OACS News Service

Grandparents’ Day fosters storytelling between generations
‘The best thing we can do for our children is to share stories with them’
Monday May 3, 2010 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
Today Immanuel Christian School in Oshawa is hosting its annual Grandparents’ Day, an event that sees the school population grow as grandpas, grandmas, opas, omas, nanas and papas visit the school for the day.

Principal Jasper Hoogendam says over the years he’s come to see this day as one of the most exciting of the school year.

“This one rates near the top for me and it rates near the top because of the level of sharing, of getting two different generations into the building and seeing the appreciation grow between them,” Hoogendam tells OACS News.

In a recent editorial for the school’s newsletter, the principal writes about the value of children hearing stories from grandparents.

“Children need ‘faith idols’ or heroes to capture their imagination. They need to see how the ‘cloud of witnesses’ who have gone before them lived their faith and dealt with life’s challenges,” Hoogendam writes.

“They need to hear how these ‘witnesses’ pulled through difficult times by living a life of prayer, of living a life of trust in God. These experiences are real. The best thing we can do for our children is to share stories with them.”

Providing a forum for that kind of interaction and storytelling between generations is particularly important in a society that has moved from being primarily agrarian to industrial to its current technological state, says Hoogendam.

“In an agrarian setting dad is working with his son who is taking over the farm and there is lot of storytelling going on, a lot of traditions are kept.

“But now the interaction between people has to become more intentional,” he says, noting there is a tendency for families today to be more distant geographically. In addition, the growing use of e-mail and social media to connect doesn’t lend itself as well to storytelling as in-person interactions, he says.

Hoogendam shares several moving stories of how past Grandparents’ Day events have fostered deep connections between grandparents and grandchildren.

In one case a Grade 4 student mentioned that that day was the first time his grandfather had “spoken to him.”

“What he meant by that was that when his grandparents came to visit, they just talked to his parents all the time. But this time was different because it was a focused time between the child and the grandparent . . . and the child felt the difference,” says Hoogendam, noting in his editorial he hopes that connection led to much more storytelling between the two, with the grandfather becoming “a hero for that grandchild.”

Immanuel Christian School is a member of the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools, many of which host annual Grandparents’ Day events in the spring.

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