Hold an annual grand parent's camp. Kids love it. In this episode, I'm going to address
the question "What is the best way to connect with my grand children?" We have 17 grandchildren.
I'm going to share with you the best way we connect with them and I want you to take notes
because it'll be probably the most amazing thing you do for your grandkids. So, I'm Doug
Andrew. My wife, Sherry and I have been married for 46 ½ years. And we have 6 children and
we've been blessed now with 17 grandchildren thus far. And we have special events throughout
the year where we have family retreats with a purpose. And we have sleepovers and traditions
and backpacking trips and so forth. But the best thing we have ever instigated was 8 years
ago when we started our annual grandpa's camp. Now, a lot of people say, "What? Grandpa's
camp? How come it's not grandpa and grandma's camp? Or Grandma or grandpa's camp?" Okay,
you want me to be honest? Because I have to level the plane field. Life's unfair. Even
it the songs at thanks giving, it's "Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's
house we go." Well, it's my house too. So, I had to do what is called strategic bypass.
I have to build grandpa's tree house in our backyard. Now, they come to grandpa's tree
house because it's grandma's house. It's like, "Well, it's my house too." So, when I came
up with the idea with my wife, I said, "We'll call it Grandpa's camp." "Well, can't we call
it granpa's and grandma's camp?" No. We got to keep it short and sweet. Grandpa's camp.
Now, she's invited. Actually she's a very important part of it. She doesn't just come
do the dishes and fix the meals. Oh, my heavens. I could never have a success grandpa's camp
without her. But this is what grandpa's camp is all about. And I want you to take notes
because it's probably the best thing we have ever done to connect with our grandchildren.
So, when we came up with this idea little over 8 years ago, we announced it to our grandchildren
around Christmas time. And we said, "We are going to hold an annual grandpa's camp the
last week of June every year. Just before the 4th of July just about everybody's in
town at the time. And it's just before my birthday." My birthday is on July 2nd. So,
we're going to end grandpa's camp on my birthday. So, here's basically what we do that you can
take ideas from what I'm going to share with you here. We bring in now our teenage grandchildren.
Actually the 12-year olds and older for the first 3 or 4 days and we talk teenage talk.
We always have a theme. I'll share some with you in just a moment. And we do high-adventure,
repelling, we go in hot air balloons. We're going to do... We're going to skydive one
of these times and that's going to shock them into pieces. But anyway. We do a lot of neat
things. We go fishing, we back pack. We do 4-wheeling and what-have-you. But we spend
this time with our 12-year olds and older. And we teach them responsibility and accountability.
I have many tools that help them. I call this thinking tools taht will help them think about
their brighter future and get super clear on what they want to do and... I use tools
like the solution formulator, the better life circle, the experience transformer, the quick
thinker. And these are found in a lot of my books and on my websites but with our 12 year-old
and older grandchildren, we have them use these thinking tools. They're setting goals
for a brighter future. I've mentored many troubled youth. Over 5,000 troubled youth
in my lifetime on a volunteered basis. I'm on a board directors for teenage suicide prevention
and so forth. So, loving my grandchildren the way I do, I do not want them ever to wonder
how to deal with crisis. Or crises in life. Or deadlines or insults or taking offense
or feeling like, "I'm stupid. I can't." So, I have thinking tools. We have tons of fun.
But we usually have a deep discussion for anywhere from 15 minutes for 45 minutes in
the morning, afternoon and evening. Sometimes around a dinner table, around the campfire
or whatever. It is just over the top. Now, when we first started , we had all the grandchildren
together because I only had 2 that were over the age of 12. Now, we bring in the 12 -year
olds and older for the first 3 days. And we do all these neat adventure things. And then
we go fishing. And we relocate to a property I haven't sent for Utah. We have about 33
acres where we can go down and camp and talk around the camp fire. And that's when the
4-year olds up to 11-year olds come and join the 12-year olds and older. Now, I usually
take the 8-year olds and older and we camp out at 10,500 feet. Grandma takes the younger
ones and she spends that time with them in the cabin because they're a little bit of
afraid to sleep out under the stars maybe. Now, we have enough that we bring them pretty
much together and I'm at 1 location. My wife is within a mile a way and they can ride 4-wheelers
back and forth. But we have zip lines. We have high adventure and repelling. And we
always have a theme. So, one of the key success has been to have a theme. The very first year,
it was how to live, learn, give and earn. The next year, it was America, the land of
liberty. And we talked about why America is such a great country. And we have 4 freedoms
in America that most people never enjoyed on this planet. Freedom of time, money, purpose,
relationships. We also did be polite, be clean, be brave. That was the BE year. We also had
Let Your Light So Shine. Last year was Be A Possibility thinker. Instead of looking
at why you can't do something, think of how you can do something. This year, it was dealing
above the line. This comes from a concept where most people in the world like to deal
below the line blaming why they can or cannot do something or justifying why they can or
cannot or did or did not do something. Or shame. "Oh, I'm not smart enough. I can't."
That is all in absolute waste. It's only when you deal above the line that we progress.
