Why the grandparent grandchild relationship is important for happiness
Children are happier and healthier if grandparents are involved in their upbringing, a survey conducted by Oxford University and the Institute of Education in London has shown.
The research was based on answers from questionnaires with 1,596 children between the ages of 11 and 16 from Britain, as well as in-depth interviews with 40 children.
The study showed that grandparents who are involved in the daily lives of their grandchildren increase the wellbeing and happiness in children. Closeness wasn’t enough though, grandparents had to be truly involved and interested in grandchildren’s lives for adolescents to reap the positive benefits.
“We were surprised by the huge amount of informal caring that the grandparents were doing and how in some cases they were filling the parenting gap for hard-working parents,” said Professor Ann Buchanan, principal author and director of the Centre for Research into Parenting and Children in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at Oxford University.
With changing family patterns, increased life expectancy, growing numbers of working parents, grandparents are now playing an increasing role in their grandchildren's lives, offering support, advice and problem-solving to adolescents navigating their childhood.
Professor Buchanan added: “Most adolescents really welcomed this relationship. What was especially interesting was the links we found between ‘involved grandparents’ and adolescent well-being. Closeness was not enough: Only grandparents who got stuck in and did things with their grandchildren had this positive impact on their grandchildren.”
The study also found that grandparents were instrumental in times of adversity and were often the strong foundation to help families survive crisis.
“We found that close relationships between grandparents and grandchildren buffered the effects of adverse life events, such as parental separation, because [the relationships] calmed the children down,” said co-author Dr Eirini Flouri of the Institute of Education.
“This suggests future investigations should pay more attention to the role of grandparents in developing resilience in young people.”
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