Helen Zelon

Wendy and David Ashmen of Medford, new Jersey, live so close to David’s parents that when their kids were younger, the kids spent almost as much time with their grandparents as they did at home. For the past few summers, while Wendy and David stayed in town on Saturday to watch their daughter Leigha, 15, play soccer, their son Nate, 14, spent the day with his grandparents at the summer camp they run in New Jersey. Nate loved working with his grandfather in the machine shop and being fussed over by his grandmom.

But everything changed last summer when, after a few visits, Nate suddenly refused to go. “It’s too hard,” he told Wendy. “Grandpa and Grandma are slowing down.”

Wendy knew Nate was right. She had noticed her father-in-law’s waning energy and her mother-in-law’s increasing forgetfulness but had said nothing to the kids. Now Nate had also noticed, and he didn’t like what he saw. “People used to ask Grandpa what he thought about everything,” he said. “Now Grandpa asks people what they think.” He paused. “They’re getting old,” he said quietly. “They could die.”

Wendy was sympathetic and reassuring. “It’s OK to feel that way,” she said. “Yes, they could die. But they’re not going to die tomorrow.” Slowing down is a part of life, she explained, and his grandparents still had a good life. “It’s not the same as it was,” she said, “but it’s still good.” Privately, though, she worried that Nate was pulling away from his grandparents. “I felt sad for Nate because he was so upset,” she says. “But I didn’t want him to look back with regret, later.”

With patience and understanding, Wendy finally got Nate to explain his feelings more clearly. It wasn’t that he never wanted to see his grandparents again, he said. He just didn’t enjoy spending the whole day with them anymore. It was too much. So mother and son came up with a compromise. Instead of dropping Nate off at camp in the morning to spend an entire day, Wendy and David would rearrange their schedule so Nate could pay shorter visits and not feel so overwhelmed. Says Wendy, “We worked it through by talking to him and letting him express how he felt.”

The Tug of Love
The bond between grandparents and grandchildren is a precious one. Anyone who has known a grandparent’s love or the joy of grandchildren knows this is true. But as the older generation ages, youngsters can witness disturbing chnges in their grandparents’ physical and cognitive abilities. Confusion, fear, and distaste for what they’re seeing can cause them to pull away. And parents, caught in the middle, can end up feeling torn.

How can parents nurture closeness between the older and younger generations, when the double challenges of growing up and aging threaten to pull them apart? One of the best ways to increase the chances that the generations will stay close through life, say many experts, is simply by making sure they spend time together, beginning when children are young. “Start early, says child psychiatrist Arlette Lefebvre, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “The most important bonding happens while the grandparent is still well. If the bond is there, the child will remember the good — and
may be more able to deal with a grandparent’s aging.”

Debbie Mandel, a stress-management consultant who lives in Lawrence, New York, worked hard to foster this bond between her parents and three children. When her sons and daughter were little, she took them to her parents’ house for traditional Jewish Friday-night Shabbat dinners. After her dad died, her mom became her weekly guest. Debbie’s daughter Amanda, now 15, especially enjoyed these visits. When Debbie’s mom finally had to be moved to a nursing home due to advanced Alzheimer’s, Debbie kept visiting on Fridays, but didn’t ask her kids to come. Her sons chose not to visit. But Amanda, then eight, insisted on going. “She was very attached,” says Debbie, “and she wasn’t about to relinquish the relationship just because Grandma had moved.”

Almost every Friday for the next seven years, until Debbie’s mom died in December 2003 at age 88, Amanda went with Debbie to visit Grandma in the nursing home. They brought ice cream and stuffed animals, and told stories and jokes that made Grandma laugh. Watching the two of them together, says Debbie, she often marveled aloud, “Look how much love there is.”

But Debbie’s sons, who had also spent a lot of time with Grandma, did not visit her. “They were kind of phobic about it,” says Amanda. No matter how hard parents try to keep generations close, in other words, there’s no guarantee they’ll succeed. People and relationships change over time, often in ways we can’t predict or control.

