How to Pass Your Wisdom on to your Grandchildren

Almost everyone wants to leave something behind for their children or grandchildren. Sometimes this a physical item, like an antique watch or a favourite piece of art or even your home. Other times, it’s something else that is important to you, such as your recipes or your life lessons or your stories. Often, these gifts are more meaningful than physical assets, but they’re also tougher to pass down. It’s easy to leave a watch for someone, but how do you leave them a story? 

It’s not as difficult as you think. However, it does require some advanced planning and effort.

Spend Time with Them Now

It’s nice to leave something behind after you’re gone, but if you’re trying to pass down wisdom or experiences or information, it’s often better to start right away. Now, you might be thinking that your grandchildren probably don’t want to sit down and hear you tell stories and life lessons for hours, and you have a point. Passing down knowledge and wisdom doesn’t have to sound like a lecture. In fact, it’s often better if it doesn’t.

Instead, spend time with them and focus on just having quality experiences. That doesn’t necessarily mean something elaborate or expensive. It often just means spending time doing something you both enjoy. This could mean watching a baseball game on TV or going for a hike or baking together or spending time tending to the garden, side by side.

Listen and communicate with them. Create a space where they can express themselves, voice their opinions, and ask questions. Yes, you’re trying to pass wisdom onto them, but they will be much more receptive if it comes naturally as a part of a conversation, rather than having it sound like a lecture. 

As you do whatever shared activity you’re doing, your stories and your life experience will come out on their own. While you’re gardening or baking, you can share tips that you’ve learned over the years. If you’re watching a sport or going on a hike, it’s natural to start talking about when you did the same thing with your parents or grandparents when you were young.

Your grandchildren will also learn from you just based on how you act. By spending more time with you, they’ll pick up how you interact with others, how you deal with stress, and how you handle both positive and negative situations. If you want to pass on your values to your grandchildren, letting them see how you handle life and how you treat others. Learning by example is always powerful.

For Times You Can’t Be Around

It’s not always possible to spend large amounts of quality time with your grandchildren. Maybe they live on the other side of the country (or on the other side of the world). Maybe you have health issues where you’re not able to be as engaged and active in their lives as you would like. Maybe you have had a falling out with their parents (your children) and it does feel safe or comfortable to physically be with them.

There are still many ways that you can pass your wisdom onto them.

The first is by writing things down. You don’t need to be an author or have any sort of writing experience to do this successfully. What you will need to do, however, is plan ahead. This means organize your thoughts before you write. If you want to share your stories, for example, think of how you should tell them. Do you want to write them chronologically or by theme? Which ones do you want to tell? If you have life lessons or other personal values or experiences you want to share, you’ll need to be organized as well. Organization doesn’t just help you write, but it makes for a more enjoyable and coherent read as well. 

If you don’t just want to hand them a pile of handwritten journals, there is also the option to print physical books. There are many options out there that let you create and publish books that look just like ones you would find in a store. 

You can also record videos and keep them in a safe place, leaving them to your grandchildren after you’re gone. If you decide to go this direction, know that technological changes can sometimes be an issue. Imagine if someone gave you a VHS tape today. Not only would it be tough to find a player, but the tape may have degraded and might not work anymore. The same is true if you give someone a DVD or an SD card or a digital file stored on a hard drive. 

If you’re planning on recording a video, it might be best to store it in several different formats and different types of media just in case. Also, while you probably don’t want to read a script while you’re recording, it’s a good idea to plan what you’re going to say in advance so that it’s easier to follow when you start speaking. 

Passing on Wisdom and Values Through Your Actions

A lot of the time, you can pass on things that matter to you without explicitly doing so. You don’t need to give a speech, teach a life lesson, or write a book to let people know what matters. You can inspire your grandchildren and pass on life lessons and passions through your work.

For instance, if there are causes that mean something to you, and your want your grandchildren to understand their importance, why not spend time volunteering or helping in other ways? If your grandchildren see the work you’re doing, they’ll want to understand more about the cause. 

The same is true for matters of faith. If you want to make sure that your grandchildren recognize the importance of your religious beliefs, then you should spend time celebrating the traditions of your faith and trying to involve them as much as possible. If you can’t involve them, they will still see how much your religion matters to you buy how you act.

In general, celebrations and traditions are an excellent way to pass your values onto your grandchildren. Rather than telling them about the importance of family, show them. They’ll see how important it is to spend time with their loved ones if they see you doing the same. They’ll appreciate the things that matter most in life if they see how much you appreciate them.

While you certainly can, you don’t need to have a formal mentoring plan or legacy document that you leave behind. Instead, you can influence your grandchildren and show them the vital things you have learned over the years just based on how you live your life. This will feel less like pressure to them, as well. They don’t feel like you’re telling them what to do or what matters. Instead, they’ll have positive memories of how you act and what you say in your daily life. Those lessons can be the most meaningful of all.