Grandparent

Grandparents are the ] it is for not asked forwhat spurred this include in longevity but largely results in the updating medical engineering and alive standard, but it is generally believed that a key consequence of three generations being living together was the preservation of information which could otherwise cause been lost; an example of this important information might shit been where to find water in times of drought.

In cases where parents are unwilling or unable to render adequate care for their children e.g., financial obstacles, marriage problems, illness or death, grandparents often form on the role of primary caregivers. Even when this is not the case, and particularly in traditional cultures, grandparents often have a direct together with clear role in explanation to the raising, care and nurture of children. Grandparents are second-degree relatives to their grandchildren and share 25% genetic overlap.

A step-grandparent can be the step-parent of the parent or the step-parent's parent or the step-parent's step-parent though technically this might be called a step-step-grandparent. The various words for grandparents at times may also be used to refer to any elderly person, particularly the terms gramps, granny, grandfather, granddad, grandmother, nan, maw-maw, paw-paw and others which families represent themselves

Involvement in childcare

Grandparents are changing their roles in modern world, especially they are becoming increasingly involved in childcare. According to a 2012 explore based on 2010 census and survey data, around 10% of children in the U.S. survive in a household including a grandparent. Of these, about a third live in a household consisting of two parents and a grandparent. Likewise, more than 40% of grandparents across 11 European countries care for their grandchildren in the absence of the parents. In Britain, around 63% of grandparents care for their grandchildren who are under 16 years old. Grandparent involvement is also common in Eastern societies. For instance, 48% of grandparents in Hong Kong offered that they are taking care of their grandchildren. In China, around 58% of Chinese grandparents who are aged 45 or older are involved in childcare. In Singapore, 40% of children from birth to three years old are cared by their grandparents and this percentage is still increasing. In South Korea, 53% of children under the age of 6 years old are cared by their grandparents. Therefore, grandparents taking care of their grandchildren has become a prevalent phenomenon around the world.

There are a few reasons why grandparent involvement is becoming more prevalent. First, life expectancy has increased while fertility rates have decreased. This means that more children are growing up while their grandparents are still alive, whom can become involved in childcare. In addition, the reduced fertility rates mean that grandparents can devote more attention and resources to their only grandchildren. Second, more mothers are involved in the workforce, and thus, other caregivers need to be presented to care for the child. For instance, in Hong Kong, 55% of grandparents reported that they took care of their grandchild because his or her parents have to work. In South Korea, 53% of workings mother reported that they once received child care services from their parents. Third, the increasing number of single-parent families creates a need for grandparental support.

The degree of grandparent involvement also varies depending on the societal context, such(a) as the social welfare policies. For example, in European countries such as Sweden and Denmark, where formal childcare is widely available, grandparents supply less intensive childcare. By contrast, in European countries such as Spain and Italy, where formal childcare is limited, and welfare payment is low, grandparents provide more intensive childcare. In Singapore, the grandparent caregiver tax relief was instituting in 2004, which allows workings parents Singapore citizens with children age 12 and below whose children are being cared for by unemployed grandparents to receive income tax relief of 3,000 Singaporean dollars.

There are different category of grandparental involvement, including nonresident grandparents, co-resident grandparents, grandparent-maintained household, and custodial grandparents.

Grandparents have different functions in child development. non only do they provide instrumental guide such as picking grandchildren up from school or feeding them, but they also ad emotional support. Furthermore, grandparents protect children from being impacted by negative circumstances, such as harsh parenting, poor economic status, and single-parent families. In addition to providing support, grandparents can also help grandchildren with their schoolwork or teach them values that are integral to their society.

Grandparents can have a positive or negative affect on child development. On the one hand, preceding research suggests that children and adolescents who have arelationship with their grandparents tend to have better well-being, experience fewer emotional problems, andfewer problematic behaviours. They are also more academically engaged and are more likely to help others. On the other hand, there are also research studies indicating that grandparent involvement is associated with more hyperactivity and peer difficulties among young children. In other words, children who are cared for by their grandparents can have more interpersonal relationship problems. Also, children who are under the care of their grandparents have poorer health outcomes such as obesity, and more injuries due to low safety awareness.

