The Value and Impact of Healthy Child-Grandparent Relationships

Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Do we value seniors enough? What can grandparents and the elderly provide that younger generations cannot live without? Welcome to Where Parents Talk.

My name is Leanne Castellino. Our guest today is a speaker, podcaster and author. Isabel Tom spent many years working in the fields of aging and healthcare.

Isabel is also a mother of three and she joins us today from the Washington, D.C. area. Welcome and thank you so much for being here.

Hi Lianne. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Really interesting topic because it is affecting us, whether we realize it or not, more today than it ever has in the history of the world.

When we're talking about older generations, grandparents, et cetera, you grew up living with both your parents and your grandparents in the same home, your paternal grandparents. In what ways would you say that that exposure to your grandparents impacted your childhood?

Oh, it definitely impacted my childhood. I would say as an adult, I see that more. I like to tell people that I went from grumbling to being grateful for my grandparents.

I think as a kid they were just kind of there and, you know, they walked me, they picked me up from school, they were there after school, they ate dinner with us at the dining room table. They were part of my everyday life. And I don't think I thought of them as I thought of them as my immediate family because they were there.

So at what point or did it ever happen to you where you thought, wow, this is pretty rare and I'm pretty lucky.

Like I was telling you, I don't think I thought I was lucky when I was younger. I like to tell people that living with my grandparents, it was one of the great, greatest gifts that God blessed me with.

But I didn't really appreciate it as a kid. Just like kids don't always appreciate vegetables or piano lessons or for me, like Chinese school and things like that.

But I think it was as I got older that I started to see that living with my grandparents allowed me to see the world in a completely different light. I think the change came for me more so when I graduated from college and I got a job, you know, in the senior care field that my perspective Changed.

But I think I always knew it was a little different. I sometimes was, you know, a little embarrassed to invite my friends over after school because they didn't have.

I didn't have other friends necessarily. I don't think I had any who had grandparents living with them.

So you talk about, you know, the idea of having had dinner with them and they were being there, present when you came home. Are there any other specific examples that you recall of sort of the level of impact that they had on your life?

Well, you know, like I was saying, I look back and I see a lot of it. So what I see is that they nurtured, they provided me with a really nurturing environment.

You know, my parents were working all the time and they cared for me, but they weren't able to be there all the time. And so I'm the youngest of three. And so when I would come home from school, I was never alone.

And while my grandparents didn't serve the same role of being like a best friend that you could always play with, they always were there.

So if I didn't get invited to something, to an event, or didn't get invited to hang out with some people, I knew that I still had my grandparents there. Sure, they weren't my first pick, but they always nurtured me.

And growing up, you go through so many things where I had glasses since I was 2 and I wasn't the coolest kid on the block, but my grandparents, they always really cherished me and treasured me. So I think that gave me confidence knowing that no matter what, I knew I was loved.

You had the benefit of having your grandparents for many years. For a long time, they passed on when they were much older. You were in your mid-30s when you lost your grandmother.

Take us through how you process that given the relationship that you had with them.

Yeah, so I'm actually passing the anniversary of recently passed the anniversary of my grandma's death. And she was the last living grandparent that I had. By the time I was 35, you know, I had kids already. I had three young kids.

They were about 13 and 5. And so, you know, one of the things that really was a blessing for me is that I worked at that time. I worked in hospice care, so end of life care.

And having worked in that field, I actually knew what to look for when someone is nearing the end of life.

I also knew that she was older, and so I knew that my time with her, I knew for quite some time that I shouldn't, I should always cherish the time that I had with her, you know, my grandpa had passed away at 98, and actually my dad, who is her son, passed away before she did. So when I. When she was, like, nearing her hundreds, you know, I knew that I wanted to make the best of every moment I had with her.

So I spent a lot of time with her.

When she was in the nursing home for the last month of her life, I visited her with my three kids in tow, like, three times a week, because I just wanted her to know that she was loved.

So when she passed, I have to say that it was, of course I missed her, but I knew I had done everything that I needed to to show her that, you know, you are loved, you are cherished, and you are not alone.

