Grandparents and grandchildren have been an inseparable mix within our family structure since time immemorial. They go together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Children come without guile, an agenda or a “judgment template” from which to view the world. They simply accept and embrace with wonder and curiosity.
Grandparents delight in teaching and sharing their wisdom with the children. They marvel over each child’s schoolwork accomplishments and what they create or make up while at play. Children re-ignite some of the very memories and experiences a grandparent felt so many decades before. A perfect example of mutual attraction for one another.
My position here is that every effort needs to be made by family's to allow frequent access between their Alzheimer’s afflicted grandparents and the grandchildren. Unlike adults, children look past the disease and it’s symptoms and see the essence of their grandma or grandpa. We adults obsess and become distracted over the disease symptoms and can loose track of the grandparents’ humanity which still remains.
Frequent contact between children and their AD grandparents serves as a positive therapy for both. The energy flow of light and love acts as a bridge between the two generations. It should be maintained as long as the grandparent lives.
Children and grandparents demonstrate a consistent and amazing ability to reach out to each other and reach around the parental generation that stands between them. You might call this an empathetic pairing or match up.
It is appropriate that parents choose to take on the role of enablers here and make every effort to provide and allow for contact between child and grandparent. Put aside feelings of embarrassment and fear that may have prevented you from bringing them together. Allow yourself to place trust in the connective bond that is an instinctive behavior between the very young and the very old.
Children do not get hung up on grandpa’s stuttering or belabored speech. They are not put off by grandma’s missing dentures. They don’t mind the long pauses between words or sentences. They are not bothered that grandma wears a pouffy silver/blue vanity wig or that grandpa always greets them with the faint smell of spearmint lifesavers on his clothing. And they don’t care that grandma watches Jeopardy and Wheel Of Fortune almost every day. Those are simply viewed as “Grandma’s Shows.”
Children are just happy that they have one or more grandparents to go visit, to have contact with and to bask in the glow of the undivided attention that the seniors bestow upon them.
Still doubt the attraction between the two age groups here? Remember, even after 50 years, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is still one of the most popular kids’ sandwiches. But it was invented by a grandparent long ago.
Kids and grandparents.
Bring them together and let them be.
Jeff Dodson
July 8th 2011
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