Kids / 10 February, 2025 / Ellie Thompson

Stepping In Or Stepping Back? How To Read The Room As A Grandparent

Terri Apter’s book Grandparenting was inspired by new parents’ questions about how to manage cross-generational relationships. Parents saw but did not quite understand the depth of their parents’ attachment to grandchildren.  They sometimes felt annoyed and frustrated with their parents’ eagerness to spend time with the new family member. While grandparents were asking, ‘Why does my daughter rebuff my advice?’ and ‘Why are my good intentions criticised?’, new parents were asking, ‘Why does my mother think she knows my baby more than I do?’ and ‘Why do I keep losing my temper with her when I need her help?’

The ten tips below guide grandparents, but they can also be useful to new parents as they help their parents be the grandparents the whole family needs.

When to visit

Accept that your company, as a grandparent, may not be welcome all the time, but remember this does not mean it is not very welcome some of the time.  If you get an abrupt version of, ‘It’s not a good time to visit,’ try to take this with good humour and ask the parents to suggest a time that would suit them.

Avoid “I know best”

When helping out with a grandchild, try to avoid an ‘I know best’ tone of voice.  Grandparents generally have more experience in dealing with babies, but their wisdom takes second place to a parent’s authority.

Questions not conflict

Rather than constantly ‘bite your tongue’ to avoid conflict, try to express your views in the form of a question or open conversation.  ‘Do you think the child might like…?’ signals that you see the parent as expert without having to silence yourself.

Keep up with changing interests

As your grandchildren grow, they change, and their ideas of a good relationship change, too.  Try to keep up with their changing interests.  Even surly teens can be very responsive to a grandparent’s effort to get to know them.  As they get older, reducing the grandparent’s gushing tone and exclamations of delight aids genuine communication.

What to do if you feel shut out

If you feel shut out of easy contact with your new grandchild, then you are justified in challenging this exclusion.  After all, grandparents have been found to contribute significantly to children’s wellbeing.  If this is something you need to address, begin the conversation with your own child, focusing on what you would like, rather than on your complaints about either parent.

Understanding & patience

Sometimes new parents hear grandparents’ suggestions about child rearing as criticism.  New parents put a lot of effort into learning how the baby communicates with them, and hearing grandparents’ advice can interfere with their concentration.  If a new parent is irritated, try to show understanding and patience.  It’s part of learning what your own child or child-in-law needs from you as they become parents.

‘When do I step in to help without interfering?’

Is a common quandary, but grandparents can also feel they are expected to provide too much help. Don’t be surprised if you feel back to where you were as a parent yourself – torn between wanting to have time to do your own thing and responding to others’ urgent demands.  One third of working mothers rely on grandparents for some regular childcare, and grandparents tend to be doubly responsive: they want to support their own child’s career and they want to engage with their grandchild.

There is no ‘right’ answer to how much help you ‘should’ provide.   Your decision should be shaped by your individual desires and goals.  It helps to have a formula for refusal to hand, such as, ‘A full day is too much for me, but I can cover in the morning,’ or, ‘Can I help you think through another way of getting the help you need?  I am not able to do all that.’

Taking cues from parents

Any grandparent can expect to be told at some point that they are ‘spoiling’ a grandchild.  Sometimes, they are chided for failing to follow parental rules. Children spot the difference between parents’ rules and grandparents’ house rules, so some discrepancy between the generations does no harm.  But take your cues from parents as to which of their rules about behaviour or gifts or activities are red lines.

Avoid your child-in-law

An accompanying joy of connecting to your new grandchild is witnessing your child becoming a parent.  But you may also find yourself newly assessing your child-in-law: Are they pulling their weight or supporting your own child sufficiently?  Some grandparents struggle with new criticism of a child-in-law, while others gain new admiration.  While I generally favour difficult conversations over self-silencing, criticising one parent to the other is best avoided.

Don’t expect your grandkids to lose interest

Don’t expect  (as many grandparents do) that your grandchildren will lose interest in you when they are teens.  Even a surly teen is likely to be responsive to a grandparent’s genuine interest in who they are and who they will become.  And research from larger studies than mine shows that teen boys often cite a grandfather as the person they trust most in their family.

Article by Terri Apter, author of Grandparenting: On Love and Relationships Across Generations.

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