Building on that point, Isabel, how would you sort of characterize how seniors, grandparents, the elderly are generally viewed in Western society?

I think the older that you are, the less valuable our society values people, and I think that's exact why, you know, I'm in my early 40s, and that's exactly why sometimes I worry, you know, do I have more white hair? Are people thinking of me as older? Because I know that the older that you get in this society, just people don't value you as much. So it's.

I think it's hard to age.

So then what are you suggesting that parents do to address this in their own families with respect to how their parents view grandparents?

Yeah, I think. Well, first, I think often as parents, we don't realize the impact that our older loved ones can have on our children.

And so I think it's really important first to look at ourselves and say, like, do I really value them? I always kind of remind parents that, at least in the US I believe in Canada is about the same.

The average age, that life expectancy for someone is around 78. So that's kind of like a reminder to us to take this time that we have with our older loved ones.

I know we're busy as parents, but to remember, okay, this might be the last holiday that I have with them. This might be the last birthday that they're here. And you look at life completely differently.

Can you remind me, I think we were talking about that question you asked.

No.

So I was basically asking, you know, what do you think needs to change or what can we be doing better as parents to ensure that our children's exposure to their grandparents is optimal?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I think as parents, we can be the connectors to help our kids to see their grandparents as people.

So I Always say they're people, they're not projects. And I think as we care for our older loved ones, sometimes it can start to become like a project, you know, oh, I got to do this for my dad.

I got to make sure that I set up these appointments. So I think really making sure that our kids can see them. Not only listen to their stories of their past, but see them as people.

So I always say seniors are not service projects. And I think that's the. That's the mindset that we often have. Let's go and bless them, right?

But to realize how much they can bless us in return, whether it is nurturing our children, whether it is, I say they provide grandparents, provide an extra layer of love, attention, availability, that in this world, we are so busy, but the older people in our lives, they. They know how to slow down. They are slower physically. And just being around them is just so valuable for our kids.

And that is coming from the Population Reference Bureau in the United States. In Canada, there are currently more than 7.6 million seniors, accounting for about 20% of the population.

I think from a larger standpoint and having worked in this field, I think it represents how much we, as families and as parents, those especially in the sandwich generation, we have to prepare to care for our loved ones because there are not enough senior care professionals to even care for the number of older adults that are going to be in our community. So even if you have the money to get the best care, to have them live in the best communities, there might not even be room for that, right?

They might not even have access to that because we don't have a ton of people even working in the senior care field. You can just look at the statistics of the number of geriatricians that are out there. There's not enough.

It is far too few people to care for the older generation. And so I.

That's one of the reasons why I think it's so important for us to help our families, especially our kids, to develop a close relationship with their grandparents or at least an appreciation. Because this village, that we want a village to be able to care for our elder and it cannot just be one person.

One of the reasons why as parents or adult children, we may be so stressed out caring for our elders is because we're the only ones who are doing it. And the grandchildren, I say they have a superpower. They have an ability. I say grandchildren bless without baggage.

They have an ability to improve the quality of life of the grandparent in a way that parents, adult children cannot. I mean, I helped my grandfather. He would not sign his power of attorney form because he was afraid of death.

And it was me, as you know, I say his favorite grandchild, but I was the one who talked to him and said, you know, this is going to really be helpful for you. And at 98 years old, after he had a stroke, he signed it.

But my dad did not feel like he had the place to speak with his dad about this because it was something that my grandpa was very resistant about. So I think grandchildren, if we can utilize their superpower, then they can be a part of that village of really, really vital part of it.

When you talk about, you know, what is coming down the pipeline in terms of statistics that we just talked about, how much of your exposure and your upbringing in that multi generational racial environment inspired you to go into the field of healthcare and of aging as you did.

Well, you know, when I graduated from college, I studied business, and so I really didn't think that I was going to go this direction. But my mom said I needed a job. And the first job that I got was at a retirement community.

I do know that spending time with my grandparents, having a relationship with them, it made me feel more comfortable around older adults. But I don't think I realized the extent of what was going to happen.

But I do know that a lot of people who work in this field who are younger, often they've had a relationship with their grandparent that was very special.

