lived in the same house as them. For 26 years and then my grandma lived till she was 35, so she was my last living grandparent. And so I had a really close relationship with her. And I will say that as a kid, I don't think I thought I was lucky or anything like that. I think the way that I equate multi-generational living from the perspective of a child is that it's kind of like eating veggies or like having to do your homework or maybe. Practicing a sport or an instrument, like you don't appreciate it until you get older, right? So I don't think you necessarily, I don't think I appreciated it till I got older and I was like, wow, like look at this experience that I had, just having other people always around. So somebody who's always available, you know, I got stuck at home.
I was the youngest, so oftentimes my sisters liked tennis and this lesson and that lesson and so being like the 3rd, I got left home with my grandparents, but I was never completely alone. And I think there's actually something very nice about that, right? And when you have two parents, you know, they only have a certain amount of time, so my grandparents were always there. I knew they adored me. So I think in terms of that, I really, I did struggle growing like as I got to middle school and high school, just having so much attention on me, like people who really, really loved me and at that time, I think you don't really care to have like your grandparents be your biggest fans. Sometimes you want to be social, you want popularity and popularity is not having your grandparents say that you're the best, right? So. You know, I can totally understand why sometimes grandkids are not just jumping up and down and trying to spend time with their grandparents all the time. I don't know if that answers your question.
Laura: Oh no, it definitely does, and it like, I mean, it highlights this piece of it too that you know, for those of us who are in the stage of attempting to encourage that curiosity in our kids towards, you know, their grandparents, encourage that relationship, just to be really graceful with the process. I love how compassionate you just were to your younger self, you know, understanding that developmental stage that you were in. I think it can be hard for us as parents who are looking back as we parent our kids, not to say things like, you'll be grateful later, you know, you'll you'll miss out, you know, those types of statements. I appreciate the way that you look back with so much compassion and understanding for the developmental stage of, you know, what those kids are going through.
Isabel: Yeah. I think as a parent, what it does for me is it just reminds me that when my kids give me resistance, I don't know if you get resistance. I don't know if other parents out there get resistance, but when you get resistance to not make it something where it makes you give up. You know, you know there is a purpose and that there are good long term benefits to help in helping them to connect with their parents. And I didn't mention this before, but I think I, you know, sometimes you drop this on your kids like, are you gonna take care of mommy when you're older? And I think ultimately, if you want your kids to care for you with compassion and love as you get older, like, where are they gonna know how to do that when the time comes. So sometimes, you know, I remember that and I'm like, okay, maybe this relationship is not an easy relationship for me. And as a mom, maybe I feel like I don't have time to deal with in-laws or my own parents, but to remember that like my kids are watching. They're always watching. And so the way that I interact with my elders is the same way that they're going to learn how to interact with me. When I get older and so ultimately I'm like, I got to model it because otherwise they're not going to know how it's done and I want them to care for me well.
Laura: Okay, but Isabel, how does that work when I still feel like I'm 13, when I'm around my dad? Like how can I, like how can we be more mature and grown up when there's still stuff between the generation, you know, that that is unsettled and you know, that's something that like I you know, work really hard to make sure that my, my children's relationship with their grandparents is unencumbered by my stuff, you know, but like, are there things we can do to, I don't know, make that a little easier.
Isabel: Well, so, you know, kids are so smart and so I think one thing is well, I say grandchildren blessed without baggage. And just to realize that our relationships as adult children, you know, with our own parents, yes, there's stuff there that sometimes isn't processed, maybe there's like unresolved conflict. And just to at least be aware of it first. Is really important. We don't have to share everything with our kids, but I think one, it's a teaching moment. I think the grandkids can be one way to help. Make that relationship, mend that relationship just a little, you know, and I sometimes maybe I can't speak with my own parents or in-law about something and maybe that's a challenge. But in bringing my kids to see them, in showing that I'm making an effort to have my kids know their grandparents, I think that does show something and I think it shows honor, right? Sometimes we don't know exactly what to do and we're like, we're not going there like. You do need to set boundaries, right? So I think as an adult. It's hard for moms, especially those who are really, really busy. Maybe they have kids who have. You know, special needs or maybe their kids are very young or close in age and they don't have the time to process things, but I think it's so important to process your own baggage and what you've gone through.
And not only that, is that good for ourselves, but what it allows us to be is to be a safer place in a safer place and a better person when we interact with our parents or in-law, right? Because certain things that let's say we get into a conversation about something and it brings us back like immediately and you know, we can just, we just go to a very bad place sometimes, right? So we just have to be very aware of what triggers us and so maybe that allows you to not get in certain situations. Maybe it means that all you do in terms of connecting with the grandparents is through snail mail. Maybe you're not going to go on the phone because that's a dangerous place to go, right? Or you're not gonna stay over for a holiday because you know that nothing good comes out of that. But you can learn how to love and honor differently. And I think, you know, there's so many ways to do that.
