Shared activities of grandparents and grandchildren

The effects of received grandmothers' affection on adult grandchildren's health behaviors using affection exchange theory

BACKGROUND

Affection exchange theory (AET) explains the value of received affection for overall wellbeing in family relationships. However, this study extends prior work by investigating AET in grandmother-grandchild relationships and grandchildren's individual well-being. This study seeks to understand the relationships between adult grandchildren's received grandmother affection and health-related behaviors such as diet, exercise, substance abuse, and sleep.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study included 229 university student participants. Multiple regression analyses were performed to analyze received grandmother affection and grandchildren's health behaviors.

RESULTS

Using cross-sectional survey methods, it was found that grandchildren's reports of received memories and humor, and celebratory affection influenced grandchildren's dietary behaviors. Received love and esteem, memories and humor, and celebratory affection was also associated with grandchildren's exercise behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

Grandchildren who receive grandmother affection may be likely to engage in the well-being process by engaging in health behaviors, while those who are not receiving affection might suffer the health consequences in adulthood. These findings support the assumption of affection exchange theory that received family affection, in this case, grandmother affection leads to positive health outcomes such as enhanced dietary and exercise behaviors among grandchildren.

The Benefits of Intergenerational Wisdom-Sharing: A Randomized Controlled Study

Adolescents’ opportunities to benefit from the life wisdom of older persons are very limited. To address this issue, we designed and tested the Building a Community Legacy Together (BCLT) program based on research on the benefits of older people’s wisdom for youth development. In the intervention, the youth participants were trained prior to conducting interviews with older persons regarding their advice for living. The youth participants analyzed the information obtained and presented a summary report to the community. The participants were 93 middle and high school youth who were randomly assigned to the treatment condition with the BCLT program (n = 47) or to the control condition (n = 46). The outcome measures included sense of purpose, self-esteem, attitudes toward older people, confidence interacting with older people, and interest in working with older people. Quantitative and qualitative data were also collected regarding the subjective assessments of the program’s success. We found significant positive effects for the BCLT participants regarding their sense of purpose in life, attitudes toward older people, comfort interacting with older people, and interest in working with older people. The subjective assessments of the participants were overwhelmingly positive. The findings indicate that BCLT had positive effects for the youth participants and support the further development and testing of wisdom-sharing intergenerational programs.

College Granddaughters' Memories and Emotions Related to Their Relationships With Their Deceased Grandfathers

The main question addressed in this exploratory study was the following: What is the content of college females' journals about their deceased grandfathers? The method involved 35 undergraduate females keeping journals about their feelings toward their deceased maternal or paternal grandfathers for one semester. Their journal entries were open-ended in order to explore an under-utilized qualitative and narrative-based approach to studying granddaughter-grandfather relationships, from the granddaughters' perspectives. The results demonstrated that the maternal grandfathers were the most frequently written about. In addition, the journals revealed differences in content depending on how old the granddaughters were when their grandfathers died, and various forms of sadness were expressed in over 50% of the entries. It was concluded that additional developmental research is needed on the impact of having deceased grandfathers on granddaughters' and grandsons' memories and emotions.

Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships from the Children's Perspective: Shared Activities and Socialization Styles

The objective of this study is to describe the relationships between grandchildren and their favourite grandparents, by studying the socialization styles used by latter and the shared activities undertaken. The participants were 360 children between 10 and 12 years old, who completed the grandparent-grandchild relationship questionnaire of Rico, Serra and Viguer (2001) and the socialization questionnaire of Rey and Ruiz (1990). The results demonstrate the importance of gender and family line in the selection of the favourite grandparent, differences being shown in the types of shared activities and in socialization styles. It is concluded that in the majority of cases the profile of the favourite grandparent is the maternal grandmother, retired or a house wife, aged between 60-70, who lives in the same city as his/her grandchild, and who has contact with them several times a week. Furthermore, favourite grandparents get more involved with granddaughters than with grandsons, both in support and care activities and in cultural-recreational activities, and they primarily employ a democratic style. However, there are differences depending on the gender of the grandchild, with democratic principles being used more with girls and authoritarian ones with boys.

