Becoming a Grandparent in the Internet Age: An Integrative Model of Intergenerational Relationships within the Family and Grandparents’ Satisfaction with Life

ABSTRACT

Becoming a grandparent is a significant transition to an important life role. Yet little is known about the diverse ways that grandparents interact with their young grandchildren, and how contact via new forms of communication might contribute to building and solidifying these relationships. The main objective of this study was to explore how grandparents use different forms of interaction, including information and communication technologies (ICTs), to interact with their grandchildren in the early years of the grandparental relationship. Results suggest that ICTs could play a role in supporting grandparent-grandchild relationship quality, acting as a complement to face-to-face contact.

KEYWORDS:

• Satisfaction with life
• intergenerational relationships
• grandparents
• information and communication technologies
• early childhood

Acknowledgments

This study was granted by the certificate number 2387 from the ethic committee at Université du Québec à Montréal’s faculty of human sciences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Subjective well-being is an indicator that refers to the global evaluation that a person makes of his or her own life (Diener, 1999). It is typically considered in terms of two components: how satisfied one is with life (the cognitive dimension of subjective well-being) and how one feels emotionally at this point in life (the affective dimension of subjective well-being).

2. Questions used were “À quel point sentez-vous que votre enfant a confiance en vous?”, “Jusqu’à quel point sentez-vous que votre enfant vous respecte?”, “Jusqu’à quel point ressentez-vous de l’affection de la part de votre enfant?”, and “Jusqu’à quel point sentez-vous que vous êtes proche de votre enfant?”

3. Questions used were “Jusqu’à quel point sentez-vous qu’il y ait du conflit, tension ou désaccord entre vous et votre enfant à ce point précis de votre vie?”, “Jusqu’à quel point sentez-vous que votre enfant est critique envers vous ou envers ce que vous faites?”, and “Jusqu’à quel point votre enfant argumente avec vous?”

4. Examples of dropped items include “How is communication between yourself and your grandchild – how well can you exchange ideas or talk about things that really concern you?” or ”How well do you feel your grandchild understands you?”