Grandparents

In my own family, many of the traditions we continue to celebrate and do would not have been passed on if it was not for the closeness of our family. My mother can make many native foods from growing up around her grandmother such as traditional Creek Fry bread; things that I know I will one day pass on to my children. I can still remember my great grandmother teaching my sister and I how to do traditional basket weaving, a tradition still taught in classes at the Creek Nation today. "Basket-weaving is one of the oldest known Native American crafts" and shows the diversity of tribes as the different styles of basket-weaving are still present today (Lollman). If families did not pass on our heritage, many of our native songs and dances performed at powwows would not be around to see or reenact today. Ultimately all of the traditions we have today would not be here if it was not for the families passing their knowledge and memories down.

They can connect with you and others to past events from their lives. We have a life story book which is filled out by the family with all the details of the individuals past, their likes, dislikes, favourite foods etc, which really helps when talking about the past as all the information is there in black and white.

The final stage is the “family in later life”. During this stage, individuals must accept the shifting of generational roles, as they become the grandparents. They must be able to let go of some power to their offspring as they find their new place in the family system. Dealing with this change while facing potential decline in health, financial security, and loss of spouse can be stressful. Grandparenthood can be a reward substitute (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988, p. 20).

Which is why after reading this, I think what matters most when I envision eldercare is not only having a variety of engaging activities but also having family members visit them often and to even take them out for lunch or home for the

Growing up with your grandparents has its benefits. I remember waking up to freshly baked biscuits and fried sliced ham on Saturday mornings just before cartoons. Riding to the pharmacy with my grandfather to pick up his medicine was one of my favorite trips. We would always stop for ice cream before we returned home. Soaking in the knowledge that streamed from the lips of your elders can go unappreciated until you are an adult. Watching people age gives you an understanding of what is important to seniors as they transition to retirement and lonIg-term care. Seniors value the ability to live and enjoy a life that includes independence, family, and home. In today's economy, there is a shortage of health care professionals. Home healthcare services are vital due to the aging US population and need for increased continuum of care.

Without fail, when someone discovers the stories in their own family tree, they become empowered and inspired. I know this from personal experience, because eight years ago, someone helped me discover my lost family legacies, and it changed me forever. I found stories of great sacrifice, courage, conviction, service, struggle, conflict, diversity and triumph. Some of my ancestors lived in a cave for the first few years and purchased land rights from the Native Americans who helped them plant new crops and build

Through my interactions with my extended family over the course of this project, it has become evident that there are specific traditions and values that each side of my family holds dear. Despite my premonition that interviewing my family would be a rather simple and straightforward endeavor, getting the information that I was hoping to find from my family has been anything but easy. Both sides of my family certainly have some common values and traditions between them; however, each side has its own distinct folklore and values that have been instilled over several generations. These traditional family values have come to be one of the most notable differences between the two halves

Worldwide, with increase in life expectancy more women and men are experiencing the role of grandparent and length of occupancy in the role is increasing (Armstrong, 2003). However in America, after age 75, about 9 percent have difficulty carrying out activities of daily living (Berk, 2010). When considering the cultural approach of aging in late adulthood, we see that aging adults are treated differently depending on what community or cultural background they originated from. With the increase in life expectancy, many opportunities had been provided to psychologists to conduct research and practice with aging adults (APA, 2003). This has enabled many researchers to study aging in the United States and other countries. With those

Carole B. Cox explains the importance of focus to the needs and concerns of these grandparents that are increasingly growing and becoming more known and the lack of services that address this group’s unique strengths and abilities to cope with any and all problems that they may face while caring for their grandchildren such as: their own physical health, increase of depression and insomnia, economic costs, low incomes, discrimination already present due to history, communication within the family, behavioral problems, and legal and entitlement issues. A study was conducted to see if a program that focused on providing these grandparents with a way to become more empowered in their role as custodial parents in strengthening their parenting skills,

Caregivers takes many forms, some are paid and some work voluntarily and even many of us work as caregivers for our parents, grandparents but we do not realize that we are caregivers actually. Those old aged people who do not have some family members to take care of them can benefit from support and incentives programs. Caregivers manage a wide range of responsibilities. In your family, for example: Who will help with buying groceries, cooking, cleaning

When living in a multigenerational home with other people everyone is spending time with each other, and there are no boundaries. One huge challenge is adapting to another person’s life. Everyone has a routine, but when living in a multigenerational home, that routine can collide with another family member. If a divorced man or women, with a child, is living with their parents, the grandparents can sometimes take the authority over the child. For example, when the child doesn’t eat all their food, and the parent is tell the child to finish the plate, then comes in sweet kind grandma or grandpa. The grandparents take the authority or control of the decision if the child should finishes the plate. As time goes by there will always be challenges in life, but there is also benefits in life, meaning that there are benefits to living in a multigenerational

Mic conveys the hardships of raising a grandchild when she states that she must work two jobs in order to provide food for her family because the organization she founded does not provide enough income. Mic’s worries of having to provide enough money to support her household has notably negatively affected her mental health due to the number of responsibilities that has been put on her. This is a common situation for many grandparents who look after their grandchildren as Burke reveals that many grandparents “report feeling emotionally drained, depressed, and worried about what will happen to the children if their own health fails” (Burke 435). Also, the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren relates to the generativity versus stagnation stage of psychosocial development. This is due to the fact that in this psychosocial stage “adults focus more intently on extending commitments beyond oneself and one’s life partner to a larger group--family, community or society” (Burker 423) when adults in middle adulthood become generative.

Culturally is it unusual that Lanesha’s grandmother is her primary caregiver? I would like to say no to this question, but the facts behind this issue don’t support it. Within the African American community, approximately 12% of African American children nationally are cared for by their grandparents, compared to approximately 7% of Hispanic children and 4% of non-Hispanic White children (NCBI, 2010). Lanesha and her grandmother are part of a larger issue that is reflected in today’s society. Several reasons can exist for this paradigm, anything from the parents needing complete education, the grandparents supplementing expensive daycare costs, or simply because the parents are not involved in the child’s life.

This image above, is a genogram of my family. It includes both my dad’s side of the family, the Zwanzigers, and part of my mom’s side of the family, the Pechotas. The communication patterns on the Zwanziger side of the family and the Pechota side of the family are different from one another. Both of my dad’s parents are deceased and his only sister lives in South Carolina so we do not get to see each other very much. When my grandpa and grandma were alive, they also lived in Iowa and my dad’s sister and her family lived in Illinois so they would come to Iowa more often to see my grandma and grandpa and my family. Now that my grandparents are no longer living and my aunt and uncle live farther away, we do not get to see them nearly as much as we use to. When we do get to see them though, a lot of times our communication between each other, is telling family stories. According to Galvin, Braithwaite, and Bylund (2015), family stories are told in order “to remember, to create belonging and family identity, to teach expected behavior and deeply held values to current and future members, to develop the family culture, to connect generations, to manage stress, and to entertain” (p. 100). When our families get together, we love to tell stories about our Grandpa and Grandma Zwanziger.

These contributing factors do play a major role and does affect the grandparent and this will affect the grandchild emotionally, behaviorally, and physically (Pinson-Millburn, 1996). The main contributing factor that grandparents face is their limited physical or emotional health and their main concern is that their grandchild will miss out on the physical activities with their parents raising them (Backhouse & Graham, 2012). The research does show how this can very overwhelming with everyone involved.