UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The holiday season can be made more meaningful for children, adults and senior citizens through a new program offered by Penn State Cooperative Extension.

"Connecting the Generations During the Holidays" uses activities to help participants increase awareness and adopt practices and behaviors that promote intergenerational communication between family members during the holidays. The half-hour seminar was developed by Matthew Kaplan, associate professor of agricultural and extension education, and Mary Ann Oyler, cooperative extension family and consumer science agent in Franklin County.

"Holidays can be an important time for building family unity," Kaplan says, "but they're too often stressful and hectic. Our program helps families to use this time to build relationships by bridging distances in age, geography and experience. We provide a system for addressing those distances and turning your focus to the joys of gift-giving, family conversations and appreciating family rituals and traditions."

The program takes participants through discussions of their own attitudes toward other generations and introduces such skills as buying "family-strengthening" gifts for young people, using gift-giving as an opportunity to pass on and reaffirm family values and directing family conversations during the holidays.

"Lots of parents and grandparents want to give their young people a sense of the importance of family and tradition at this time of year, but they think the kids won't appreciate it," Kaplan says. "But we've discovered that children and young adults are hungry for ways to connect, too. Holidays are especially important because many families are separated by time and distance the rest of the year.

"This program provides a framework for making the most of these holiday times, independent of ethnic or religious background," he adds. "It's a great way to build stronger family ties."

The program uses materials from Penn State's intergenerational program such as the "Generation Celebration" curriculum, the "What Are Today's Young People Really Like?" handout (found on the Web at http://AgExtEd.cas.psu.edu/FCS/mk/YoungPeople.pdf) and the article "Giftgiving Ideas to Link the Generations," available at http://AgExtEd.cas.psu.edu/FCS/mk/1.pdf.

Kaplan says it's important for older celebrants to understand that holidays, like culture, are constantly changing.

"We all have to be open to learning about what young people are contributing to popular culture," he says. "And, for their part, young people might not immediately appreciate an adult's efforts to heighten the holiday spirit and strengthen family relations. But as they mature and start their own families, the true value will probably hit home. So the chain of heritage will endure."

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EDITORS: Contact Matthew Kaplan at 814-863-7871, or Mary Ann Oyler at (717) 263-9226.

Contact:

Gary Abdullah gxa2@psu.edu 814-863-2708 814-865-1068 fax