Laura: I really like that kind of almost like being really realistic about what you can do well and having that be the goal and be compassionate to yourself and acknowledging like this is something that would be setting us up for disaster, not for success, and I'm only going to set us up for success, you know, in defining what that success means. We can't always heal the stuff that is between us and our parents, but that doesn't mean that our kids can't have a good relationship with their grandparents. I think too, I like that phrase that you said, they are blessings without baggage. And it's so important to acknowledge the skills that we're teaching them too, right? So they are different kids who are growing up in a different context. I have this story that just comes to mind. About, so my oldest daughter, my, both my kids were, we were making dragon bread for Micklema.
It's a celebration at the school that they go to. But you shape bread into the shape of a dragon, and then you decorate it with things like raisins and nuts and seeds and stuff. And so we were doing that and they were, they were decorating and something that my dad has always done that just gets under my skin is tries to take over, make suggestions, kind of getting in the mix. And he was doing that to my oldest daughter, and she put her things down and she looked over at him. And so she was probably 7 at the time and she goes, Grandpa, would you like your own dragon? I bet mommy has some bread for you. You know, and I mean she's set that boundary so kindly and lovingly. In a way that like I did not have those skills as a child, a teenager, even as a young adult. It was really gratifying to see that and to see that like, oh gosh, I don't, I don't have to get into the mix. I don't have to like to put that boundary up. She's actually quite skilled in delivering that boundary in a way that allows them to continue to have a relationship, a connection, you know?
Isabel: Yeah, and I think you know, if, you know, there are going to be situations where a grandparent is not having unfavorable behavior, right? And I think what that is again, that's a teaching point, a teaching opportunity for us where, you know, there are generational things. It Happens generationally and, and if we are able to talk about it and process it with our kids and talk them through it, then that may be the way to end that pattern, right? So sometimes we don't, if we don't talk about it, like maybe the grandparent did something or said something that was disrespectful to you and to be able to say like, yeah, that wasn't respectful the way that he was talking to me or that wasn't respectful the way that he was talking to you, that Grandpa talked to you. And so if that happens, you know, this is something that you can say or, you know, let me know because you still are the parent, right?
And so I think It's not, we don't have to say, make it or paint a picture that the grandparents are perfect. I think what they learn is that they learn about relationships that relationships are not perfect and it allows them to have healthy expectations when they go into relationships, and we also teach them about boundaries like what's healthy, what's not, and I think the other thing is that kids can be very blunt. And you know, in that type of relationship, grandparents, they have so much grace for their grandchildren. I always, you know, I feel like I have definitely heard grandkids tell their grandparents things where you're like an adult cannot say that, you know, but a grandkid can get away with a whole lot of stuff. I mean, they can say, Grandpa, your hair looks really bad or did you just get a haircut? Like, why is it sticking up like that or you know, they can just say all sorts of things and their grandparents may even laugh and it's like this is they have almost passed a lot of times because grandparents just want to be connected with their grandkids.
Laura: Yeah, okay, so I feel like I have some questions because sometimes I feel like I can hear my beautiful listeners. And they're wondering, like, so there's two big questions and they're, they're kind of two different directions. So maybe we can just do one and then the other, but they are one how to handle it when we are parenting, actively attempting to parent differently than how our parents parented us. And we're needing to navigate setting boundaries around those things. And then the other piece of this is what about the parents? Ah, the grandparents that are you know, checked out, disconnected, you know, say they want to be involved, but then, you know, come for 30 minutes, look at their iPad and then leave, you know, like what, how can we work with those parents? Those are the two, the kind of two directions I want to go in, you choose.
Isabel: Okay, so the first one was about.
Laura: Yeah, so many of the people who are listening are actively attempting to not do. what their parents did growing up. Right? They're actively trying to break cycles, spanking, yelling, punishments, harsh discipline, shame, blame judgment. They're trying to say goodbye to those patterns within their families. And I know that they get pushback from their families of origin. They're oftentimes, while the grandparents very much love the children, they don't understand where the parent is coming from, and they may even take it personally, like we are parenting differently from them. And then they get defensive and or concerned, you know, I want to be very clear that I have a lot of compassion for the grandparents in this scenario too. I guess I just am wondering about those families who want their, you know, maybe would want their kids to have a close relationship with grandparents, but are afraid of what that might mean and how they might get hurt or are afraid of boundaries not being respected or, you know, you know, new family cultures and rules not being accepted or acknowledged.
