Want to Live Longer? Play With Your Grandkids. It’s Good for Them, Too. Bob Brody - The Washington Post
go to original August 6, 2023

(Carlos Miranda for The Washington Post)

Make no mistake: Helping to raise your grandchildren is a workout, and routine tasks such as lifting, carrying and following younger children around all day or night can be pretty strenuous. But research suggests that grandparents who play regularly with grandkids stay active and healthy longer and — bonus points — live longer.

Getting physical also promotes advantages well beyond the merely physical. Through one-on-one physical play together, grandparents and grandchildren can get to better know, understand and appreciate each other. It’s inherently social, mentally stimulating, lends your life an extra sense of purpose and meaning, and can establish a wholesome lifetime relationship.

“Playing with children adds value not only for children but also for adult caregivers,” according to “The Power of Play,” a 2018 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Adults can “reexperience or reawaken the joy of their own childhood and rejuvenate themselves. … Play enables children and adults to be passionately and totally immersed in an activity of their choice and to experience intense joy.”

These findings are fortuitous. Grandparents today can expect to live longer than previous generations, and they may have more time available to play than parents.

“Grandparents make wonderful playmates,” says Michael Yogman, assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and lead author of “The Power of Play,” who himself has two grandchildren, ages 2 and 4. “We have so many opportunities to play a huge role. I say, ‘Go for it!’”

Building an Active Family Culture

Physical play between grandparents and grandchildren remains little researched, but a University of Glasgow study showed how grandparents “contribute to a family culture of physical activity.”

The project enlisted five three-generation families, each with at least one child, one parent and one grandparent, that identified as physically active. Researchers observed the individuals taking physical activity classes together. The grandparents came to recognize physical play as a key element in the role of looking after grandchildren. Such play built connections between generations and motivated grandparents all the more to stay active.

“Grandparents often play a key role in shaping attitudes toward physical activity in family cultures,” says Michael Rogers, a professor of human performance studies and director of the Center for Physical Activity and Aging at Wichita State University. “They can be role models in transmitting an active lifestyle. They legitimize it for future generations as a worthwhile practice for staying healthy.”

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