By Gene Beresin, Executive Director and Masha Mesyef

Posted in: Multimedia, Videos

Topics: Parenting, Relationships

Dr. Gene Beresin, Executive Director of the MGH Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, sits down with Ash Bennington on PlanMember to talk about a topic close to home for a lot of families: the role grandparents play in kids’ emotional development.

As a grandfather of nine himself, Gene shares what the research (and his own experience) shows about why the grandparent-grandchild bond is so distinct — offering support without the day-to-day pressures of parenting, becoming trusted mentors kids sometimes won’t turn to their own parents for, and passing down family history that gives kids a sense of where they come from. He also makes a great point about how much grandparents can learn from their grandchildren in return.

A warm, honest conversation about connection across generations.

Transcript:

**Ash:** Welcome to PlanMember. I’m your host, Ash Bennington. Today I’m joined by Gene Beresin, Executive Director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, senior educator in child and adolescent psychiatry at MGH, associated with Harvard Medical School, and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Gene, welcome to PlanMember. Great to have you with us.

**Gene:** It’s great to be here. Thanks.

**Ash:** So, let’s talk a little bit about what you do first. Today we’re talking about a topic near and dear to the hearts of many: the role of grandparents in developing the emotional wellbeing of children. But before we get to that, tell us a little bit about what you do in your day-to-day work.

**Gene:** Well, as director of the Clay Center, we write blogs, do podcasts, videos. It’s an online educational resource to support the social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral wellbeing of young people and families — purely educational. But I spent most of my career prior to 2013 teaching residents, medical students, and faculty members. I’m a clinician. I have my own private practice, and I’ve been practicing for over 40 years, so it’s a busy life. I still do a lot of teaching and educational work at Mass General and around the country.

**Ash:** So tell us about the Clay Center and how and why you spun it up.

**Gene:** Well, the Clay Center came about because it’s no surprise to anybody that psychiatric disorders are among the most common, if not the most prevalent, of any illnesses we have. One in four people at any given point in time will have a psychiatric disorder, and over the course of a lifetime, one in two. And 75% begin before age 26; 50% begin before age 14. So it seemed to me, as a clinician and as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, that public mental health has really been vastly underserved, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there.

If people know what to look for, when to worry, and what to do — the three Ws — then we can prevent psychiatric disorders, or catch and treat them early. Far too often, the longer you have them, the longer you maintain them. So the whole point of the Clay Center was to provide public mental health education in multiple formats, so people who want to listen to a podcast while driving, or picking up their kids, or going to work, can do that. If you like to read blogs, we’ve got blogs. If you want to watch, we have YouTube videos. We do webinars and all kinds of events. It’s meant to cast a big net and really help people understand psychological issues and problems in their lives.

**Ash:** Wonderful work. Gene, today we’re here to talk about the role of grandparents in children’s lives — the emotional significance of becoming a grandparent. What does the science tell us?

**Gene:** Well, it tells us that it’s super important to grandparents and to grandchildren. I’m a grandfather of nine. Emotionally, the power of being a grandparent is, one, seeing your own legacy and heritage moving into the future — taking pride in your own kids and enjoying the fact that they’re now parents. It’s emotionally super rewarding to see your own kids having kids.

Your relationship to your grandchildren is very special. It’s unique, emotionally powerful, and rewarding. It comes without the strings of parenting, so you can use what you’ve learned to help guide them. The connection is like when you have your first child — a love affair that didn’t exist before, an immediate love affair. Grandparenting isn’t all that different. But you also have the interesting and important role of being a guide, both to your kids and to your grandchildren.

**Ash:** Talk a little bit about the difference between parenting and grandparenting in terms of the role itself — the benefits, and some of the responsibilities as well.

**Gene:** The benefits are incredible. When your grandchildren are very young, they give you a name, and that name sticks with you. I have four kids and nine grandchildren, and I’m called something different by each family. For them to make up those names is really endearing. It’s probably the only way you ever get to do that, unless you become pope.

But I think the role of the grandparent has multiple parts. One is giving parents a break — and it’s not babysitting. Parenting is a very time-consuming operation, and you often don’t have time for a run, or the gym, or just to relax. Grandparents can give parents that break, but they can also build a special relationship with the grandchildren themselves — taking care of them, providing special snacks, special events. Parents can facilitate this, too. Right around my house is the Children’s Discovery Museum, and we have a family membership, so taking the kids there is a special event. Taking care of the kids is super important.

**Ash:** You alluded earlier to the advice-giving role. Talk a little bit about that — I imagine it flows two ways, first to your own children, then to the grandchildren.

**Gene:** It’s very important. There’s a lot we’ve experienced as grandparents that our kids haven’t yet — from the simple things, like picky eaters, temper tantrums, or sibling rivalry, to more complicated things like separation anxiety, nightmares, refusal to go to school, or trouble sleeping, to more significant issues like depression, anxiety, stress, or loneliness. We can help out.

But one important thing about giving advice: the parents have to set the rules — screen time, the kind of food they want their kids to eat, sweets, processed food, you name it. As grandparents, we can give advice, but we’ve got to know what the parents are setting as guidelines, abide by them, and help implement them. It’s also really important for us to talk with our adult kids about their kids’ development — what kind of problems they have, what their strengths and interests are, what they really like to do, and how we can help enhance their strengths and improve their weaknesses. It’s also worth sharing what runs in families — illnesses or problems that run in the family — because heredity is a fact, and it’s important for parents to know that.

