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Download a color or black-and-white certificate to fill in and present to a special grandparent in your life. Use the certificate for Grandparents Day or any day!
Grandparents should never doubt that they are a very important person – a VIP – in a grandchild's life. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once even stated that connections between the generations are "essential for the mental health and stability of a nation."
The special kind of love you get from a grandparent is a love you can't get anywhere else. It's an important kind of love – in fact, a very important kind of love. Parents have to worry about who children will become in the future; their role is to be providers and disciplinarians. Grandparents can just enjoy children for who they are in the moment. The love of a grandparent is often freer, more unconditional, and far less psychologically complex than a parent's love. The love of a parent and the love of a grandparent are different, and both are necessary.
The grandparent/grandchild relationship is, in fact, second in emotional importance only to the parent/child relationship. Just ask a child! One study of school-aged children found that if they were in charge of family vacations, their first choice would be to go to... grandma/grandpa's house – "because it's fun."
Families shouldn't take
relationships across generations for granted or undervalue them. This certificate is a little gesture that acknowledges how important grandparents are.
The certificate says: "This certificate is proudly presented to (fill in name) in recognition of all you do – role model, family historian, teacher, friend, and confidant."
Included on the certificate is a quote from Alex Haley: "Grandparents can do more for us than anyone else in the world; they sprinkle stardust in our eyes."
Then there's a space for you to sign and date the certificate.
Relationships between young and old, between grandparents and grandchildren, are important because they make us feel connected. They make us feel connected not only to each other, but to something bigger, to the flow of life, to the past and to the future. |
