Grandfathers

de Ann Buchanan, Anna Rotkirch

With changing families, more divorce, more lone parents, as well more healthy and active elders, grandfathers have come out of the shadows and reinvented themselves into a new caring, nurturing role. This is the first book to bring together international scholars from around the world, and from many disciplines, to discover what is known about grandfathers and what the impact is of involvement with grandchildren, on their own, and on their grandchildren's well-being. Original studies demonstrated that grandfather involvement is associated with child well-being in the UK and South Africa, the well-being of Arab and Israeli teenagers, as well as pre-school children in England, which is independent and different from grandmother involvement. This involvement has also been associated with grandfather well-being as long as the involvement is not intensive. This collection concludes that societies could benefit from encouraging more grandfathers to become involved and argues the case for grandparent visitation rights in those countries that currently do not have them.