Find out about the many benefits of young children and seniors spending time together in society.
If you were lucky enough to catch Old People’s Home For Four Year Olds on Channel Four, you will have seen the lovely relationship that can be formed between people in such vastly different age groups.
Children and the elderly might not automatically seem like the perfect match because of the difference in life-experience, interests, energy levels, physical abilities and outlook.And yet, encouraging multi-generational socialisation seems to provide a huge amount of benefits for all involved.
The Benefits For The Elderly
Time spent with younger children can be very beneficial for both the mental and physical wellbeing of the elderly. The elderly benefit by:
- Gaining a sense of importance and purpose by passing on their knowledge and time to the children
- A lift in mood, passed on by mindful children who don’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders
- Enjoying more physical activity and movement, even surprising themselves with their ability at times
- Enjoying life
- Seeing dementia symptoms decrease
- Learning new things
- Sharing life experience and memories
- Enjoying being mindful and ‘in the moment’
- Avoiding loneliness
Older people can benefit hugely from spending time with children and often the benefits are individual to their own challenges and medical conditions.
The Benefits For The Children
Children can benefit hugely from spending time with older generations. Younger children especially often love spending time with the elderly who give them the time and patience they may not get plenty of in a busy family. Just some of the benefits for children spending time with the elderly are:
- Meeting new people
- Learning about the past
- Learning new skills and gaining new interests
- Feeling like they are doing something to be proud of
- Appreciating the diversity of the community
- Making special bonds
- Gaining a patient and interested ear
- Learning what growing older means
Just like older people, children can gain hugely from spending time with another age group. Children who are shy or who may learn differently may especially benefit from time with older generations who may show them a different kind of understanding.
Could Your Client/ Family-Member Benefit From Time Spent With Another Generation?
If you do think your children or your grandparent, parent or client could benefit from spending time with a much younger or older generation, there are many ways this can happen. Here are just some ways to set up a multi-generational social situation:
- If you have a parent who requires elderly care or who wants to live with the family, perhaps you could consider multi-generational living or live-in care when a relative lives with you. If your older parent lives with you, they can spend more time with your children.
- Seek out collaborations between child care workers and senior care workers or similar organisations which organise events where the elderly and young can spend time together.
- Speak to your client about adopt a grandparent programmes such as the Adopt A Grandma scheme in the UK. Or consider becoming a family that adopts a grandparent instead.
- Does the local residential care home have any events you could encourage your children to help with?
- Get into voluntary work: both the elderly and the very young can enjoy great voluntary schemes such as local allotment schemes where everyone involved learns new skills too.
Children can benefit massively from spending time with the elderly and the benefits go both ways. Whether you are a carer, a parent or simply somebody who knows an elderly person who would love to spend time with a younger generation, look into multi-generational social schemes and programmes, or consider multi-generational living, or even just enabling grandparents and grandchildren to spend more time together, the benefits really are for everyone.