The Value of Grandparents in Child Rearing

Photo by Marissa Price on Unsplash

Greater Good Magazine looks at new research revealing the key role grandparents play as co-caregivers of their grandchildren around the world.

Grandparents have played a universally important role in child-rearing across time. Some parts of the world maintain traditional multi-generational households in which grandparents and their grandchildren interact on a daily basis. In North America, this form of household is rare. In the United States, only around 10% of households have grandchildren and grandparents living in the same household.

Studies suggest a positive co-relation in situations when parents have strong relationships with co-parenting grandparents, and point to ways in which this relationship can be nurtured. In the modern trend for families to have less children, grandparents and grandchildren have the potential for more individualized supportive relationships.

The findings show that parents with more open communication patterns tended to have more cooperative co-parenting relationships with grandparents, and grandparents who were less psychologically controlling tended to have more open communication patterns and less conflict in ther co-parenting relationships. The research “highlights that navigating the coparenting relationship is not without its challenges. But grandparents’ involvement in children’s upbringing can confer great benefits for families and grandparents themselves.”

A Chinese study by Xiaowei Li and her colleagues have explored parent-grandparent co-parenting in China, where such relationships are common, through multiple studies. The findings show that “mothers who had strong coparenting relationships with grandparents (mostly grandmothers) tended to feel more effective in their role as a parent, and, in turn, their children tended to be more socially competent six months later.” They also found that, overall, “families with better mother-grandparent coparenting relationships tended to have fewer marital conflicts and, in turn, more positive parent-child relationships.”

In an October, 2020, New York Times article, Allison Gilbert interviewed families about how grandparents are finding ways to stay actively engaged with their grandchildren even during COVID isolation. Her conversations indicated, “Instead of stilted, office-style Zoom sessions, families can use digital connections in creative ways to foster more meaningful relationships…. Routine tasks, such as helping grandchildren with homework or listening to them sing or practice a musical instrument, have the capacity to build the most rewarding and enduring relationships.”

Chuck Kalish, a cognitive and developmental psychologist and senior adviser for science at the Society for Research in Child Development, suggests, “ The way you get to a meaningful, deep relationship is by having a set of transactional relationships. The way a child will have a rich relationships with a grandparent is if that grandparent really is a resource in the child’s life.”

Some ways to enrich relationships with grandchildren include:

Be Part of a Routine: There may be ways for a grandparent to become part of their grandchild’s daily routine, even remotely, such as being homework helpers and tutors. For younger children, family and caregiving expert, Amy Goyer, suggests grandparents get two copies of the same book, keeping one and mailing one to their grandchild, so that they can read it together as a bedtime story over a video or phone call.

Let the Child Teach: Grandparents can strengthen their connections with grandchildren by following the child’s interests and allowing them to be the teacher, such as playing a game together on a video call. Chuck Kalish notes, “Kids are not going to come most of the way to meet the grandparents. The grandparents have to come most of the way to meet the kid.”

Let the Grandparent Teach: Grandparents can use real-time cooking lessons to pass along family, culture and traditions, such as sharing a family recipe, preparing it together and eating it at the same time on Zoom.

Use Snail Mail: Dr. Ken Ginsburg, director of programs at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, suggests families fortify their bonds by sending letters. “It’s really important for children to know that adults think about them even when we’re not talking to them or present with them.” Letters can be saved, too, which means they can be read again later in life with new understanding and appreciation. Dr. Ginsburg says, “Everybody likes receiving packages. When you open it up, you’re literally reminded, someone was thinking about me.” Children can send art projects and drawings that their grandparents can open on a video call.

The article concludes: These strategies may be worth keeping up even after the pandemic… In a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Science in 2018, focusing on grandparents, researchers noted that, “There is now a growing body of research that illustrates grandparent involvement is associated with improved mental health, improved resilience and pro-social behaviour in grandchildren.” Other research found that’s particularly important if their parents are divorced, separated or remarried. Likewise, the 2019 AARP survey found that grandparents who feel invested in the lives of their grandchildren enjoy better emotional and physical health.”