How Often Should Grandparents See Their Grandchildren

What grandparents should not do?

While there are a lot of things that grandparents can do to improve their relationship with their children and grandchildren, there are also some key things that grandparents should not do. Here are some of the things that grandparents should avoid doing if they want to maintain a good relationship with both their own kids as well as their grandkids:

Understanding Boundaries as a Grandparent

According to experts on the American family, Lynne M. Casper and Suzanne, M. Bianchi, the ability for grandparents to be tightly knit into the family depends on geographical distance (or lack of it) along with family structure. These two things work together or against each other to create a dynamic that either fosters a strong relationship or creates obstacles to it.

Grandparenting styles will depend on the number of things grandparents have in common with their grandchildren and how often they’re able to see each other. If grandparents live a long distance from their grandchildren and they have a poor relationship with their adult children, this will create inevitable challenges in the relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren.

Physical distance is a natural boundary that can get in the way of close relationships, but not always. Video and phone communication can sometimes bridge boundaries created by physical distance, but very young children won’t be able to respond to this media to make tight relationships until they’re old enough to have abstract thoughts. So, if your grandchildren are very young, it’s important to realize that the closeness of your relationship with them will be affected to some extent by the physical distance between you and them.

So, if you live on one side of the globe and your children live on the other, how can you maintain a close connection with your grandkids? Many grandparents overlook the fact that the relationship with their children should always come first, before their relationship with their grandchildren. They are parents first and grandparents second.

By creating a strong bond with your child and his or her significant other, you create an important, ongoing position for yourself in the family. If you have a strong bond with them, your adult children will keep the memory and idea of you alive with their children. They’ll tell stories about you and remind your grandkids to think of you. When children are young, they use their parents as role models to understand how to respond to people outside of the nuclear unit, so this is one of the most important ways in which your bond with your grandkids can be maintained.

As the parent of an adult child, you need to acknowledge that your child is an adult and treat them with respect while recognizing the challenges they face at the particular developmental age that they’re at. If your child is in their 20’s, then you would be wise to remember what it was like to be in your twenties, for example.

Young people at this age often struggle with career, finances, the early stages of marriage or even sometimes divorce or separation, and all of the auxiliary issues that go along with these things like finding adequate housing, settling into a work schedule, and balancing the demands of parenthood.

Giving advice is not usually the best way to parent adult children over the age of 20 years unless advice has been specifically requested, but if you want to be welcome at your child’s house to see the grandchildren, then be supportive and suspend your judgment of your child and his or her partner as long as the grandkids are being adequately cared for (fed, sheltered, and kept safe) and loved.

How often should grandparents visit their grandchildren?

The author of Intentional Parenting: A Contemporary Guide, Peggy Edwards, says that the length of grandparent visits depends on the comfort-level of the parents at having visitors in the home. According to her research, grandparents who live at a long distance tend to travel less often to visit and they stay longer, but the average number of visits that long-distance grandparents make each year is two to four times for trips lasting 5 to 10 days each.

But of course, every family is different and just because an expert says that a certain number of days or instances of visits is good does not mean that this will work for your family. One of the issues with following expert advice is that it may or may not take your adult child’s needs into consideration and you still need to be a parent to the adult child first. Show love, respect, and consideration toward your adult child. Ideally, the amount of time you spend with the grandkids should be determined through dialogue with your adult children.

Daycare or grandparents?

Another child-rearing expert, Emily Slone, cites cultural changes in western society and transitions as a cause for many of the family issues that exist today when grandchildren are born into the family. Years ago, grandparents were looked to for advice and assistance with child-rearing, but today, the healthcare system now functions as the “expert”.

Few people realize that when daycare was first proposed, just prior to World War II, studies by Albert Bandera (the developer of Attachment Theory) demonstrated that very young children did poorly in these environments. But during World War II, many women had to go to work anyway, so this research was swept under the rug and children went to daycare anyway. Today, daycare is a fixture in society, but studies still demonstrate that young children (under age 5 years especially), tend to be emotionally much healthier when they are raised by at least one dedicated caregiver who is truly invested in their well-being. At daycare, children never know who their caregiver will be from one day to the next.

As a general rule, daycare is not considered an optimal environment for very young children, but some parents opt for daycare rather than soliciting grandparents for help because grandparents will not obey the parent’s wishes, or they impose judgment on their adult children for having a way of life different than their own. Grandparents who wish to function as daycare for their grandchildren need to see the bigger picture and understand that in order for their house to be a better situation than daycare, they must be supportive toward the family unit as a whole and toward their adult children in particular!

What is a toxic grandparent?

A toxic grandparent is someone who loves their grandchildren, but who is critical, judgmental, and manipulative within the family unit. Their behavior creates turmoil that is destructive, rather than supportive toward their children and the family as a whole. Many toxic grandparents view their behaviors as “helpful” in that they think they are contributing toward the betterment of their children’s and grandchildren’s lives.

So how do you know if you’re a toxic grandparent or not? If your children have systematically worked to exclude you from their home or their lives, you might be a toxic grandparent. Most children want their parent’s support and they want their children to be loved and supported by their parents as well. So, if your children are trying to exclude you from the family and they are telling you that you are critical or manipulative or toxic, then it may be time to make some big changes if you want to maintain contact with your grandchildren!

If you think you might be a toxic grandparent and you’re afraid of being excluded from your grandchildren’s lives, consider going to a therapist or seeking out change therapies that would help you work on your own issues. Solicit help from trusted therapists or mediators to communicate with your children in ways that are constructive and beneficial for both parties. And keep trying to communicate with your children to let them know that you love them, no strings attached!