UNAIR NEWS – Raising a child with special needs has its challenges. Children with specific physical, mental, and social characteristics such as communication disorders, difficulties in social interaction, emotional disorders, and others require special strategies and approaches to handle.
Recently, there has been a shift of mothers’ roles from housewives into career women. Therefore, other family members in an extended family, such as grandmothers, will become substitute parents for raising their child. Various experiences make parents feel more comfortable when their parents (the elderly) take care of their children than when other people such as babysitters do.
Sylvia Dwi Wahyuni, Lecturer of the Faculty of Nursing (FKp) Universitas Airlangga, said that many elderly in Indonesia live with their families. The elderly live with their families for three generations.
“Grandchild care has both positive and negative impacts on the elderly. The positive impacts include physical, psychological, social, and environmental aspects. The results of a study also show that grandmothers reported fewer depressive symptoms than women without grandchildren,” explained Sylvia.
In addition, she added, the interviewed elderly said that they felt glad to take care of their grandchildren. However, she said, there are also negative impacts such as fatigue and family conflicts.
The research results show that the elderly involved in taking care of their grandchildren is to support the educational and physical needs of their grandchildren. The respondents stated that raising grandchildren is a shared responsibility of grandparents and parents.
“Families maintain relationships between generations, and the first generation will always leave an influence on the next generation. In addition, grandparents feel happy when they are with their grandchildren,” said Sylvia.
She added that some of the elderly complain when taking care of their grandchildren, but these complaints disappear when they see their grandchildren happy. Grandparents think that there are no burdening complaints and that everything can be resolved. The elderly feel that the complaints are paid off when they see their cute and healthy grandchildren.
“Psychologically, the elderly feel that physical fatigue can be relieved by praying,” she said.
Sylvia said grandparents believed grandchildren are everything, beyond their own children, diamonds, gifts, and pride. Furthermore, feelings of joy over the birth of grandchildren and the decision to care for grandchildren come from themselves.
“Most of the activities often done with grandchildren are playing. Other activities include participating in community activities, taking care of the household, watching TV, and selling snacks in front of the house. Most people think that raising grandchildren is better with grandparents than with babysitters,” she concluded.
Author: Muhammad Suryadiningrat
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
