Intergenerational Communication as an Antidote to the Holiday Blues
'tis the season to think that everyone else is happier than you are, having more fun with less stress, while eating more sugar but gaining fewer extra pounds.
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Add a layer of not quite connecting with family and friends as you would like, especially those older or younger, and you have a perfect recipe for the holiday blues. Still, I recently came across an antidote that works exceptionally well on this last problem of intergenerational communication. If you don’t know your grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins, heck, if you don’t know your kids or parents as well as you would like, read on.
Recently, Serena Lin, a junior neuroscience major at Pomona College, designed and developed an intergenerational card game called “Uplift” that mixes conversational questions focusing on motivations and decision-making approaches rather than shared knowledge of current culture. The culmination of over four years of research & development, “Uplift” has an internet component that includes a digital “Encouragement Gallery” featuring uplifters worldwide. “Uplift” was Lin’s independent study under the tutelage of Professor Fred Leichter, Executive Director of the Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity, aka the Hive, an interdisciplinary center located on the Pomona campus serving the students, staff, and faculty of all the Claremont Colleges with particularly close ties to the human-centered design courses taught by Harvey Mudd engineers.
Just as Lin began her presentation, a campus-wide blackout occurred, and those of us in attendance put our phone flashlights under water bottles to use as ersatz lanterns, creating a seance vibe.
In addition to bridging intergenerational and cross-cultural chasms, “Uplift” cards minimize gender and right-brain/left-brain differences as they prompt stories and foster open-ended discussions. Serena states her motivation for the end product: “It's hard to initiate a meaningful conversation when you're trying to balance depth while also being politically cognizant and worried about accidentally offending people.” In addition to all the communication barriers already mentioned, there are often subtle cultural differences, and this is especially true in Serena's case, as her grandparents grew up in Taiwan and Brazil. In contrast, their granddaughter was born and raised in California. However, to illustrate the ability of “Uplift” to smooth out differences, she shares a favorite outcome: after her 89-year-old grandfather pulled the card, “What is a song that makes you happy?” he spontaneously started singing his answer, and Serena heard him sing in Taiwanese for the first time in her twenty years of knowing him.
Since “Uplift” is still in beta testing, you can’t add it to your holiday gift list this year, but it should be widely available for next season; however, order early as rumor has it that a local organization has already ordered thirty sets. To view the Encouragement Gallery & learn more about the Uplift Initiative, visit Uplift Notes.
A version of this article was included in the most recent Claremont Courier.
This is a lovely post! I love the idea of the development - and the water bottle lanterns are wonderful!
Holidays are not a Hallmark movie for most of us, so let's be honest about that without climbing into the dumpster and wallowing in that feeling. Breathe, smile and care about others; that's enough.