**Ash:** That can be tricky terrain. How do you navigate giving that kind of feedback — negotiating those conversations with your own children about their children?

**Gene:** Gently, and with respect. I think listening is more important than giving advice — asking what advice they’d actually want. Every adult is different; some want to hear it, some don’t. I think it’s important to say, “Look, if I’m out of line, or if you don’t want to hear my advice, just tell me, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.” That’s hard sometimes, when you think you know the answer but disagree with them. But conflict is inherent in families — we have to be able to live with it, live with differences, and at the same time earn their trust.

I can tell you: if I give advice they don’t want, they’ll tell me they don’t need to hear it. On the other hand, I get calls as a doctor — “What about this rash,” “She’s throwing up but can’t sleep,” “Should I give her more Tylenol?” If they trust me enough in certain domains, I’m there. In other domains, we just have to live with it. It’s a matter of respecting their role as competent parents, and hopefully they’ll learn from my mistakes and do it even better.

**Ash:** What are some common friction points between a grandparent and their adult child, the parent of the grandchild?

**Gene:** Bending the rules. They set the rules for bedtime, screen time, the food they want their kids to eat — and we have to know what those rules are and abide by them. I tend to love TV, and most of my kids really limit screen time, which I think is a good thing to do. I was raised coming home from school and watching television. It’s tempting for me to just turn on the TV — but instead, I like to show them things they haven’t seen, like Betty Boop or old Mickey Mouse cartoons, and they go, “Whoa, this is strange.”

I think we can bend the rules within reason — spoil them a little — but we should let the parents know when we’re doing it. It’s a balance: knowing their lifestyle, their rules, what the kids are growing up expecting as the norm, and how far we can bend things to make something special. Sometimes it’s a grandparent’s prerogative to take a grandchild for ice cream on a Tuesday night, or have an extra dessert, or make a fire outside and toast marshmallows for s’mores. Grandparents often have the time to do special things that parents — especially those working two jobs — simply don’t have.

**Ash:** We’ve talked about the relationship between grandparent and their adult child. Let’s talk about the relationship between grandparent and grandchild — what makes that so special?

**Gene:** For one thing, grandparents are the bearers of family history. All kids want to know about their families — they want narratives. Storytelling is ubiquitous in every society; think of the great religious scriptures, the Bible, the Torah, the Quran — it’s all narrative, all storytelling. Kids love stories. They love bedtime stories, and they love to know about their families. Grandparents have more knowledge of family history than just about anybody else — telling them how their parents grew up, showing them photos or videos, or stories of how their great-grandparents grew up, so they can learn about their ancestry.

When my mom was alive — she lived to 102 — my kids, and then my grandchildren, would say, “Hey, Gamma, tell us a story about the Great Depression.” She was a concert pianist, but during the 1930s she had to play in department stores to help support the family, and couldn’t go to college until later. Stories of adversity, of overcoming adversity, are super important to grandchildren as well as our own kids. Grandparents are the family historians. I had a wonderful relationship with my own grandfather, and I’m always grateful for learning family history from someone who was actually there at the time — it’s a great gift.

**Ash:** Talk a little bit about the mentorship role grandparents can play in their grandchildren’s lives.

**Gene:** It’s another very important role. Kids won’t always come to their parents for certain things, especially teenagers — and that’s okay. They may need an outside mentor, whether it’s a friend’s parent or a grandparent. So talking with your grandchildren about their interests, getting involved with them, having that kind of relationship where they can come to you with questions — having dialogue with them from a very early age builds mutual understanding and trust. So they may come to us for advice in a tough situation.

One of my grandkids plays the drums — her father’s a professional musician, and she chose the drums anyway. I’ll ask her, “Can you do a paradiddle for me? What about a reverse paradiddle?” Asking about their interests, getting involved, builds that trust. She was over here the other day and showed me her finger without a Band-Aid on it. She said, “Kappa” — that’s what they call me — “how do you think I got this?” I went through all these guesses: “Did the cat bite you?” “No.” “Did you scratch it on your sister’s teeth?” “No.” Finally I said, “Did you burn it?” She said, “Yeah, I burned it on the stove.” “Oh man, that’s terrible — burns are really painful.” “Yeah, you bet.”

Even a little playful conversation like that gets to her injury. Hopefully, as she gets older, she’ll talk to me about other kinds of injuries — maybe a breakup with a friend, maybe problems with her parents, maybe academics. We’ll have to wait and see. But having these conversations early on builds a real sense of trust and confidence between grandparent and grandchild.

**Ash:** What a delightful story — about building relationships that endure for decades. Any final thoughts on this topic?

**Gene:** I think learning from your grandchildren is something that’s often neglected. Let’s face it — folks like me are digital immigrants, and they’re digital natives. They can teach me a lot about digital media; they navigate phones better than I can. My daughter got her two girls a phone that looks like an old princess phone — no Wi-Fi, no internet, voicemail only — so they can call me, leave a message, and feel like big girls. But they teach me plenty. When I’m trying to navigate the TV to find a show, they’ll say, “Wait, wait, Papa, you gotta do it this way.” Music, too — they listen to a lot of new music I don’t know, and I listen to a lot of older music they don’t know, so we teach each other. I think learning from each other is a really valuable part of the relationship.

**Ash:** So the information flows in both directions.

**Gene:** Both directions. Yep.

**Ash:** Gene, a charming and important conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.

**Gene:** Oh, this has been fabulous. Thanks for watching, thanks for listening.