Isabel: Yeah, I think it's, well, I think the first thing to acknowledge is that it's not going to be perfect, right? There's not like one thing I can say that's going to make that relationship awesome and completely peaceful. So there are gonna be bumps in the road because in relationships, there are ups and downs. So I think to remember to have grace is really important. So how do we even start with this topic? I think it's really important to process things on your own. So once you start to feel like you are getting too close to the boundary, you know, your red flags going up like alert, alert, this is not a good situation. It's like back away and don't feel like you have to be like best friends with the grandparents or, you know. I think it's important to be aware first that you are in a situation that might not be healthy right now.
And maybe that's just even just for you, right? And maybe that means that you are not going to be or you have to be extremely prepared and intentional. I think that's the thing, intentional with your time with the grandparents. For example, you know, I mentioned to you before we got on how I did something called the Grandkid investigator kit, the concept, and the whole idea is to have kids do missions with their grandparents and to ask them questions to complete certain missions about different topics. One of the reasons why I created that is because when conversations are not intentional between the adult children and the parent. And the aging parent sometimes, it can go haywire and in the completely wrong direction, right? Like let's say you have family dinners and oh that one topic, let's say it's politics, right, always goes in a bad, bad place, right? And everybody just gets really on edge or maybe it's about discipline, right?
Or how you deal with something. If you don't want to go to that space, you as a parent have to be very intentional about what this time is going to be about. So, I would have them do missions where the grandchild is reaching out to the grandparent and initiating that conversation and getting the grandparents to talk about something completely different, okay, like learning about them and I think the reason why that can be helpful is one, grandparents have needs to emotional needs, and one of their needs is that they want to feel loved, just like the rest of us. And sometimes they look at that relationship with grandkids and when they don't get that response, they feel really rejected. And if they're not a healthy person, then they're going to start. Feeling unloved because of that and maybe projecting that rejection back at the child or back at the parents like you don't even teach your kids how to honor the elders or whatever it is and that shame will come out, right? So I think that's one of the reasons why we need guidance in these relationships. These relationships don't have to be like where everybody is best friends and can talk about everything with each other. No, this is, and, you know, when you're intentional, you can guide the conversation and still show honor and respect. Without going there, right? Just like you have friends who you know you can talk to certain friends about certain things, but maybe you know not to breach the subject, not to go here. And I think the other thing too is, for example, I think we talked about having neurodiverse kids and sometimes the topic of let's say medication or going to counseling or whatever it is can be tough, right?
Because generationally maybe the grandparents never did any of that and maybe they think it's like completely hokey and just all made up, right? And so I think it's important for us to also try and help them to get to know our kids, not, not always having to feel like we have to defend them, but like, let's say we're not hanging out together, but just texting them and saying like, guess what? Bobby did today, he did this and I'm so proud of him. So just kind of almost bragging about your kids to help the grandparents to learn more about them. So that they are not just seeing that one instance when you went to visit where they had a meltdown, you know, like our grandparents often, maybe it's only when you visit, maybe it's only during the holidays that they get a chance to see the grandkids and so they only get one piece of the puzzle, but they didn't get to see when. You know, my son the other day, he gave money to a friend who had their car broken into and I was so proud of him, right?
And then, the car part was like $2OOO but he was like, I'll give them some money. And so I let him do it and I was like, this is great. You're giving and you're helping somebody. And then I told his grandma and I said, do you know what he did? You know, and the reason I say that is because this child in particular doesn't necessarily like, there's some kids who can get people to really like them because they're very like their grandparents. They're like that's the best grandchild because that grandchild talks to me. So sometimes for the quieter ones like I think you have to kind of give the grandparents help them to get to know them a little bit more.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. I feel like that brings me very naturally into that question. What can we do for our kids if we do have a checked out grandparent in our lives, you know, who maybe we're doing that. We're putting out that effort and we're just really not getting anything back, but we still want our kids to have a relationship with an elder because we think it's important.
Isabel: Yeah, so with older adults, anybody who's getting older, I think it's important to remember that there is a lot emotionally going on in somebody who's getting older.
Laura: I just want to say that I love, I love that you are so. We don't often think about child development as parents, but we don't really think about the fact that human development is a lifespan thing. And the older generation are in a very particular stage of development, just like our 3 year olds or our 13-year-olds are in a very particular stage of development. Anyway, go ahead, keep going. I just love that you're saying that.
Isabel: I just think that we kind of forget that, right? So, oh. That, you know, my dad's not listening, my dad's not doing this. My dad's checked out. He won't even talk to them and we forget that, for example, maybe your dad just lost his wife, the love of his life who he's been married to for 55 years, right? We forget to acknowledge the grief and loss that they're experiencing, not just of a spouse perhaps, but maybe of siblings or their friend groups.
Laura: My parents go to a funeral every week, practically. And so I just, yeah, wow, it's a lot.
