Grandpa, Help!

As a grandparent, I wrestle with how I can share information with my granddaughters in a manner so when they are faced with a decision they will remember the advice. We all know that it is difficult to navigate life's challenging questions about dating and sexuality when you are a young person. Who am I kidding? It's difficult to navigate those questions at any age. The teenagers I have known don't want platitudes or generic answers when they are tackling the problems in their lives. They demand truth. In this book, Herb Nordmeyer and his granddaughters deftly combine the two elements that are essential for talking to teenagers about sex, relationships, and life choices. Those elements are solid information and a sense of humor. Herb is the first person to point out that when he was a teenager he was as big of a jerk as some of the young men his granddaughters are dating. This series cannot solve all of the problems a young lady faces, but the Grandpa, Help! series makes the process a little easier. When your granddaughter and her boyfriend are making out and he proceeds to unbutton her blouse, you are no there to give her advice. Her parents are not there to give her advice. Her source of advice at that point is her boyfriend and we suspect his motives may be less than honorable. If she remembers that for over fifty years Grandpa has regretted putting a young lady in a similar situation, she may slow the foreplay down and consider the implications of having sex as a sixteen-year-old and suggest to her boyfriend that they wait. That is much better than having her boyfriend being her only source of information concerning sex. Why would two dozen young ladies adopt a quiet old man who is a nationally-known stucco expert as their grandpa?" Yes, he knows how to share his knowledge in an entertaining and memorable way, but it goes much deeper than that. He treats each of the young ladies as an equal and he concentrates on what she is saying before he starts formulating an answer. Additionally, he never chides one of his granddaughters if she does not follow his advice. As a result, these young ladies open up and discuss things with him that they would never discuss with their parents and often would not discuss with their friends. Isn't that the type of bedtime story you would want your granddaughter to be reading?