When children live with their grandparents, both generations learn a lot.
Back in the old days of the 1960s, 70s and even 80s, there was no concept of nuclear families and joint families. Or even if there was, it was not very popular.
In this article...
- Concept of nuclear and joint family
- Family bonding
- Life experiences
- Happiness meter
- Peaceful mediator
It is only in the mid-90s that the concept of nuclear families started getting more popular, for various reasons.
Nuclear families are the families where the parents and the children live together but away from the grandparents. Joint families, as the name suggests, are the ones where the whole family — including the grandparents and sometimes even aunts and uncles — live together.
While we are not going to talk about which type of family arrangement is better or worse, we will today discuss the importance of grandparents in a kid's life, especially during childhood.
When children live with their grandparents, they learn a lot about their heritage and culture. We are not saying that parents do not teach their children all this, but simply that while the parents are busy at work or taking care of the house, the grandparents — usually retired — can pass on anecdotes and traditions from the family to the future of the family.
Staying or spending time with grandparents also warranties protecting against depression for both — children and grandparents. For the grandparents, it helps them feel less lonely and helping out grandchildren not only keeps them happy at heart, but also makes them feel useful as they get to help out kids in homework, or taking them to park, and so on.
Grandparents also have more patience than the parents as they have more time at hand, rather than parents who have to juggle between work and home life.
One major thing that parents cannot provide more than grandparents, even if they tried is experience.
Grandparents have more experience with/in life which can be used in form of anecdotes to teach various life skills and lessons such as the importance of time management, the value of friendships and relationships, importance of saving money and so on.
At times when it gets difficult for parents and children to communicate with each other and patiently express their emotions, grandparents can act as the much-needed mediators. Grandparents have a flexible nature and patience to sit with children and understand their argument. Similarly, they can also sit with parents and understand their point of view/concern as they have a heightened sense of responsibility and understanding.
Last but not least, grandparents can help out when you need a babysitter.
This will help save you money and have a more trusted person at home watching your children, rather than always having the fear at the back of your mind of whether or not your children are safe at home with the babysitter.
If you cannot live with your parents, at least meet them weekly or fortnightly to let your children bond with them and gain knowledge and skills in life.
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