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There are no limits to what our grandchildren can do — with a little help from us

"Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves.” — Caroline Kennedy

Kennedy's quote refers to the way her father, President John F. Kennedy, inspired a generation almost 50 years ago. But it also applies to grandparents today.

I believe we have that "special ability" to get our grandchildren to believe not only in themselves but also in what they are capable of accomplishing, what they are capable of becoming.

Today’s young people have a reputation for being self-absorbed pack-followers. They are said to be totally peer-oriented, willing to go along with whatever the crowd dictates. Yet there are hundreds of youngsters who have listened to a different drummer — perhaps a grandparent — and struck out on their own to do amazing things.

A few examples:

• Aubyn Burnside of Hickory, N.C., was 10 years old when she learned that many kids in foster care, who sometimes move three or four times a year, were carrying their belongings from home to home in garbage bags. So she started Suitcases for Kids to ensure that all children in foster care in her county, Catawba, would have their own piece of luggage; 12 years later, her project has spread to every state and nine other countries.

• Brandon Keefe of Los Angeles was 8 years old when he found out that a residential treatment center for abused children, where his mom worked, was running into difficulties building a library for its children. Brandon organized a schoolwide drive for gently used books, including best-selling series like Goosebumps and Junie B. Jones. What began as a class project has since blossomed into BookEnds, a grassroots nonprofit group that has collected more than 1.4 million books for underprivileged kids across Southern California.

• And then there is Alice, of Tampa Bay, Fla., who was just 7 when she decided to raise money to help victims of the tsunami that struck Asia in late 2004. She had planned to set up a traditional lemonade stand. But after decorating flip-flops at school for a Mother’s Day project, she decided that selling those would make a better fund-raiser. She was right. Today, Alice collects orders on her website, Frou Frou Flip Flops, and she's enlisted several classmates to help her with decorating the shoes. The proceeds still go to charity, including the American Cancer Society.

We believe that these young people's commitment to and interest in helping others come from the values passed on through their families. Someone who believed in them and supported their dreams — someone like a grandparent — gave them the confidence to strike out on their own to help others.

As parents, we had to be up close and personal with our kids — protective, practical, and yes, preachy. But as grandparents, we can turn our attention to other areas. We can urge our grandchildren with our words, and set an example with our actions, so that they know they can make a difference in the world, even at a young age — and achieve incredible things on their own.

And don’t we grandparents achieve, in return, a kind of immortality by helping to inspire our grandchildren to become thoughtful adults?

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