A woman we’ll call Joanna is realizing this now. When she and her husband bought a new house a year ago, they moved his wodowed mother, who was showing signs of early Alzheimer’s, in with them. They envisioned a happy extended-family istuation with Grandma and grandkids basking in each other’s love. And they had it, for a while, until Grandma’s condition worsened and she began experiencing memory lapses and mood swings that frightened and angered Joanna’s son and daughter, nine and six. Her son soon began to ask, “How long will Grandma live with us?” To give them a break, their parents sent Grandma to spend last summer with her sister, who put her in day care. When she returned, says Joanna, the children welcomed her back with sweet compassion. Now the situation fluctuates from week to week. Joanna and her husband know they will have to make some hard decisions about long-term care for Grandma soon.

Help Kids Cope
There are endless variations on these scenarios and no one resolution to any of them. “There’s no such thing as the perfect way,” says Leon Hoffman, MD, director of the Pacella Parent-Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in New York City. Adults will always have to use their judgment and trust their hearts when trying to balance the needs of children and againg parents. But experts do offer insights and advice to help them make wise choices.

If a grandparent’s condition has changed in ways children will notice, parents should explain what is happening simply and calmly. When unsure how much to reveal, it’s better to say less and invite the child to ask questions, says Jerry L. Wyckoff, PhD, a child psychologist in Prairie Village, Kansas. Children’s questions are the best gauge of what they do and don’t understand or want to know. It’s especially important to answer questions about illness or disease. A child just learning about germs, for example, might worry that he’ll catch what’s making Grandpa lose his memory if he gets too close. Other children may worry that if a grandparent can suddenly fall ill, maybe Mommy or Daddy will too, and then who will take care of them?

It’s OK not to address issues children don’t raise. Some kids can be blessedly oblivious of or untroubled by a grandparent’s decline. “Some are happy to push Granddad’s wheelchair or hop into his lap for a ride,” says John Morley, MD, director of St. Louis University’s division of geriatric medicine. If this is true of your child, one of the greatest gifts you can give both generations is to protect your child’s innocence by keeping adult worries to yourself. “Adults get so wrapped up in themselves,” says Dr. Wyckoff. “You have to be aware of how your grief, anxiety, and fear will affect yoru child.”

Many children innocently believe, however, that when people get sick, they always get well again. If a grandparent won’t fully recover, parents need to prepare children for what that grandparent’s condition will be. Dr. Lefebvre suggests doing so gently, by balancing sad news about what has changed with comforting news about what has not. A parent who has to tell a child that Grandpa had a stroke and won’t be able to talk as well anymore, for example, can also say, “But he can still watch TV with you and listen to you talk to him.”

Talking to Teens
What works for a young child won’t necessarily work for a tween or teen, of course. It’s natural for children in these age groups to want to distance themselves from grown-ups — elderly and infirm grown-ups especially. Nate’s distaste for spending whole days with his grandparents makes perfect developmental sense, says Dr. Morley. Witnessing a grandparent’s decline poses a huge thret to a teen’s emerging sense of adult self. Still, parents have a responsibility to teach children kindness and respect toward their elders. The question is, how?

If an older child announces, as Nate did, that he doesn’t want to visit a grandparent anymore, Dr. Hoffman recommends showing respect for these feelings by saying something like, “e all need to find our own way to navigate stressful situations.” If a child’s pronouncement upsets or disappoints a parent, however, Dr. Hoffman recommends saying that, too. Teens need to realize that their actions affect other people. They also need to know what’s expected of them, especially where core family values are concerned. The third step is to try to forge a compromise that respects a child’s feelings while also upholding what’s important: “OK, you can skip this visit if you promise to visit next week.”
No matter how understanding parents try to be, of course, some teens will still dig in their heels. Frustrating as this can be, especially when parents are dealing with their own sense of loss, Dr. Wyckoff counsels against resorting to threats, guilt-tripping, or ultimatums, which usually only cause a stubborn teen to dig in deeper. “At a certain point you have to accept that your teenager doesn’t want to do it and that her actions are her own,” he says. Parents may be better able to remain calm at these moments, he says, if they remember that teens and tweens who affect an air of emotional invulnerability are often in fact keenly aware of, and deeply affected by, a grandparent’s decline. Or, as Dr. Hoffman puts it, they often care the most when they are trying hardest to appear indifferent.

Dr. Lefebvre also urges parents to remind children of all ages that though a grandparent may be getting old and disabled, “’she can still hear you and still nees and loves you.’ Children often don’t realize how important they are to the grown-ups in their lives.” Other helpful pointers:

Intertwine your lives. Invite your parents to a daughter’s soccer game or a son’s school play, says Dr. Lefebvre. Take everyone to a baseball game, county fair, or to visit other relatives or friends. Go on a camping trip together or rent a house on a lake. Spending this kind of relaxed, extended, active time together strengthens family bonds without anyone having to work too hard at it, says Dr. Morley. Plans don’t have to be elaborate. An afternoon of shopping and a movie can achieve the same ends.

