there are lots of things to recognize in the busy world, and as we age, it’s natural that we’ll recognize more things. It’s just the way of things. Not everyone remembers this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if you grew up with grandparents, who nurtured you the way grandparents do, by making space for you to just be who you are, by being less busy, because they recognize themselves in you, you’ll recognize that if your children don’t grow up with grandparents, maybe it’s a good idea to nurture them a little more like grandparents do, by making space for them to be just who they are, and a little less like parents do, busy making sure that every detail’s taken care of, and managing their schedules, schedules that manage to reign in all their impulses, their beautiful human impulses to respond to their world in strange and beautiful ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grandparents recognize strange and beautiful things and ways, simply because they’ve had time to recognize things and ways, and recognize themselves in things and ways, and make space for them. They’ve resolved something that allows them to see beauty in the strangest ways and strangeness in the most beautiful things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They recognize themselves in you (remember, they were parents too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If your child is growing up without grandparents, give someone permission to be their grandparents. Maybe the person you’ll recognize and give permission to is you. Permission granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
there are lots of things to recognize in the busy world, and as we age, it’s natural that we’ll recognize more things. It’s just the way of things. Not everyone remembers this. But if you grew up with grandparents, who nurtured you the way grandparents do, by making space for you to just be who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,27,6,14,16,15,9,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicle","category-didactics","category-neighborhood","category-neurodiversity","category-poem","category-politics","category-reflection","category-zen","hs-poem"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paor1p-9h","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":590,"url":"https:\/\/ryk.groetchen.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/15\/role-development-in-children\/","url_meta":{"origin":575,"position":0},"title":"Role Development in Children","author":"Ryk Groetchen","date":"August 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of principles I see play out in my environments that connect my experience with my learning are verbal play and large motor play. 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