Grandparenting and its Relationship to Parenting

Abstract

Grandparenthood occupies a significant part of the life cycle and has an important impact on parenting. This impact can be characterized in terms of gender roles, styles of grandparenting and indirect and direct patterns of grandparent-parent-grandchild influence. We review parenting styles and their relationship to recent insights in attachment theory which may illuminate processes of intergenerational transmission. Implications for practitioner use of attachment theory and categories of functional and dysfunctional grandparenting are presented. We discuss two related areas in which grandparent roles are particularly under stress, grandparents acting as custodial parents and grandparent-grandchild contact loss in cases of parental separation or divorce. Grandparents legal rights to visitation in the USA and UK and the use of mediation to help solve grandparent-grandchild contact loss are summarized.