How Misunderstandings Happen – Increase Communications Enhancing Compassion and Kindness

Spring Intergenerational Reading & Seeding Event

It was a beautiful spring day on May 6, 2023, when we held our Intergenerational Reading & Seeding event at Keystone Place at Legacy Ridge in Westminster, Colorado.

We started by looking at the Compassion Quilt and immediately the word understanding was identified, which happened to be our topic of the day!  Our book of the day was, “What’s Wrong With Grandpa?” This story takes place on a beautiful Colorado trail with seven-year-old Joey and his grandpa. This was their first hike of the season and grandpa had changed over the winter. Joey’s grandpa had always been athletic. But today, he talked really loudly, used walking sticks, was slower than Joey when they raced and climbed, tripped and almost fell flat on his face, and he didn’t spot things in the woods before Joey did like he had last summer. Joey didn’t understand what was happening and thought his grandpa was mad at him and didn’t want to hike, race, climb, and have fun with him anymore.

Through communication and a snack together, Joey learned that grandpa was going through the normal process of aging and getting used to new hearing aids and new glasses that he could see both close and far better, if he had had them on. Also, Grandpa’s body wasn’t as agile as before.  And most importantly, his grandpa wasn’t mad at him! Having this understanding of what grandpa was experiencing with changes through aging and gaining a deeper understanding brought Joey even closer to his grandpa.

Following the book reading, we all became artists and painted our own unique kindness rocks! We also looked at objects under a magnifying glass to see the bigger picture like in the book.  We wrapped it all up with an author book signing and a snack.

If you have a 4–8-year-old child in the Denver area that would like to participate in this free event, please contact Sonja Wendt.

Sonja Wendt

Enhancing children’s sensitivity in human interactions one story at a time.

Sonja Wendt

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