Countless scientific studies in different countries have been done on the influence of grandparents on their grandkids concerning various facets in the life of the children. The better known researches were performed in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
The main objective of the investigations was to determine if there was any significant impact of grandparents at all on the lives of their grandchildren later in life, in their adulthood.
While there are variations in the culture and tradition in these different societies, and the personalities of grandparents and the individual family situation and circumstance vary a lot, still there are important positive common denominators noted in those surveys.
Since the negative effects especially on young children of people with bad habits, behavior, and attitude, whether grandparents or not, are obvious and have been proven, these studies we cited were centered on good responsible grandparents as attested by their own children, their spouses, and grandchildren themselves. I shall summarize the findings of the studies after the following information from Allison Gilbert, founder of Parentless Parents, a network of parents who have lost their own parents, whose works have been featured on the New York Times, CNN, ABC News, and other media.
Life-changing association
Gilbert writes, “scientists have long held that grandparents play an enormous role in children’s cognitive, behavioral, and social development. But if grandparents have such measurable influence, where does that leave kids, especially those born to older parents, who may have few or no grandparents in their lives?”
Children’s book author Patricia Polacco told Gibert in an interview: “If I had never known my grandparents, I would not have written the entire body of work. I am sure of it… the majority of my 70 best-selling books were inspired by the close relationship I had with my grandparents.”
US Republican consultant and history freak, who has worked with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, revealed he may not have gotten into politics if it were not for his grandfather.
The novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard (Blindsided by a Diaper) felt her children were “ripped off” having had only one grandparent. And Gilbert feels exactly the same way because her children never got to know her mother and father. Of her own childhood, she says, “it was richer because, for a while at least, I had all my grandparents…Grandma Bertha changed my life.”
I could relate to this feeling since my Dad succumbed to a heart attack in 1962 at age 46, when my two elder children were only 2 and barely 7 months old. But luckily for them my mother, who is now 95 years old and still very alert, has given them some years of “grandchildren’s memories” to cherish, together with those from their two maternal grandparents who left us 11 years ago. As physicians today, the five of them are fully cognizant of the many positive influences grandparents have on their own children.
Non-resident grandparents
The research by Jeremy Yorgason and Laura Padilla-Walker of the Department of Family Life of Brigham Young University shows grandparents, even those who live elsewhere, have a boosting effect on the social behaviors of children. The investigators emphasized that “non-resident grandparents take on a role that encourages positive development rather than disciplining negative behavior….which is particularly important in early-adolescence when parent-child conflict increases.” In this situation, which is the usual “norm,” the children find secure allies in them, who also tend to pamper them and “come to their aid like the National Guard.”
The study also shows “the emotional relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren can significantly affect the children’s academic, psychological, and social development….It has been shown that children have a higher level of self-confidence when grandparents give more affection. Such emotional closeness has long-term positive impacts on children’s lives, including the value children derive from giving and receiving care from another person.”
Centre for research into Parenting and Children in the Social policy and Social work at Oxford University co-researcher Dr. Eirini Flouri reported “that close relationships between grandparents and grandchildren buffered the effects of adverse life events, such as parental separation, because it calmed the children down. This suggests future investigations should pay more attention to the role of grandparents in developing resilience in young people.’
Summary: The impact, the benefits
The positive impact and benefits children derived from their grandparents, on top of being the extra pair of hands for caring, cooking, diapering, soothing, and baby sitting, are as follows:
Grandparents provide children a sense of belonging, family continuity, and history.
They help reinforce and assure transmission of culture and tradition.
They are potential role models, on top of the parents and public idols.
Children, especially adolescents, are more comfortable confiding in their grand parents, especially grandmas, and find them more tolerant, pampering them more than the “disciplinarian” parents.
Grandparents are added source of positive boost and self-confidence for the children, who become more ambitious with their future.
They provide an extra tier of security by simply being there to soothe.
They inspire personality, attitude, and character development and improvement
Grandparents are an added venue for learning values and good manners.
They inculcate in the children’s subconscious respect for elders and authority.
Children also subconsciously learn from them compassion, fairness, and understanding for others.
Grandparents, without conscious efforts, are somehow able to naturally transfuse psychological reassurance and stability to the children; perhaps because children feel their grandparents are “fire extinguishers,” an available added layer of protection for them.
Children with living grandparents have been found to gain social enrichment faster and the ability to adjustment to society better, and develop greater sense of humor and tolerance to the realities of life as they grow older.
Everything else being equal in a family, the presence of grandparents also lowers risk of adolescent/adult depression and suicide.
These, and more, are the reasons why grandparents are indeed valuable and a privilege to have… and should live forever.
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Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus in Northwest Indiana and chairman of cardiac surgery from 1997 to 2010 at Cebu Doctors University Hospital, where he holds the title of Physician Emeritus in Surgery, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Philippine College of Surgeons, and the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society. He is the chairman of the Filipino United Network – USA, a 501(c)(3) humanitarian foundation in the United States. Email: [email protected]
