More confidant and accomplice than scolding, the grandparent can represent in the eyes of his grandchildren a figure of adult less authoritarian and source of conflict than that of the parents. He can play the role of a playmate, but also that of a figure full of experience to whom one can confide his secrets and ask advice on delicate subjects, without fear of being scolded for these confidences. But if this report can play an essential role in the growth of grandchildren, we must not neglect the assets that it also represents for grandparents. It's a beneficial relationship on both sides.
While the brains of their grandchildren are formed day by day and establish new connections, it is for the older ones not to feel abandoned. Studies tend to show that this relationship keeps older people in shape, whether we are talking about physical or mental fitness. At first glance, it may not seem as relaxing and rejuvenating as a spa vacation, but we assure you that spending time with your grandchildren has rejuvenating effects. And I promise, it's not the parents who want to get rid of it for the weekend who wrote this article!
Contact with grandchildren first of all has very concrete physiological effects. One of the first is keeping you in shape:playing with little ones often means running after them, teaching them to swim, carrying them and whirling around... Added to this are walks, gardening or DIY:so many activities that exercise your muscles and joints just as much as theirs.
A healthy mind in a healthy body, then. But the first is not to be outdone, because intellectual activity is also stimulated. Playing board games with them, reading stories together, reactivating memories from the past, answering their perpetual questions... All of this is full of virtues:we see a preservation of intellectual faculties and an improvement in cognitive functions in the elderly. who regularly take care of their grandchildren. Of course, it is not exactly the latter that radiate gamma waves and make your brain grow, although their undoubtedly lovely faces seem endowed with extraordinary faculties. No, it is indeed the stimulation of your gray matter exerted by the aforementioned range of activities that has these favorable effects. Your grandchildren keep your brain sharp. All this would even have positive effects on the prevention of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
Youth contact is also good for morale. This is one of the reasons for the success of intergenerational choirs. Seeing their grandchildren allows the elderly to come out of the loneliness from which they sometimes suffer once they have retired and extracted from the tumult of professional and social life. This is all the more the case when they have lost their spouse, and some of their friends begin to die or at least deteriorate. There would then be enough to indulge in ruminating, but seeing the new generation blossom and rub against it is enough to look like a ray of sunshine. This is just as much the case for isolated grandparents as it is for those under stress. Contact with grandchildren, who take you on board in their boundless imagination and take you out of your comfort zone, has the additional beneficial effect of preventing stress.
In addition, the proximity to the grandchildren offers a feeling of usefulness that the arrival of retirement has stolen from some. We find by making the babysitters a role with the parents, very happy to be able to entrust their offspring to you from time to time, and even within the social order. If our atomized societies no longer function on this model and favor that of the atomic family, we must not forget that for centuries, and this until only a few generations ago, the family was a structure within which all the generations lived under the same roof and pooled tasks such as the education of the youngest. If this is only rarely the case today, the fact remains that by taking care of your grandchildren, you are not an elderly person in charge of others, you are a grandpa. or a granny, who plays the role and is loved as such. And then, more simply, the happiness and pride of seeing your children's children born, growing up, flourishing — and knowing you play a role in it — illuminates the face more effectively than any anti-wrinkle cream.
Finally, it is a feeling of social rejuvenation that is favored. If grandparents are an inexhaustible source of knowledge and wisdom for the youngest, this relationship is not a one-way street. Through the youngest, grandparents keep in touch with technological developments that would otherwise tend to elude them. They too have a lot to learn from their descendants, who were born surrounded by all kinds of devices perceived as true extensions of their beings. The little cyborgs can therefore in turn teach their grandparents to use their gadgets. Have you ever seen a toddler show a puzzled senior, with barely concealed impatience at so much clumsiness, how to use a tablet? Learning to garden on one side, to send emails on the other - it's give and take!
If technology is the most obvious aspect, the gap between generations is widened there, yet it is all parts of your culture that are just waiting to benefit from this exchange. In contact with the youngest, the third age remains in contact with the constantly evolving language and the sometimes disconcerting expressions of youth, he is aware of the latest cinematographic and even video game trends, is familiar with fictional heroes, and does not will not stand out for his stupidity by voluntarily scratching the name of Aya Nakamura. Without falling into youthism, it is good to know that you are at least up to date, and this tends to consolidate self-confidence, which can be brought to experience serious setbacks once retirement arrives.
Anyway, watch out for abuse! Like all good things in life, this one relies on moderation. If this relationship is so rich in benefits, it is because it focuses above all on the playful and pleasant aspects of raising children. Beware then of overwork, which would chase away all these benefits and would only poison your relationship. Leave that to the parents!
