It is not surprising that many parents have to work long hours that grandparents have to take an active role in providing care to their grandchildren nowadays. The lead investigator, Dr. Chan King Chung Derwin, Associate Head and Associate Professor of the Department of Early Childhood Education (ECE) EDUHK, invited 667 local families with children aged 4 years or below to participate in a study in March. Either a father or mother and either grandfather or grandmother in each family were invited to fill in an online survey.
While offering the public a background of grandparent childcare in local community, the survey also intended to explore the level of grandparents’ knowledge and skills on childcare, the reasons of quarrels between grandparents and parents when taking care of children, and chances of home accidents and kind of minor injuries in children.
The findings indicated that vast majority of the families had their grandparents assisted in childcare. Grandparents in these families, on average, spend 4 days per week and 9 hours per day in taking care of their grandchildren. However, very few of grandparents attended training courses for infant care. Most of the surveyed grandparents admitted that they did not have adequate childcare skills and knowledge, especially on common first-aid (90.4%). In addition, over half of the surveyed grandparents were stressed because of caregiving to grandchildren. Intergenerational conflicts were eventually triggered. More than half of parents had quarrels with grandparents about the management of the grandchildren, particularly on children’s behavioral problems (69.2%) and children’s growth and development knowledge (62.2%). The results also revealed that home accidents happened in nearly one fifth of children. Among these children, most of them got minor injuries in home setting, such as bruises, scrapes, cuts.
Grandparents in Hong Kong often play a major role in providing childcare support to families with young children at 4 or under. The survey reflected that it might be important to provide grandparents with appropriate trainings on child growth, child development knowledge, and domestic injury prevention. Given that grandparents suffered from different degrees of stress in care-giving, Dr. Chan recommended that grandparents should enhance their coping skills and communicate more with their family members and friends about their beliefs, feeling, and needs.
(Photo credits: Freepik)