Isabel: If you think of it as if you take that and you said a child was going through that, we would treat them with so much compassion. We would be like there's so much loss going through that person like, and, and think about just one loss, okay? Just one person dying, who's died in your life and it's like the time, you don't get over it, right? But when it happens and it's like something that happens so often and when you're the people that were your people, like they're constantly disappearing. That's hard. And then if it's like your physical abilities, you know, you just think about, I just think about like if a teen lost their ability, broke their leg and couldn't play in their soccer season anymore, that's like a huge thing. And this is essentially every single health issue. The decline that an older person experiences. There's so much grief that's often not acknowledged because we're like that's just part of it, you know, you should be able to handle it, and so when they're checked out, I think.
Yes, they could be going through a lot of hardship. Yes, they could be depressed. Yes, they could be sad because something that they always love to do, they can't do anymore because somebody they always love to see or people that they always love being around, they don't have those people anymore. And I think, you know, or maybe they don't feel like they're contributing at all. They don't feel purpose, or maybe they feel forgotten and I think there's just so much. In there to remember. Well, instead of just thinking they're checked out and they're, you know, they're not good grandparents, they're checked out, they're not engaged with the grandkids, like how could they? To remember that there's so much more going on in their minds. And so I think that's why I love the idea of having kids connect with their grandparents because I think it is refreshing to them when they have a younger person talking to them when they when adult children talk to their parents, a lot of times we're in that position where we're trying to do logistics and coordinate this and we're checking on their health or we're, you know, and it's just like that's not who they are. They are not diabetes, they are not this, they are not their health appointments. They want to be known for something more than that, right? Because that's, they know there's more to themselves.
And so I think it's just remembering that they may be feeling defeated, they may not be in a position where they're even used to people paying attention to them. They're not used to being seen and heard anywhere, right? And so just to keep that in mind. Then when it comes to practically reaching out to them, you know, like I said, you can send a card and it doesn't require any response. You can leave a message. You can send a picture, you can make a piece of art. If the kids are younger, like I just think of the amount of art you get as parents, and the amount that you secretly hide in this recycling bin because you're like, we can't hang this all up, you know, just. Using stuff like that as a way to connect and saying like, you know what, this is gonna really brighten up their day or I want to send this to, to your grandpa just so that he knows that, you know, he can see your awesome art and hang it up in his house or something like that. So just to have a lot of grace, I think as you're going into that relationship and not expecting, I don't want to say like not expecting so much, but to realize that sometimes there's other stuff going on.
Laura: Yeah, I really like that reminder too. I think that even as adult children, it's hard to really wrap our head around our parents. Being full people who've had a full life that, yeah, we were there for a lot of it, but not all of it, you know, like I mean in our kids, I know my I know my kids don't get that. And that's developmentally appropriate for where they are. But there is a little bit of work on our part as adults to shift that view and really start seeing The, you know, our parents as full textured, rich people who've had a full life outside of their identity as our parents, you know.
Isabel: Yeah, so even if you draw a timeline and you think of how long We have known our parents, right? We always think like, oh, I know my mom, I know my dad because I've known them this long, but like, did we know them for the 1st 30 years of their life when that's when there's so much that happens, right?
Laura: When you are becoming yourself.
Isabel: Yeah, so do we know? About that and that's why I use that word investigation when I have grandkids investigate because the truth is we don't know, they don't know so much about their grandparents and even us as adult children, we don't know so much about the lives that our own parents have lived and sometimes we just have to. I think we just have to remember that the way that we see our parents and that we've seen them for since we were born. Is not, yeah, it's not all, it's not the whole picture, and I think it can be kind of fun to learn about what they were like before. I think it's also, you know, part of our own identity, our own story to learn about it.
Laura: Oh. Isabel, I love, I love that so much. I've loved this conversation so much. Why don't you let me know, let us know where my listeners can find you and maybe learn a little bit more about how they can start building that relationship with their grandparents.
Isabel: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram @isabelctom. I have a website, valueofwrinkles.com. I also have a free mission for my grandkid investigator kit that I think a lot of, you know, the parents who are listening might really appreciate. It's basically a, you can go to valueofwrinkles.com/freemission, but it's one of the missions from my kit. There's 12 missions in it and it basically is using like the mad libs type thing. It's a time travel operation and the first part of it is you fill in the blanks fun. The second part, which is like mad libs, the second part is finding out the real story. So the first part is finding out the silly story and then the second part is the real story, and that's when the child starts asking questions like did you have to share a room with a sibling? You know, how many rooms were there, you know, who was your neighbor, those types of questions that really kind of allow for guided conversation.
Laura: Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much, Isabel.
Isabel: Yeah, thanks for having me. I had such a great time chatting.
Laura: Me, too.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!