Children are still close to their grandparents

Most Australian grandparents experience close bonds with their grandchildren, according to research published in the Australian Institute of Family Studies’ journal Family Matters.

A survey of 5,000 parents – with a child under the age of 18 – overwhelmingly described their child’s relationship with their grandparents as either "close" or "very close".

"Grandparents can be care-givers and mentors, while giving children a sense of who they are and in some cases even become surrogate parents," said Australian Institute of Family Studies Director Professor Alan Hayes.

However amid messy family break-ups, the ties remain strongest with maternal grandparents – meaning the children of non-resident fathers are more likely to miss out on a close relationship with their paternal grandparents.

"This partly reflects the fact that ties between children and non-resident fathers often becomes weaker after separation, with research conducted by the ABS in 2006–07 suggesting that about one quarter of non-resident fathers rarely or never saw their children. This effect can flow on to relationships between children and paternal grandparents. In addition, very often it’s the mothers who’ve facilitated these relationships in the past," said author and Institute General Manager (Research) Ruth Weston.

"In other instances the grandparents may be intervening in the break-up, taking sides in the separation, and doing all the things that may be regarded in the end, as pretty unhelpful," Ms Weston said.

The Institute’s analysis of the quality of relationships between grandparents and grandchildren is based on the 2006 General Population of Parents Survey (GPPS), a national telephone survey of 5,000 parents, funded by the Australian Government. It revealed:

• Most mothers and fathers described the relationship between the children and their maternal and paternal grandparents as "close" or "very close" (67–85%).
• Both mothers and fathers were more likely to consider their children had a "very close" relationship with their maternal grandparents than their paternal grandparents. 
• Of all groups, non-resident fathers were the least likely to report that the relationship was "very close" with their own parents (19%). They were also more likely than the other two groups of separated parents in the study (resident mothers and resident fathers) to describe the relationship as having become more distant since their separation (36%).

"Grandparents can play an important role in the lives of children whose parents are separating. Often they are the one constant in all the turmoil the child is going through, especially when their main concern is helping the child get through this difficult time," Ms Weston said.

"The last time the role of grandparents whose son or daughter had separated was looked at in detail by the Institute was back in the mid-eighties. We found then that, after parental divorce, children were most likely to lose contact with the grandparents on the non-resident parent’s side, maintaining closer ties with grandparents on the resident parent’s side. Little had changed to alter that scenario by mid-2006," Ms Weston said.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies was last month commissioned by the Australian Government Attorney-General Robert McClelland to examine the impact of the 2006 family law reforms on grandparents. This work represents an extension of the Institute’s large-scale and multi-faceted evaluation of the reforms. The final stage of the reforms was implemented in July last year.

Authors of the paper Ruth Weston, General Manager (Research) & Lixia Qu, Research Fellow, Australian Institute of Family Studies.

(Source: Australian Institute of Family Studies: Family Matters: April 2009)