Increasing and strengthening family ties with grandparents

Grandparents are there for reason(s). Nowadays, grandparents tend to over pamper their grandchildren, giving them what their parents do not give them. In this circumstance they might spoil them and this is when we allow such. Grandparents provide acceptance, love, stability, wisdom, fun and support to their grandchildren. This in turn, has positive effects on a child’s well- being.

Christina Pay, USU Extension Assistant Professor said that a close relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is mutually beneficial when it comes to the health and well-being of both.  A study by Sara Moorman, PhD. and Jeffrey Stokes found that children who grow up with greater emotional closeness to their grandparents are less likely to be depressed as adults (Moorman & Stokes, 2016).

For grandparents, a close relationship with their grandchildren can boost brain function (Arpino & Bordone, 2014), protect against depression (Moorman & Stokes, 2016), and increase their lifespan (Hilbrand, et al., 2017).

In the age-old days when couples lived very close or even together with their in –laws, the relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren were very close because they basically stayed in the same environment or even in the same home.  Parents would conveniently leave their children under the care of their grandparents and the grandparents were so delighted to take care of their grandchildren and sometimes, in the circumstance of over pampering, spoiled them.

Today, things are different.  In today’s world, many families may not live close to each other and this makes it very difficult for parents to cultivate a close relationship between their children and grandparents. But hope is not lost as parents can help grandparents and grandchildren build close relationships by encouraging frequent contacts. Where possible, grandparents should be invited to visit the home often. However, if physical distance presents some challenges, other things could be done to foster frequent contacts such as: –

1. . Frequent visits.: –  When grandparents live in a different town or state, there could be planned arrangements for both the grandparents and grandchildren to visit alternately, possibly during festivities or during the children’s long vacation.  If the visits are frequent, they would help your child view the time spent together with their grandparents as special.
2.  Use of technology: -. There are so many options available! There could be Zoom meetings where the grandparents are abroad and are learned and the parents in distant locations. There is also email, texting, Instagram, etc., all of which could facilitate staying in contact. Grandparents can record themselves reading a bedtime story to share with their grandchildren or even read bedtime stories to their children via WhatsApp.  Grandchildren can send personalized messages and photos with the same result of keeping in contact and staying close. Communication can also be encouraged via video calls or conferencing with both grandparents and grandchildren participating. Both will anticipate regular communications and both would be thrilled to receive responses.
3.  Share Photos.: –  Place photos of grandparents in your home and point them out to your children often as they grow up. You can also create a family photo album to page through during family engagements or activities. Your children may not be able to see their grandparents frequently, but they will learn who they are and feel their importance in the family by paging through the albums.

• Playing games: – Organize games that will interest both grandparents and grandchildren so that they can play together and get grandparents to share family history with grandchildren as this may trigger interesting questions and enable positive interactions. 

For grandparents who are in the same environment with their grandchildren, it would be nice if regular dinner together is encouraged. Plan activities that would allow the teaching of some special skills such as; fishing, backing , local way of palm oil processing or even tree climbing and some other peculiar family traditional skills by the grandparents to the grandchildren would help when the children visit the village.

For parents, to increase and strengthen the family ties with the grandparents, they need to build a healthy relationship with their in-laws. Treat them well as their own family because they are your new family and you’re going to spend most of your life with them. Understand that your partner was raised in this family.  If you keep that in mind, everything would become much easier to handle and the flow of much things would be unhindered.