Let seniors shine. Activities that involve passing skills and traditions from grandparents to grandkids can be expecially rich and rewarding, says Dr. Lefebvre. If both generations are able, encourage Grandmom to teach the kids how to knit or make her special butter cookies. Ask Grandpa to teach them how to fix a leaky faucet or do his famous card tricks.

Let kids feel useful. Encourage kids to channel their energy into age-appropriate tasks such as giving Grandma a manicure, doing yard work with PaPa, or helping clean out your parents’ attic. Don’t give them tasks you should do yourself, though, says Dr. Morley. Your goal is to foster connection between generations, not to make your life easier.

Bring family history alive. Suggest that a young child ask Grandma to help her draw the family tree or create a memory book of family stories. Encourage an older child to interview grandparents on video about their own young adulthood, your youth, and the day your child was born. Activities that involve learning about the family’s past and their own early life help draw grandchildren closer to grandparents.

Prepare kids for visits. Children need help dealing with new situations, such as visiting Grandma in the hospital. Dr. Lefebvre urges parents to describe any medical equipment kids may see and explain that Grandma will look different without her hair and makeup done — or without her teeth in. Tell them about people they may beet and smells or sounds that might unnerve them. Assure them that they can tell or ask you anything before or after the visit.

Respect their boundaries. Forcing a child to kiss an elderly person can be traumatizing, says Dr. Lefebvre. Let children set their own limits. A child who resists physical contact can still hand Grandma a card or a drawing.

Don’t tax a child’s patience. If children are reluctant to spend a lot of time with a grandparent, keep visits short and sweet. “Five minutes well-spent is better than two hours of a child’s carping and complaining,” says Dr. Morley, “and five minutes is about the best many children can give.”

Keep kids busy. Pack a basket of crafts or games to keep them occupied during visits, suggests Dr. Lefebvre After a little chat, seriours are often to content with adult children while youngsters play nearby.

Allow other options. Children going through a phase of not wanting to visit grandparents can still talk to them by phone, write letters and emials, and send homemade audio- and videotapes. Most kids find their own life fascinating and are eager to share it, says Dr. Lefebvre. Take advantage of this inclination by giving kids a disposable camera and asking them to create an album of photos and captions for Grandma.

Reinforce and reward good behavior. If you’re proud that your daughter went with you to visit your mom in the nursing home, tell her so, says Dr. Wyckoff. If you were impressed with the way your son helped Grandpa down the stairs, let him know. Children respond to praise more than to criticism. Reinforcement helps, too. If the kids behaved well during a visit they weren’t keen to make, show your appreciation by treating them to a round of miniature golf or picking up a favorite video to watch at home.

Be a good role model. Few adults enjoy ideal relations with parents or in-laws. It can be hard sometimes not to lose patience during a visit, vent about them afterward, or groan when it’s time to visit again. But don’t do it in front of the kids, says Dr. Lefebvre. Children take their cue about how to feel about and behave toward grandparents from you. If you speak about and treat them with affection and respect, chances are so will they. Do your best to convey that spending time with them is important.

Let them love their way. Esther Schwalb, 46, of Brooklyn, New York, always had a rather distant relationship with her widowed mother. During her mom’s last months in a nursing home, she became even more remote. This hurt Esther, but she hid it from her two children so as not to taint their relationships with her mom. Her generosity was repaid the first time she left the kids in the room alone with her mom while she talked to the nurses.

“Something happened while I wasn’t there,” she says. “When I returned, instead of the kids being on the floor playing cards and keeping to themselves, they were gathered around their Bubby, talking and laughing.” Esther was amazed, but when she asked her daughter Mimi what had happened, Mimi said simply, “We had a nice conversation.” Esther wisely let the matter drop, but from then on, she made sure the kids had some time alone with thier Bubby during each visit. “They forged their own connection,” she says.

Esther’s mother died last May. Since then, she’s taken comfort in knowing that her children, at least, had a loving relationship with thier Bubby. That counts as one of life’s sweeter grace notes, during a difficult time.