No one species of living beings of the highest development and complex organization has a connection between "grandparents" and "grandchildren", especially "great-grandchildren". Perhaps, we are still just learning love and relationships in such a complex structure as an elderly person and a family that unites up to four generations with completely different life experiences.
Life expectancy has increased by more than 40 years. The number of elderly people in families is growing faster than the number of children, and the attitude towards them can not be built on previous principles. After all, with general ignorance, a person who lived to see gray hair was a walking encyclopedia of life, often the only carrier of worldly and professional science, wisdom. Hence the inherent in most peoples veneration of old age, irrespective of personality.
The world around the old people should be very attentive and friendly. It is important how the relationship of the elderly with older children, with grandchildren, mother-in-law with sons-in-law, mother-in-law with daughter-in-law develops in the family.
We often say that the meaning of human existence is in the good that we bring to people. And what is the use of the one who can not really serve himself? He only takes it, giving nothing to anyone. The main "usefulness" of absolutely helpless old people is precisely that they, like children, do not let out the warmth of gratitude in their souls, support the ability to self-sacrifice, cultivate condescension and tolerance. True, with the elderly it is given at a cost of greater effort than with children. In the kids, in fact, our future is concluded, that is, what remains. And in the old people - what has already gone: our own childhood, youth. We are eagerly sacrificing today's interests for the sake of future achievements, rather than paying for long-lived joys. This is one reason that it is more difficult for old people. In addition, becoming old as children, the old people keep their claims to the decisive opinion and authority in the affairs of the common family. They seek to subordinate the will of all household members, being wholly dependent on them. This is an initially conflict situation. And come out of it with dignity only very friendly and judicious people.
The current secured pensions for old grannies and grandfathers are just the most and need to be conscious: we are expensive, still needed by someone on earth. All senile ailments intensify, if there is no this sense of their necessity, usefulness. The last opportunity to melt the ice of a cooling heart is to bask in the rays of gay and loving eyes of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A large part of grandparents lives and acts within the framework of traditional rules. With them over the years, taking care of children takes more and more of the time and effort. They do not know any other way, except for their grandchildren to school, to a kindergarten or nursery, to a skating rink or to a zoo. And there is no entertainment other than sitting by the TV, and in television programs, first of all, they are looking for programs for babies. People say: grandchildren love more than their own children. Love is more meaningful, more selfless and more focused. Love, as you know, requires leisure. When a person has time and the desire to peer into a small Being, a lot of things open that can be missed in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, not to be noticed. Namely, the interest of the adult is built and the reciprocal interest, the confidence of the child. This cordial trustfulness of children is especially important when a grown-up child has closed his soul to his mother and father, reducing all communication with them to a set of standard words and signs of respect. With respect to the grandchildren who have entered the flowering of the forces, alienation, discord, and mutual irritation may arise to the old man who is losing his last strength. Therefore, it is necessary to raise children from a young age in a respectful attitude to the old family members. And this depends on how the adults themselves treat old people. After all, children always take the example from adults.
The old man is very vulnerable. And therefore, one should never speak to him in a rude, irritable tone. He must feel respectful to himself. Less frequently, under one roof, there are representatives of three, especially four generations.
Sociological analysis does not always confirm the correctness of the proposition that it is ideal for old people to live with their older children and grandchildren, and that the separation of the family is tantamount to isolating old people.
At present, the "elderly man and family" system has developed in such a way that the normal situation is the separation of elderly parents, their children and grandchildren. In many cases, this preserves or returns good relationships that have changed with cohabitation.
The difficulties of living together are usually caused by housing problems. Now, the economically independent living of parents and their adult children with a family in one house, but in different apartments or in the immediate vicinity of the old, would be ideal. This would facilitate contact and enable them to help them, if necessary. Disunited families are often restored in this case, if the remaining single father or mother becomes incapable of self-service, they move to the position of a person "chained" to an apartment or forced to observe a constant bed rest.
A change in the place of residence of an elderly or an old person causes many of them severe emotional and stressful situations. It can be caused not only by the state of health of a person, but also by the need for a major overhaul of the house or by moving to another house, usually on the outskirts of the city, without the hope of returning to its original place. In these cases, the elderly often lose the already established social ties, are forced to some extent to change their habitual way of life, adapt to new living conditions, which, as a rule, can be done with difficulty.
The most serious mental trauma for the elderly, except for the loss of a loved one, is conflict with children. The high culture of young people, the consciousness of high vulnerability of relatives who have reached the elderly and senile age, should always be present in the relations between family members.