Above the line is responding to any situation in life. Any curve ball life throws at you
with all your ability. It spells the word response-ability. Now we're christian in our
family so we teach them don't be a clam on the bottom of the ocean waiting for plankton
to float to you. Don't be a victim --"poor little me." No, America has an eagle on the
flagpole. And so, you want to respond with all your ability and then a higher power will
make up the difference. So, we teach our principles that we believe in --faith. And doing faith
with works. Because faith without work is dead. And so, we weave in our family values
and beliefs in our annual grandpa's camp. And so, we teach accountability which is to
others. And so, that was this years theme. So, to give you an example, we assign each
of the family units with our 6 children their 6 family units. And I teach the overwriting
theme the first night around the campfire about being responsible and accountable to
God. One group thought how to be responsible and accountable to yourself. Another, how
to be responsible and accountable to your parents, to your family, to your country,
to nature, to your teachers and school or to your boss or to your fellow workers at
work. So, it was learning how to be responsible and accountable. And we gamified it so that
we had a gold coins. These weren't real gold coins. But every time they did something without
being asked to do it. And every time they signed up to do the dishes to clean up, to
sweep, to pick trash and litter; they got a gold coin. And a gold coin allow them 10
minutes on a 4-wheeler. If they wanted to take a 30-minute 4-wheeler ride, they had
to have 3 gold coins. So, they learn that if they ever dealt below the line, if they
ever blame, they justified or operated in shame, they had to relinquish one of their
gold coins. Every time they were responsible and accountable, they got to a gold coin.
And they could redeem that to do things they wanted to do. But it was over the top successful.
And so, that's grandpa's camp. It is my favorite week of the year every single year. My wife
loves it. The grandkids when we ask them, "So, what's your favorite vacation?" They're
not just trying to stroke me. They go, "Oh, we love the lake. We love to go back packing.
But whatever you do, Grandpa, don't you ever cancel grandpa's camp. That's our favorite
place to be." And of course that makes me very excited and proud. So, let me share with
you a little story that will help you understand why the grandkids love this so much. So, the
key is to have a lot of fun and in mingled with learning. And so, we usually have a learning
episode where they teach a concept for 15-20 minutes in the morning. Another group in the
afternoon. And another group in the evening. And they also get to conduct an activity that
usually set around the theme. But it doesn't have to be. I just assigned it out. It's amazing
how they teach one another the cousins learn from their other cousins. And we just simply
accommodate it. And I'm able to facilitate this year... It was quite hot. And so, we
took a garden hose during one hot afternoon. And we tied water balloons. Big water balloons.
And they had to go underneath the water balloon. And they had to look at it. And they had to
say, "Now." And if the water balloon broke, that instant they won a gold coin if they
guessed it. But they had to be daring. Now, some of them, they just darted in and darted
out. So, we started saying, "Okay, you have to stand under the water balloon while it's
filling up with water and say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 by saying 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi,
3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, 5 Mississippi." And then they can move. It was hilarious.
We do all kinds of things like that. And zip lining and 4 wheeling. But the key is you
will build memories. And we have a t-shirt every year that has the theme. It has their
name on it. It says, "Grandpa's camp 2020." But let me just tell you after the first year,
my little grandson Ethan, he was always asking his mom starting in January. Grandpa's camp
is until June. "Mom, how many more days until Grandpa's camp?" It was January, okay? It's
like 180 days. She says, "Okay, I got to do something here." So, she made a grandpa's
camp chain out of construction paper. And every month was a different color of links
in this chain in his little bedroom. And so, there were 31 days for January, 28 for February
and 31 days for March. And then she has some of them labeled valentines and Easter so that
she could sort of see how many more days until grandpa's camp. And everyday, he got to wake
up and cut off one of the links of the chain. And he could physically see how many more
days until grandpa's camp. Well, he's smart whipper snapper. At age 5, he equated going
to sleep and waking up to bringing grandpa's camp to fruition faster. So, he started taking
numerous naps. He would take a nap and wake up and say, "Can I cut another link away mom?"
No, no. It's when you go to bed at night. Well, he love grandpa's camp so much that
the next Christmas, he came in in Christmas eve where we open gifts between family. Santa
Claus is for Christmas morning. He had this big box. He couldn't wait for me to open it.
Guess what was in the big box? My own grandpa's camp chain. To hang up in our house in our
30-foot long sun room. Because he didn't want grandpa to ever get how many more days until
grandpa's camp. And I could physically see it. And he would come and visit me and see
if I had cut off the links of the chain correctly. This will be an event when you do it right
with a purpose. You don't have to worry about it. They will fall in love with it. They will
look forward to it. This is the best tradition we ever started to connect with our grandkids.
They tell us memories. I remember when this happen and this happen and you taught this
and Votie taught this and Ethan taught this. It is over the top. If you would like to learn
how to hold your own grandpa's camp, I have a free book for you. And you can learn about
it. I've been an author now for over 20 years. And my 10th book is entitled Entitlement Abolition:
How To Lead Your Family From Me, me me to We, together we're better. And so, we teach
how to abolish entitlement mindset. "Will you pay for it? Can I have?" on our family
vacation especially in grandpa's camp. So, this book is 200 pages. It's a best seller.
I will gift it to you free. It retails for $20. It has 4 chapters that talk about the
problem of how kids get into this entitlement mindset. The last 8 chapters talk about how
to abolish or get rid of that entitlement mindset. And if you look at it, chapter 7
is family retreats with a purpose. Chapter 8 is Grandpa's camp. So, if you want to see
sample agendas, go to our website. You can see it. But I would love to gift you a free
copy of this book. Go to entitlementabolitionbook.com. Entitlementabolitionbook.com. You can claim
your free copy. There, you'll have the opportunity to get a copy of my other book, Laser Fund.
My most recent best seller on your financial assets. But this will help you understand
how to plan and carry out a very successful grandpa's camp or grandma's camp.