The role of grandparents in grandchildren totality development

Abstract

Generally, parents who go to work would prefer their children to be with their grandparents due to blood relationship, trust, and experience. Such parenting service could become more essential when they could not find responsible housemaids or child minders. However, grandparents’ personal characteristics and family demographic influence grandchildren nutrition attitudes, emotional well-being, lifestyles, learning activities, and social skills. Furthermore, grandparents do shape the grandchildren’s behavior and educational performance in school. Based on the literature reviewed, academic research about grand-parenting influence on grandchildren development in Malaysia seems to be very limited; hence, this study aimed to give an insight into grandparents’ contribution to the grandchildren’s development in the country by applying the qualitative method approach to analyze data collected from twenty participants from two Malaysia states, namely, Ipoh and Wilayah Persekutuan. The analysis result indicated that grandparents do shape the grand children’s educational performance in schools. In fact, how the grand-parenting role is played has had an imperative impact on the lifestyle of grandchildren academically, socially, and emotionally. In this study, the grandparents’ influence on grandchildren is obvious in the following aspects; religious thought and morality, communication and social interaction, culture and superstition, academic and skill development.