Relationships between grandparents and teenage grandchildren

Abstract

Little research is available on the range of help and support grandparents and older grandchildren provide to each other or of the importance and quality of this relationship. Through individual and group interviews, this study explored the relationship between grandparents and teenage grandchildren, looking at the ways teenage grandchildren and their grandparents say that they relate to each other, how they care and provide support and how the relationship changes over time. The research also considered how this relationship might be influenced by family, gender, ethnicity or mobility.