What role to give grandparents today?
Grandpa and grandma have changed
Professor Marcel Rufo insists that today's grandparents are (very) young, and even if they take their role very seriously and seriously, they are for the most part very attached to the wealth of their cultural, social, intellectual and often professional life, in short, to their own personal fulfillment. Forget about the obsolete concept of grandma / grandpa who is 100% available and lives only to keep the offspring of her offspring. As the famous pedopsy writes, whether for travel, dining out or movies, grandparents now claim loud and clear: "I deserved the hobbies I want to enjoy now". In short, full-time nanny grandparents, it's over.
The place of grandparents
According to Marcel Rufo (Grandparents, Yours to Play, Editions Anne Carrière), "grandparents must be careful not to be considered as subsidiary or as" stop-gap ". They are not there to fill the voids left by the parents with their childrenbut must impose themselves in an egalitarian relationship. They do not have to submit to the wishes of their children become parents. They have their own style, lifestyle and pleasures, which they impose so that grandchildren in return agree to share them with them. This is a sharing, not an availability.
The role of grandparents
"One of the essential mandates of grandparents is to tell where the familyfrom which village, to describe the old family home (if there is one and if it still exists), to talk about their job, their modest origins (when the social elevator worked well). In short, to tell the past so that the grandchildren's present can be better constructed ", is the vision of the role to be played by the grandparents for Marcel Rufo. Moreover, in addition to the "duty of remembrance" to be assured by these child, Hachette family), the famous early childhood specialist also highlights the "important educational task" that grandparents have to play, just after parents and brothers and sisters (if there are any).
But if grandparents must be aware of their importance in the life of a childlet's not forget that they are the ones who have the best role (which they often emphasize with happiness) because "more free than parentsmore patient, they do not have to ask themselves as educators and the authority they show towards their grandchildren (...) is generally better accepted ". In short, far from the constraints and anxieties of everyday life (organization, health concerns, nursery or school ...) and freed from the errors of parents beginners, grandparents just have to let themselves be carried away to enjoy the present with their grandchildren.
Good to know
How to approach the separation of the parental couple with his grandchild? Its adoption? His religion? His complexes and his (many) questions? You will find all the answers to your grandparents' questions and much more in the last essay of Pr Marcel Rufo, Grandparents, A vous de jouer (Anne Carrière editions).
