Grandparents and Giftedness, Talent, and Creativity

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In many ways, grandparents are ideally suited to supporting their grandkids in developing their abilities into gifts and talents. Even when a grandparent is actively involved in a child’s life—taking on the role of a parent to a greater or lesser degree—they usually have a different perspective on childhood and life than most parents.

By the time you get to be a grandparent, you’re usually past the intense—and often worrisome—early stages of career-building. You may be enjoying the fruits of your labor, still working but building on what you’ve already established, or you may have retired. In either case, you probably have more time than you once did, and you’ve figured out ways to manage your life pretty efficiently.

By this stage, you usually know that relationships are more valuable than money, achievement, personal pleasure, recognition, or anything else. You also see that children are vulnerable, filled with possibility, and the best hope for a better future for the planet. Grandparents are more likely to realize that it’s connections that matter most, and are well-placed to play an influential role in a grandchild’s development.

How can you support a grandchild in developing their gifts, talents, and creativity?

1. Look at the child with love. When you look into their eyes with love and full acceptance, it gives them strength, and helps them feel confident.

2. Listen. The next step is making a habit of taking the time to listen to your grandchild—their questions, their worries, their enthusiasm, their ideas. Be present and emotionally available, patiently attentive in a way that parents often don’t have time for.

3. Encourage your grandchild’s sense of wonder at the ordinary. You may be the person in their life best able to take time to savor with them the way the wind blows the tree branches, the feel of sand between the toes, the sound snow makes on a crisp winter day, or the taste of plump golden raisins. Model that kind of wonder at the ordinary, and share the pleasures of your child’s wonders and amazements.

4. Slow down their life (if you can). Do your best to support your own child in helping your grandchild take time for unstructured play, and for daydreaming and dawdling.

5. Listen to your grandchild’s interests, and help them take the next step. You may be the best person in their life to ask the important questions, and support them in developing their curiosities and interests into abilities. Building on their interests, help them take those interests farther.

6. Encourage persistence, patience, and hard work. When persistence, patience, and hard work become habits of mind—which happens with practice—your grandchild’s interests become abilities, which become strengths. And that is where intelligence, creativity, and genius come from.

7. Make the ordinary come alive, and the extraordinary will follow. These suggestions also work for parents, of course. They’re really universal basics of child development. If you’re a parent and not yet a grandparent, you might try these ideas, and find your own life enriched, as well as your child’s.

As COVID-19 begins to fade, it's a good time to reaffirm your connections with your children, your grandchildren, and any other children you are lucky enough to have in your life. You can make a powerful difference in how their lives proceed.