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| |    When Grandparents Provide Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. Many grandparents serve as the primary caregivers of young children so that the parents can return to jobs. Often this is the most comfortable arrangement for everyone: The parents can have complete confidence that their children will be well cared for in their absence; the grandparents feel very much part of the family and can develop close, enduring relationships with their grandchildren. At the same time, the different roles of care-provider and grandparent can be a source of tension. It helps to think ahead and plan ways to deal with these tensions if they arise. When children are left in the care of their grandparents, whether for half a day or for two weeks, there should be frank understanding and reasonable compromising. The parents must have confidence that their children will be cared for according to their beliefs in important matters--that, for instance, they won't be compelled to eat food they don't like, be shamed for bowel accidents, or be frightened about policemen. On the other hand, it's unfair to expect grandparents to carry out every step of management and discipline as if they were exact replicas of the parents. It won't hurt children to show a little more respect to the grandparents, if that's what they want; to have their meals on a different schedule; or to be kept cleaner or allowed to get dirtier. If parents don't feel right about the way their children are cared for, of course they shouldn't ask the grandparents to take care of them.
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