What inspired you to sit down then and write the Value of Wrinkles?

So because I worked in senior care straight out of college, there were so many times where I had my peers in my twenties ask me or say something like, oh, that's so sad, you know, that you work with the, with the elderly.

And there are so many things that I wanted to say to them and say, no, this is actually one of the most fun jobs that I've had or I've got been so encouraged by being around all these older adults.

So it was really because I wanted to help others, particularly those who are in their 20s or 30s, to see a different perspective and to see that this is actually, you know, spending time with the older generation is actually so life giving, and it helps you to spend your younger life to live it better, you know, because, you know, I ran my first marathon because I met an older adult who was 84, and he said, you know, I ran my first marathon when I was 60, and you can do it. So it just gave me so much encouragement that I wanted to be able to share that with others.

So along those lines, then, if we're looking to unpack this a bit more for parents who maybe still aren't convinced about the importance and the effort that it may take to maintain that relationship and build it with their parents for their children, how can engaging with grandparents and the elderly positively impact kids when we're talking about emotional and social development?

All right, there is so much I could talk on and on about this, but I would say first, if you're trying to teach your child social skills and you want them to learn social skills, I really believe that having them interact with the older generation is one of the most gracious environments to learn social skills. A child can see an older person and say, what happened to your hair? That's a funny haircut.

And the older person is probably going to laugh and, you know, they're not going to think twice about it. Whereas in another environment, they probably just broke that relationship completely. Right. And especially if it's with a grandparent.

I believe that grandparents are. They just have a soft spot for their grandchildren. So I.

And I think the other thing is when we help our kids to be able to relate with their grandparents, and it is. It's not something that happens overnight. It is not always easy. It's not like they always want to do it.

But we're teaching our kids to relate to someone who is different than them, very different than them. And I think when we talk about diversity, that's what we want our children to learn, to be able to relate to people who are different than them.

They're going to have to do that when they get older and develop more relationships, whether it's in the workplace. Oh, boy, you've got to meet people of all different kinds.

And you have to be able to, you know, the best employees are the ones who can work with others. So I really believe that this is by helping them connect with their older loved ones.

This is a really powerful way to help them to understand, appreciate, and connect with people who are different. And that is just one point. I could go on, but I'll just leave it at that. I think that's that's helpful.

Yes, it is. And you bring up another point that comes to mind, which is that in that relationship, we're talking about multi generations, right?

We're talking about the child, the child's parents, and now the child's grandparents. And sometimes those generational differences can be stark. So any thought on what a parent's role in that dynamic could be or should be?

Oh, absolutely. I think as the parent, we are the playmakers. So if there's going to be a relationship, we have to be the ones.

We often have to be the ones to kind of translate. Because the older and younger generation, they speak different languages. Sometimes literally. They do.

You know, my grandparents, they spoke Chinese, and I grew up in the US So.

But I think as parents, just a practical tip is, you know, a lot of times we have them with the older person, with their grandparent, and we don't really guide them through this relationship. Right. Just like you would tell a child when they're meeting a new. A new friend at the playground, you might say, say, hello, my name is this.

What class are you in? What do you like to do?

I think that when it comes to the older person, when we guide our children and also help them understand certain things, explain things to them, talk to them, answer their questions, kids have a lot of questions.

And when they see, let's say, their grandparent, let's say maybe their grandparent needs an oxygen tube or has a walker or maybe they're limping a little bit, the child may think that's really weird, and they may just be a little hesitant to even interact or connect. But when we can use it as a learning experience and say, listen, do you know why Grandpa has this tube?

It actually helps him to breathe, and it connects to this machine. And you're almost making it like a scientific learning, it helps them to feel more comfortable.

Otherwise, if you don't explain things, what happens is a child is going to come up with their own explanation.

A child who sees their grandparent who has Alzheimer's may come up with the explanation that my grandma's just crazy and they're not going to connect with them at all. They're just going to be fearful because they don't know anything about it.

But if you can start breaking it down and say, like, you know, this is our brain.

This is a picture of a brain, and this is what happens when someone has, you know, when somebody has Alzheimer's, then you help them to feel more comfortable and almost empowered. So I think that is one of the first steps that we have to do, we have to talk to them about it.