Learning from the Disease: Lessons Drawn from Adolescents Having a Grandparent Suffering Dementia

The objective of this study was to explore what adolescent grandchildren have learned from having a grandparent who suffers dementia and what coping strategies they might recommend for other adolescents in similar situations. We also present information on background factors influencing lessons learned and coping strategies. Adolescent grandchildren living in Barcelona, Spain participated in the study ( N = 138). Qualitative analysis was conducted on responses to 2 open-ended questions regarding lessons learned from having a grandparent with dementia and advice to other grandchildren facing similar situations. Five learning and 4 coping strategies emerged from the analysis. Adolescents reported about the value of life, the complexity of the life-span, and changes in personal characteristics such as patience and responsibility as a result of the experience. Advice to other adolescents primarily focused on accepting the dementia as well as acquiring behavioral coping strategies. Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that type of care grandparent receives—day center versus nursing home—and age of the adolescent influenced lessons learned and coping strategies. Implications for the developmental tasks of the grandchild during adolescence are discussed.

Reasons young adults visit (and do not visit) impaired grandparents

This study explored the value undergraduate students ( N = 138) attach to relationships with impaired grandparents by examining some of the reasons they visit (and do not visit) grandparents who live with conditions limiting their cognitive, physical, or psychological well-being. As part of a larger study, participants completed two checklists to indicate their reasons for visiting and not visiting their affected grandparents. Reward-based reasons were endorsed more frequently as motives for visiting than were reasons based on external constraints, family difficulties, guilt, or wanting to take advantage of the time left with their grandparents. Barriers that restricted opportunities to visit were endorsed more frequently as explanations for participants' failure to visit than were problems in the relationship itself, guilt, or severity of impairment.

Grandparent caregiving role in ethnically diverse families

The grandparenting caregiving role in ethnically diverse families has not been well defined and described in the present literature. The goals of this article are to (a) synthesize what is known about the grandparent caregiving role in ethnically diverse families in the context of the African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American families and (b) identify gaps in knowledge to guide future research, education, and practice in this area of study. A narrative approach was used to review the literature from 1980 to 2003 and a descriptive summary of the literature is provided with a discussion of the research methods and salient findings.

Sharing of culture: adult grandchildren's perceptions of intergenerational relations

The current study addressed the sharing of traditions, beliefs, and customs (i.e., culture) between grandparents and grandchildren. Two hundred and forty-six adult grandchildren were surveyed on both existing and newly created measures of grandparenting. Results indicated that extent of shared activities, attitudes toward grandparents, and perceptions of cultural sharing were significantly related. Additionally, it was found that minority and female participants were more likely to engage in intergenerational culture sharing and reported more positive statements about this sharing in response to open-ended questions. Findings highlights the importance of cultural sharing to perceptions of grandchild-grandparent relationships.

Dyadic and gender differences in perceptions of the grandparent-grandchild relationship

The majority of research on grandparenting has taken the perspective of either the grandparent or the grandchild. The present study compares the perceptions of grandparents and grandchildren on four relationship variables: 1) role conception, 2) amount of contact, 3) the assessed adequacy of contact, and 4) closeness of relationship. The sample consisted of forty grandparent-grandchild pairs representing four relational dyads. A series of ANOVAs were used to examine gender and relational differences in perceptions. Increased understanding of the dynamics of grandparent-grandchild relationships can benefit professionals who develop intergenerational programs. Creating opportunities to interact across a spectrum of activities is recommended.

The meaning of grandparenthood: a critical review and research agenda

Despite the importance of grandparenthood in the personal and family context, as well as its increasing economic, political and legal implications, research addressing its meaning and significance has been sparse and characterized by theoretical and methodological limitations. The main theoretical limitation is the lack of a clear definition at the conceptual level. Methodological limitations include not only the use of small and non-inclusive samples, most of which pertain to only one or two generations, but also the lack of a well-developed multidimensional measurement approach. The aim of the present paper is to describe the status of research on the meaning of grandparenthood, and discuss its conceptual and methodological developments, especially regarding measurement issues. An example of an ongoing research program is provided as a guideline for future research.

Grandparental impact in young adults' relationships with their closest grandparents: the role of relationship strength and emotional closeness

This study explored the role that relationship strength, generally, and emotional closeness, more specifically, may play in delimiting the bounds of grandparental influence in young adults' lives. One-hundred and seventy-one college-aged young adults completed a questionnaire evaluating their relationship with the living grandparent to whom they felt most emotionally close or, if they felt close to none of their living grandparents, the grandparent with whom they had the most contact. Participants' perceptions of the strength of this relationship were significantly and positively related to their responses on measures of the extent to which their closest grandparent influenced various aspects of their lives (e.g., their beliefs and values, how much their lives would be missing had they never known the grandparent). In addition, participants whose grandparent-grandchild relationships were emotionally close endorsed a broader range of alternatives on checklist measures of perceived relationship impact than did those whose relationships were more emotionally distant.