How to Be a Good Grandparent: 10 Tips to Be a Better Grandparent

• Grandparenting is beneficial for all involved. It has positive health impacts on grandparents, grandchildren, and the grandkids’ parents. 
• Despite the importance of grandparents for families, the role of a grandparent can sometimes be unclear. 
• To be a good grandparent, it’s important to make time for your grandchildren and communicate effectively with their parents. Below are more specific tips and advice on how to be a better grandparent. 

Being a grandparent is one of life’s greatest gifts. It allows someone to bond with the next generation of their family, offer advice to their adult children, and feel more fulfilled during retirement. Plus, grandparenting can boost overall health and well-being, by encouraging activity levels, relieving stress, and improving socialization.

Being a grandparent, however, isn’t without its awkward moments or uncertainties about one’s role. To help, we compiled tips, advice, and practical ideas on how to make grandparenting meaningful for the entire family. 

Whether welcoming a first grandchild into the world or becoming a step-grandparent after a new marriage, being a grandparent is a wonderful experience. It’s even possible to be a foster grandparent or volunteer as a grandparent for children without one in their family. 

No matter how someone is related to their grandchildren, they play a special role in the family. Grandparents help grandchildren feel special, provide support to the parents, and promote good physical and mental health for their grandchildren. Plus, these benefits are amplified when there’s emotional closeness between grandparents and grandchildren. 

Emotional closeness can look like spending quality time with grandchildren or making regular phone calls if they live far away. It may also look like attending their sports games or cheering them on in the school spelling bee. The exact role of a grandparent depends on family dynamics, proximity, and the grandchildren’s interests, but the best grandparents share one quality: spending quality time with their family. 

While spending quality time is essential to being a good grandparent, the specific nature of that time can be challenging to define. Here are some tips for how you can be a supportive grandparent: 

1: Don’t Be Afraid to Play

If physically able, many grandparents play with their grandchildren. This may look like playing a board game with a granddaughter or bringing step-grandchildren to the zoo. While children love to play games and engage in more athletic activities, it’s also important for grandparents to engage in healthy play. If, for example, a grandparent finds it hard to get down on their hands and knees and play with a grandchild’s toy trains, have them bring it to the kitchen table for a safer playtime.

If concerned about mobility, bring up these concerns with a healthcare provider, such as a primary care doctor. They can address any of these concerns and suggest pain-free ways to play. 

2: Stay Updated on Safety Guidelines

For most grandparents, decades have passed since their own children attended preschool or required a booster seat. Yet grandparents are thrown into situations like these, where they need to know the most up-to-date safety guidelines. Before providing child care, brush up on any changes to these guidelines. These could include ones specific to a grandchild’s life, such as the school pickup procedure, or more general safety guidelines.

Some important general guidelines to review include: 

• Booster seat guidelines
• Transporting children safely
• Playground safety tips
• Preventing adverse childhood experiences
• Children’s dietary guidelines
• Essentials for Childhood Guidelines
• How to childproof your home

For grandparents who take medication, it’s important to ensure all medication is stored properly and out of reach of grandchildren when they visit or when visiting them.

3: Communicate Consistently 

Communication is key to building a great relationship. Communicating with the parents and grandchildren can occur a number of ways, including:

• Making phone calls at a set time each week
• Communicating when a grandparent is coming over
• Sending updates when spending time with grandchildren without the parents
• Asking any questions about confusing parenting decisions, while being respectful of the parents’ rules
• Telling parents and grandchildren that you appreciate them and making them feel special

4: Share Family History

Grandparents can also feel a sense of responsibility to share and preserve the family legacy. This often looks like sharing the family history with grandchildren. This might include sharing what country the family originally immigrated from or bringing pictures for them to look through. You can also share stories and memories about their mother, father, aunts, uncles, son/daughter-in-law from when they were young that they may never have heard or experienced.

5: Establish (and Follow) Boundaries

Healthy relationships are built on boundaries. If a grandparent offers to watch the children every day after school or gives up time with close friends to babysit, they may start to feel fatigued or overextended. Being a grandmother or grandfather doesn’t mean sacrificing your own life.

Instead, only give what you can and protect your own time and energy. If, for example, a grandma bowls on Tuesday nights, they can mark that in their calendar and let their children know they are unavailable to spend time with the grandchildren on Tuesday evenings. 

Similarly, respect the grandchildren’s parents’ wishes and any family rules. Some grandparents bend the rules and may feel like giving an extra piece of candy to a grandchild isn’t a big deal, but following the house rules, such as bedtimes or the amount of time a child can spend in front of screens, is important. Your children may do things differently from how you parented them, but it’s important that you respect their rules and boundaries around how they choose to raise their children.

Sometimes, it may be necessary to establish boundaries with other grandparents, too. If multiple grandparents visit at once, it may overwhelm the children’s lives. Alternatively, new parents may appreciate having multiple grandparents present, since they can provide extra childcare and create opportunities for everyone to spend time together.