Those are great tips with respect to meaningful activities that kids and grandparents can do together. Any suggestions around that?

Yeah, well, I think anything that they are doing together is always going to be helpful. But sometimes if you find that there's a gap again, I come back to the idea of guiding our kids.

So the one thing to remember is that some parents are more uncomfortable with the older generation than their children are. And so that really affects the child. I developed something called the grandkid investigator kit.

And really the reason I developed it is because I wanted my own kids to develop a close bond with their grandmother and my mother in law, so their other grandmother.

I knew that they cared about their grandparents, but I realized that sometimes they don't know how to connect and sometimes the grandparent doesn't know how to connect. I also realize that sometimes the attention span of my kids does not match with what the older adult is hoping to do.

Many grandparents, they want to share their story.

Just had somebody tell me this the other day that they went to an 80 year old, their grandparents 80th birthday celebration and there was a movie, a video that was made that was an hour and a half long and the kids were all saying, when is this gonna end? You know, So I wanted to be able to help kids.

I would say if grandparents are connecting, parents can just ask for short snippets, you know, try to gather those facts. That's what I do with my grandkid investigator missions.

I'm trying to create facts like fun facts, almost like the Guinness Book of World Records that will interest the child and help them to use their curiosity to start asking more questions so that they can learn about the older person.

It's so interesting because your book the Value of Wrinkles came out just in the same month and shortly before the pandemic began.

And I bring that up because all of us, as we recall, ended up being confined to some degree and maybe isolated from our grandparents for an extended period of time in some case, cases. What did that? I guess first of all, what was the objective of you writing this book and do you believe you've achieved that objective?

I think the objective was really to help people to see that they can do so much to bless the older person in their life and to remind them how valuable the older person is. To remind them that their aging parent is not just somebody who's aging and they're going to eventually die off.

That that time that we have with our older loved ones is Time that we need to cherish. Because it's not only that our older loved ones have wisdom, but if they are biologically related to you, they, our identity is tied to them. Right.

And so learning about our history, our own family history is important. But also I think it's important to remind families that there are so many things that happen as someone ages.

And so the person that you knew as your parent when you were a child, they've changed. So really to remind them that it's worth connecting with the older person and that there's so much that we can do.

Whether you are 5, 20 or 50, there's so much that we can do to help them to have a beautiful ending.

You alluded to the sandwich generation earlier and I wonder if you have any tips or approaches that parents can consider who find themselves in that category of caring for their elderly parents and also taking care of their children while trying to manage all these relationships.

Yeah, I think it's too much to try and do everything.

If you are in the sandwich generation, you realistically, if you just look at the way healthcare is set up, you realistically cannot do it on your own. And so it's important to build a village.

And I think when we can teach our kids to honor their grandparents, we draw them in and we show them that they can take a part in being in that village. I mean, I always say when you ask them, you honor them.

And I think starting off by asking grandparents questions, teaching our kids to relate to their grandparents, that improves their quality of life. And so when we can improve their quality of life, even their emotional well being, that affects their physical well being.

And that leaves us with a lot in the sandwich generation, a lot less burden. Because it's not just the physical part of aging. Caring for somebody who's physically aging, that's hard.

One of the hardest parts is watching them feel isolated, deal with depression because they don't feel valuable anymore.

So I really believe that as we teach our kids to value their grandparents, we not only benefit our kids well being, we benefit our older loved ones well being. And that is a strategic way to use our time and our efforts.

And I think it really in the end is, is an efficient, is the most efficient way to do self care for ourselves. Because you're just going to run yourself down if you try and separate that.

I think how about for families where grandparents have passed on and those kids have never, you know, been able to have a relationship because the grandparent isn't there? How can parents in that dynamic help their Kids foster respect and a healthy appreciation for the elderly when they don't have immediate examples.

Yeah, I think we don't realize oftentimes that in our own neighborhoods, whether you go to the grocery store or you're coming out of the car and.

Or it's a snowy day and you see that one of your older neighbors, maybe they can't shovel their, you know, maybe they're trying to shovel or they can't get their car out of the driveway. Driveway.

