Today?s grandparents are rolling up their sleeves, ready to help modern families cope with the demands of working and raising children.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than a quarter (26 per cent) of children are now cared for by their grandparents on a regular basis. In 2011, that equated to 936,999 children aged up to 12.
This informal care by grandparents compares with 14 per cent of children in long day care and 8 per cent in before and after- school care, making grandparents the most popular childcare option for working Australians.
Research conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies in April showed that 73 per cent of grandparents reported seeing their grandchildren once a month or more frequently.
In the data collected by the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, 44 per cent of grandparents indicated they were looking after their grandchildren once a week or more often.
Grandmothers were more likely to perform childcare duties daily or several times a week.
Parenting Centre WA manager Carmel Wilkinson says the trend towards more involved grandparents is a direct reflection of the current economic climate, where both parents need to work to make ends meet.
?Some grandparents become very closely involved in looking after their grandchildren while others, depending on their geographical location, only see them a few times a year,? she said.
?We?ve seen a growing trend in which grandparents are becoming more involved with their grandchildren, mainly relating to the fact that both parents are working full-time.
?Many grandparents make a regular commitment to looking after their grandchildren on certain days and some are still working part-time themselves. Others step in at certain times of the year ? during the school holidays or when the children are ill.
?The advantage for many grandparents is they find the experience much more enjoyable and relaxing than when they were parents. They have the time to enjoy them but they don?t have total responsibility and can hand them back at the end of the day.?
Ms Wilkinson said grandparents had a vital role to play in modern family structures imparting wisdom and teaching children old pastimes from knitting and sewing to arts and crafts and model-making.
?Sometimes, they will just pass the time of day together and there is a sense of wisdom that is passed from the grandparent to the grandchild and vice versa,? she said.
It was very important for grandparents to speak to their adult children about how childcare arrangements would be structured and to build some firm boundaries around what was acceptable and what was not by both parties.
The parents? preferred style of parenting should be discussed so that grandparents did not find themselves crossing a line.
?It all comes down to communication,? Ms Wilkinson said. ?Grandparents want to spoil their grandkids and sometimes parents get upset because grandparents are spoiling them too much. It?s those kinds of issues they should talk about to make sure everyone understands the ground rules.?
Children would adapt to different rules in different homes, but it was important for adult children to communicate with the grandparents about what they were trying to achieve with their parenting.
Grandparents also needed to look after themselves.
?Communicating your own needs is important,? Ms Wilkinson said. ?Children?s activities can be so full-on that grandparents can get tired very quickly, they need to know their limits.?
Relationships Australia counsellor Mary-Jo Morgan said being a modern grandparent required good communication and regular self-care.
?Having grandparents involved in children?s lives is critical under the concept of ?it takes a village to raise a child?,? Ms Morgan said.
?This current baby boomer generation is grandparenting in a different way than past generations. I am seeing more and more grandparents who are full-time carers and we often see these grandparents dealing with the grief they have around their children being unable to care for their own young children.
?Many of them have to readjust their whole thinking about retirement and the rest of their lives being around children, so it?s a very complex issue.?
Ms Morgan said she had counselled grandparents aged anywhere between 40 and 80.
?A lot of the grandmothers today in particular are working as well as grandparenting.
?In days gone by, not as many women would have been in the workforce and they would have been more traditional stay-at-home grandmothers, but that cliche about grandmothers baking has definitely shifted.
?I see a lot of grandmothers in my travels that are very involved and a lot more hands-on ? they take the kids to playgroups and are doing activities at the libraries and the parks.?
Ms Morgan said some grandparents preferred to limit the time they spent looking after their grandchildren in favour of pursuing their own interests. Grandparents should be transparent and clear with their adult children about how much time they could give in caring for grandchildren.
?There are a lot of interesting dilemmas and challenges with grandparenting. For most grandparents, it?s a life-changing experience. But there is always a conflict between spending time with the grandchildren and pursuing parts of your life you could not when you were a parent yourself.
?Adult children should not always assume that their parents will automatically look after the children when the mother goes back to work. It?s a tricky conversation to have and sometimes a lack of communication can lead to a relationship breakdown.?
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/lifestyle/a/-/article/14639829/the-grandest-job-of-them-all/
Source: http://socato.org/?p=12978
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