6: Listen to Grandchildren and Their Parents

Grandparents can play a significant role in their grandkids’ lives. They can offer a listening ear, provide emotional support and encouragement for their goals, and foster their interests and hobbies.

It’s also important to listen to the parents. Your own children likely have some rules they want you to follow, such as helping the kids put on sunscreen before a trip to the park. To be a supportive grandparent, it’s important to listen to your children and their partners and respect their parenting decisions. 

7: Be Present

At the end of the day, presence is what matters most. The time spent with grandchildren can improve their mental health, verbal skills, and even decrease their risk of obesity. It can be easy to get anxious about whether you’re feeding your grandchildren the right food or have a child-proof home for sleepovers, but at the end of the day, being there is what counts. 

Most grandparents also try to spend one-on-one time with each grandchild. Along with building relationships and creating stronger bonds, this can be helpful for the parents, too. If, for example, a parent just had a new baby, a grandma staying in her home for a few weeks and spending one-on-one time with her toddler could be beneficial for the entire family. 

8. Show Them You’re Paying Attention

When becoming a grandparent, everyone hopes to be the best one they can be. As your grandchild gets older and changes, it can become more difficult to figure out what they need in their relationship with you. Being there for your older grandkids often involves letting them know you’re listening and paying attention to their lives.

Some ways you can do this include:

• Letting them know they can talk to/​call you, not just on special occasions, but anytime.
• Take notes when they talk so you can ask about them in your next conversation: your grandson’s new friend’s name, your granddaughter’s upcoming game, or their new favorite hobby.
• Initiate conversations and activities with them, rather than waiting for them to reach out to you.
• Ask them questions when you talk to them, show interest in their lives, and be curious about their point of view.

9. Share Your Wisdom

This can feel tricky at times, as you don’t want to talk down to your grandchild. However, sharing your wisdom, stories, and experiences with them can not only foster a stronger connection but can also be helpful for your grandchildren as they navigate their lives.

When it comes to more sensitive topics, such as death, grief, or trauma, have discussions with their parents before engaging to ensure the parents believe their children are prepared/​old enough.

10. Avoid Playing Favorites

Having multiple grandchildren can bring more joy to your life, but it also has the potential to introduce new pitfalls. When you have your first grandchild, you may give them all your attention and spoil them with gifts and experiences. However, when other grandkids enter the picture, you may not have the same time, energy, or resources to do the same for them. This can breed resentment in your younger grandkids or in your adult children who have kids later in life.

Additionally, you may feel a stronger connection with one grandchild over another. This can be understandable, especially if you share similar personality traits, hobbies, or interests. However, try to avoid playing favorites as much as possible: children are perceptive and often pick up on subtle cues, even when we don’t realize it. Do your best to make each grandkid feel loved and seen by you, and find your own unique ways to connect with them.

Grandparenting is unique and should suit everyone in the family. But while unique, there are some general things to avoid in order to maintain a healthy relationship between all family members. These include:

• Not following the parents’ rules
• Showing up unexpectedly
• Overstaying your welcome
• Ghosting the parents when out with the grandchildren or the grandchildren are staying at a grandparent’s house
• Sacrificing one’s own health to play with the grandchildren
• Having no boundaries
• Not respecting other family member’s boundaries

Long-distance grandparenting can be tricky. If a grandparent lives in a different state or is a snowbird who flees south for the winter, it may feel like they can’t spend as much quality time with their family. However, there are ways to make long-distance grandparenting work for everyone involved.

For starters, long-distance grandparents can communicate regularly with their grandchildren. This may look like a weekly FaceTime or a short phone call in the evening. A grandparent can also schedule vacations to visit grandchildren who live in another state or open their home up to their children and grandkids during the holidays or for a vacation. Long distance often means grandparents have to be more intentional about spending time with their family, but it doesn’t mean they can’t have a strong relationship with their grandchildren. 

Ways to Communicate From Afar

When grandchildren live far away, communication becomes even more important. You can establish special traditions with grandchildren to create memorable experiences, and shared rituals can go a long way to foster connection. There are many ways to stay up-to-date on grandchildren’s lives, including:

• FaceTime or video calls
• Phone calls
• Texts
• Facebook or another social media platform
• Family group chat to share photos
• Daycare apps with updates on grandchildren’s developmental progress
• Sending letters and cards 

The majority of these communication methods involve a smartphone, laptop, or iPad. If you are looking to become more tech-savvy, Savvy Cyber Kids has great resources on using these newer technologies for grandparents. 

Grandparents naturally want to spoil their grandchildren, but spending hundreds of dollars on them isn’t always feasible or fiscally responsible. To avoid overspending, set a budget for grandparenting duties. Costs associated with grandparenting may include:

• Travel costs to see grandchildren
• Toys and gifts purchased
• Contributions to grandkids’ college funds
• Fun experiences, activities, and meals
• Transportation costs if helping bring grandchildren to and from school or activities

For those with a budget on the lower end, know that a grandparent’s presence, not their bank account, is what matters most. Your love and presence count more than how many toys you can buy.