You know, there are so many examples and technically small ways that we can raise awareness in our kids that there are older adults all around them that, you know, we can connect with. So I think a lot of times we think, oh, to teach our kids how to appreciate things or appreciate life, they.

They might think that they have to be able to drive, get a job, or graduate college to be able to do these things. I think it's really helping our kids see that in our own neighborhoods.

You know, they can be a powerful force to blessing the older generation and connecting with them. I think that's just the start.

Isabelle, how would you say that your exposure to your grandparents has impacted, if at all, how you parent?

So while I grew up with a lot of peers who were well off and we were well provided for, my grandparents, the way they lived their life was like they were in a war, honestly. And so it helped me to appreciate the simple things of life. You know, it helped me, you know, the way that they saved and that they were frugal.

It just exposed me to a completely different lifestyle that helped me appreciate what I had. And I think that can help with, you know, as a parent, I don't want my kids to be entitled.

So one of the reasons why I want them to be exposed to their grandparents is because, you know, when my mom shares a story of her growing up, my kids can realize, wow, you know, grandma grew up in a village and she said that she didn't even have a bathroom in the house and she had to make her own clothes. It just gives them perspective. So I think helps me not get so focused on the daily things that sometimes can feel like a lot, I think, as a parent.

So given that context, then what did you do with your kids and their grandmothers? I believe you, you were mentioned earlier in terms of their relationship.

What did you do proactively, intentionally, given your background, given your experience and all those other perspectives that you bring to foster, nurture, sustain and maintain the relationship between your kids and their grandparents.

Yeah, I mean, I do a lot of prompting and guiding my kids. So for example, when they see their grandmother, I will often say, say hello to grandma. Or they say mama or paw paw in Chinese.

So I really try to prompt them in the way that I want them to treat their grandmothers. You know, they're not always cooperative, but it's about modeling it for them.

So, you know, creating the grandkid investigator kit was just an example of that. That was actually created because I wanted my own kids to be able to connect with their grandparents.

I wanted my mother in law and my mom to be able to share part of themselves and not for them, my kids to start viewing their grandmothers. As I say about, you know, I didn't want them to look at them as only birthday gifts and babysitting.

I wanted to see, I wanted them to see that their grandparents are more.

So these missions, I had them asking questions, they were the initiators and I just like, I reward them sometimes and I say, okay, if you go to piano lessons and you play five times a week, five times this week for 30 minutes, then you know, I'm going to have this reward for you. Incentivizing them. I did the same thing with their grand, with their grandmothers.

And I said, if you finish all these missions, I'm going to give you 10 minutes of electronic time.

And yes, their heart might not have been there in the beginning, but I wanted them to, I wanted to provide that space where they could develop relationships. And in the end, you know, what's been beautiful is they have pulled out things from their grandmother on both sides that they've learned about them.

There was one morning I was about to call my mom and my son said, no, you can't call her. She's swimming right now. And that had to do with Operation Sunrise. I had him do a mission that where he learned about what her morning routine was.

So I've just seen them learn about them as people and develop stronger relationships with them. I think ultimately it's also about modeling that relationship. Sometimes they are not following along what I want them to do, what I want them to say.

So I just make sure that I'm honoring both sides. And when I do that, I know in the long term it's just laying an example for them so that they know how to honor their grandparents.

And then when I get older, they know how to care and honor me.

On that note, how would you go about encapsulating then what grandparents and the elderly can provide that younger generations cannot live without? How would you summarize that?

I think they provide an extra layer of love, attention, availability, adoration for our younger generation that helps our kids to develop greater resiliency in life.

They are just that extra layer that we all need to know that we feel loved and so that we can confidently go through our lives, try new things and thrive even when hard things happen.

Isabel what would you like readers of the Value of Wrinkles to take away from your book?

Just that the older adults in our communities, their relationships with them are really worth investing in.

That's a wonderful, powerful message to end on. Isabel Tom, author of the Value of Wrinkles podcaster and mom of three we really appreciate your perspective on this topic today.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Lianne. I had a great time talking with you.

Thank you.

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