Lessons for Grandparents from The Good Life
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In the space of three hours, two different people told me I needed to read The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. I accepted this message from the universe and downloaded it to my Kindle that evening. I didn’t have to read very long before I realized that not only was it a fascinating book, but that over eight decades of in-depth research on human happiness revealed some valuable guidance for grandparents.
Authors Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz are the current directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which started in 1938. Since then, the Harvard Study has been tracking participants and their children with regular surveys and interviews about all aspects of their lives. It’s a fascinating study, and the research on real lives as they’ve played out has been a gold mine of information. In The Good Life, Waldinger and Schulz share what over eight decades has taught us about what it takes to lead a happy, healthy life. While they didn’t write a book on grandparenting, they offer concrete wisdom for any grandparent who wants to encourage and maintain happy family relationships. Spoiler alert: it’s the quality of your relationships that determines whether you lead a good life.
Here are the key takeaways for grandparents:
Relationships matter
Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period. ~Waldinger and Schulz
More than any other factor in the lives of the Harvard Study participants, the quality of their relationships governed the quality of their life. While it’s easy to understand that satisfying relationships make for happier people, it’s perhaps less obvious that having close personal relationships improves your health. But the Harvard Study, and other studies like it, have shown this again and again. People who have good relationships enjoy a good life.
Relationships change
As time passes, and everyone’s life stage shifts, relationships must change. How a family adapts to that inevitable change is one of the key determinants of the quality of family relationships. ~Waldinger and Schulz
These changes can be hard for grandparents. As your adult children become parents, your relationship with them must evolve. Families who have trouble navigating this shift end up dealing with misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and boundary issues. Left unresolved, the family loses its ability to support one another in meaningful ways. Understanding that you need to change how you interact with your adult children is the first step in adapting to your new role as a grandparent.
Make the investment
If we accept the wisdom—and more recently the scientific evidence—that our relationships really are among our most valuable tools for sustaining health and happiness, then choosing to invest time and energy in them becomes vitally important. ~Waldinger and Schulz
We often put less time and energy into our family relationships than other areas of our lives. But our family members should be the relationships we invest in most heavily. When grandparents commit their time and energy to engaging in purposeful ways, your family relationships will thrive (and so will our health). That’s why we provide so many resources for you to explore what that commitment will look like for you, like New Grandparent Essentials.
Be curious
Curiosity—real, deep curiosity about what others are experiencing—goes a long way in important relationships. It opens up avenues of conversation and knowledge that we never knew were there. It helps others feel understood and appreciated. ~Waldinger and Schulz
So often the reason that grandparents and parents have trouble communicating is that they don’t take the time to understand what the other person is experiencing. The first step in this is being curious: asking questions to better know what parents are thinking and doing. I’ve written before about how curiosity can improve your relationship with your daughter-in-law, and the lessons there extend to any member of your family with whom you want to be on better terms.
Even if your relationship with your adult children seems strong, curiosity is crucial to keeping it that way when a new baby comes along. Solid, caring relationships can be frayed when grandparents don’t learn about new parenting methods and modern baby care advice. It’s difficult for parents if they have to bear the burden of educating new grandparents on these matters, or if grandparents have a mindset that older philosophies were better. Being curious is the first step in recognizing that you don’t know it all and that you want to support new parents.
The Good Life contains many more lessons for us as grandparents and as humans. Even better, it includes practical, actionable steps to improve our relationships. It’s a book well worth reading—in fact, after buying the Kindle version I went on to buy the hardback so I could better take advantage of the exercises it includes. You can order your own copy from Amazon here.