08/05/2024
6 Benefits of Spending Time with Grandchildren
By Lisa Monroe
From passing down wisdom and family traditions, providing financial support, or helping with childcare, there are many ways that grandparents enrich the lives of their grandchildren. Studies have shown that children benefit both physically and emotionally from spending time with their grandparents.
But what about the grandparents? Do they also reap rewards from interactions with their grandchildren? The answer is a resounding yes.
Here are six benefits grandparents can experience from being around or caring for their grandchildren and how these benefits can positively impact health, well-being, and longevity. In the world’s blue zones regions, places renowned for residents who not only live longer but experience a high quality of life right up to the end, grandparents play an important role in family life. Let’s begin in Sardinia, Italy – the first location designated as a blue zones region.
When grandparents and grandchildren live in close proximity?
In Sardinia, older adults are an important part of the family unit and play an important role in the community. Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner has said, “And long before people were talking about the social determinants of health, I attributed Sardinians’ longevity to their propensity for keeping their aging parents nearby – extending life expectancy for both grandparents and grandchildren.”
Sardinia has 10 times more centenarians per capita than the U.S. And it’s quite common there to see multiple generations living in harmony within a single home. When there are younger children in the home, grandparents help take care of them. In turn, when these elders later need assistance themselves, they are lovingly cared for at home by their children and grandchildren until the end of their lives, rather than being institutionalized.
Research into the grandmother effect, a theory that has been studied since the 1960s, has shown that children who live with or have frequent contact with one or more of their grandparents have lower rates of mortality and disease.