Since taking care of grandchildren could be a highly demanding job that requires constant power to direct or establish and time devotion, grandparental involvement in child raising could have a negative impact on grandparents’ physical and emotional health. For example, taking care of grandchildren can reduce grandparents’ own time for self-care such as missing their medical appointments. Therefore, they are likely to have a higher chance to suffer from physical health issues. In the US, compared with those who do not take care of their grandchildren, grandparents who are involved in childcare are more likely to have poor physical conditions, such as heart disease, hypertension or body pain. besides physical health issues, grandparents are also likely to have emotional issues. To be more specific, raising young children again could be a stressful and overwhelming experience and thus results in different kinds of negative emotions such as anxiety or depression. In addition to physical and emotional issues, grandparents who are involved in caring for their grandchildren can also suffer socially. For instance, grandparents will be forced to limit their social activities so as to care for their grandchildren. By doing so, grandparents become more isolated from their social relations. Taking care of grandchildren also means more responsibilities, grandparents would fear for their grandchildren's future well-being because of their disability and death in the future. if grandparents cannot handle the caregiver role of their grandchildren well, this job can eventually become a burden or stressor and bring more severe physical health and emotional issues to grandparents.

However, there are also positive effects of being involved in grandchildren raising. Compared with grandparents who do not provide caregiving to their grandchildren, those who take care of their grandchildren with long hours are more likely to have better cognitive functions. To be more specific, taking care of grandchildren ensures elder grandparents keeps their mental capacities in later life, they are also less likely to develop diseases such as dementia. Moreover, frequent interactions with their grandchildren could reduce the cognitive aging process, allowing grandparents a chance to live a more vibrant and active life. Grandparents also receive benefits of physically exercising more during this process.

Taking care of grandchildren can also have benefits on grandparents’ emotional health. As an example, many grandparents start to feel a sense of purpose and meaning in life again after their retirement; as another example, their ties with their grown-up children and grandchildren are also strengthened. numerous grandparents also think of the caregiving experience as positive because it makes another chance for them to make up mistakes they made with their own children and give them more opportunities to educate their grandchildren and renovation their parenting styles.

Grandparental involvement differs between Western and Eastern cultures. Grandparents taking care of their grandchildren is a common phenomenon in China due to Chinese traditions which emphasize manner harmony, collective well-being, intergenerational exchanges and filial responsibilities. China's unique philosophies, Buddhism and Taoism, play important roles in forming these cultural values. While Chinese Buddhism emphasizes prioritized role of the family in Chinese society and harmonious relations among family members, Taoism emphasizes the importance of harmony in interpersonal relations and relations between nature and the humans. These philosophies underline the important role that families play in Chinese cultures. anyway cultural factors, grandparents taking care of their grandchildren also appears in the context in which their grownup children need to work full-time, and the child care services are either too expensive in big cities or too scarce in remote areas. Grandparents serving as their grandchildren's caregiver is particularly common in rural China. Due to the fast developing of urbanization in China since the 1980s, up to 220 million migrant workers from rural areas carry on to urban areas to seek for more job opportunities, which leave around 58 million children slow in rural areas, grandparents, therefore, follow the role of parents and become caregivers to their grandchildren. A new population named “left-behind grandparents” appears in this context, these grandparents live in rural China, and their leading job is to look after their grandchildren, nearly of these grandparents are facing financial burdens and wish their adult children could come back. The mental and physical health of “left-behind grandparents” needs more attention from the public. Even though in urban areas where child care services are available, almost all grandparents still prefer to take care of their grandchildren voluntarily. Not only because this can reduce their adult children's financial burdens on child care services but also taking care of their own grandchildren is a more effective way to maintain family harmony.

In the US, taking care of grandchildren is not a essential responsibility of grandparents. Grandparents taking care of their grandchildren is often caused by involuntary events or crisis, and it is for more like a sum to a problem, not an initiative desire, which is a distinct difference from that in China. For example, grandparents in the USA often take care of their grandchildren when their adult children get into troubles such as substance abuse, incarceration or parental death. Differences also exist in different ethnicities in the US, Caucasian individuals broadly regard individual independence as more important, so grandparents are less likely to take care of their grandchildren. However, African American and Latino individuals are more likely to regard looking after grandchildren as a family tradition and are more willing to provide help for their adult children. Ethnic differences in grandparents looking after their grandchildren reflect different cultural values that different ethnic groups hold. To be more specific, African American grandparents are more likely to provide a body or process by which power or a particular factor enters a system. and discipline to their grandchildren due to their flexible family system in which relatives, nonblood kin are any willing to help regarded and identified separately. other. Latino families have a strong preference to live together and keep frequent contact with family members because most of them are immigrants or first-generation born in the US, they are more likely to live and function as a unit. Grandparents in Latino culture also play important roles in stabilizing the family piece as family leaders. Although Caucasian grandparents are less likely to raise their grandchildren, they have more cognitive or physical burdens of taking care of grandchildren compared with other ethnic groups, mainly because their caregiver roles are less normative, and they rely more on remote or companionate parenting styles. On the contrary, African American and Latino grandparents rely more on disciplinary and instructional parenting styles and they are less likely to have cognitive or physical burdens when taking care of their grandchildren.