Looking at the role of Grandparents A talk given at the University of WI in Madison.

1. “ ROLES OF GRANDPARENTS AND HOW THEY CAN AFFECT THE FUTURE” The Census claims 56,000,000 Grandparents In the USA

4. Today we have a first Grandma in the White House As the country's new "First Grandmother," Marian Robinson will become one of at least 5.7 million American grandparents who live in the same home with their grandchildren, according to the U.S. Census

6. The person they want with them on a deserted island

7. Companions

8. Wisdom givers

9. Playmates

10. Guides

11. Explorers

12. Adventurers

13. Naturalists

14. Teachers

15. Encouragers

17. The rule breaker

18. Historical Role of Grandparents The Favorite , by Georgios Iakovidis (1890) Past generations of families lived in the same home and that home passed from generation to generation. The generations did not move from their ancestral home site. Grandparents lived much shorter lives. The family was a business with the children of working age in the field and the grandparents watching babies in the home.

20. The past is only names and photos until we give them life.

22. Those who give unconditional love. In many cultures multiple generations share one home. Immigration changed the dynamics even if it still meant generations sharing the same home or apartment.

25. “ We say that a family without a grandmother has no foundation because it has no guardian of traditional values.” Senegal In my village elders always occupy the foremost position. They are consulted regarding the most important affairs.” Sabaly, 68, provides daily childcare for four grandchildren, assists her farmer husband, advises seven children and their spouses, and works in the garden and fields

35. Immortality: Grandchildren

37. … many studies credit exposure to plants or nature with speeding up recovery time from injury. Roger Ulrich, a Texas A & M researcher, has shown that people who watch images of natural landscape after stressful experience calm markedly in only five minutes; their muscle tension, pulse, and skin-conductance readings plummet. Louv

38. The Human Relationship with Nature by Peter Kahn points to the findings of over one hundred studies that confirm that one of the main benefits of spending time in nature is stress reduction.

39. We learn through doing – much of which we do with our hands; we manipulate things, feel things and though we use our hands to type on a keyboard, we are not experiencing the world fully. Frank Wilson, professor of neurology at Stanford Univ. School of Medicine - says, “We’re cutting off our hands to spite our brain.” Louv

40. For a whole generation of kids, direct experiences in the backyard, in the tool shed, in the fields, and woods, has been replaced by indirect learning, through machines.

41. Natural spaces and materials stimulate children’s limitless imaginations and serve as the medium of inventiveness and creativity observable in almost any group of children playing in a natural setting,.” Robin Moore

42. In 1977 Edith Cobb published the book The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood . She concluded that inventiveness and imagination of nearly all o the creative people she studied was rooted in their early experiences in nature.

43. It is the challenge of society, of the family and of the nature center and school to connect a child with nature.