One of the differences between life now and a hundred years ago is that it is less common for children to live near their grandparents. They may communicate on video calls, but often spend only a week or two together over the course of a year.
Which is unfortunate for Christian grandparents. Barna’s recent study on spiritually vibrant families found that grandparents were a major influence on the spiritual lives of many young people. If you can’t spend much time with your grandkids, how much influence can you have on their lives?
Which is why I love the new book Dear Grandchild, This Is Me by Waterbrook. Having a book for grandparents to record their memories for grandchildren is not a new concept. This book, however, has some additions which I think makes it stand out from others I have seen.
Grandparents will love that instead of being expected to write pages on one topic, each page has several shorter questions to answer. This makes it much easier to do a little bit at a time and actually complete the volume before your grandchildren are grandparents themselves.
The other thing I really appreciated is that periodically there are envelopes where grandparents can place letters they have written to their grandchild to be opened under certain circumstances. Having grandparents that passed away just in the last few years, I know how much I would treasure letters like that from them now.
The book has other fun features like a page to record your favorite things when you were younger and now (like candy and tv show). There are places for photos, recipes and even a mini-family tree. I especially like the places where it asks grandparents to give advice on various topics.
This is an attractive book that your grandkids will treasure as adults. The advice you write in its pages can still point them to God long after you are gone. Yes, you will have to make a duplicate for each grandchild, but since every child is different you would probably want to personalize it anyway. I don’t have any grandkids yet, but I’m saving this book for when God blesses us with one.
This book was given to us for free in exchange for our honest review. An affiliate link is included for your convenience.