Talking to Kids About a Grandparent Who Is Slowing Down

Children notice a slowing grandparent long before any adult mentions it. They notice the pause before a name, the same question twice in one call, the chair Grandpa now takes instead of the floor. What they don't have is a reason. They make one up, and an eight-year-old's is usually about herself.

A child who hears a thinner voice on the phone and decides Grandma doesn't want to talk to her is carrying something that was never hers. A sentence or two from a parent, said early, will usually put it down. After that come a few small jobs, so she has something to do besides watch.

My own parents are fine, for the record. My dad bought a riding mower last month and is far too pleased with it. So this comes from the families I've sat beside in Relief Society and from what I'd want if it were us, and you can weigh it that way.

Say what's happening in the words you'd use for anything else

Describe what the child can see. "Grandpa's body gets tired much faster now." "Grandma's memory has trouble holding on to things, and that's why she asked you twice." Skip the euphemisms, and don't hand an eight-year-old a diagnosis with a Latin name in it.

For a two-year-old like Ben the whole conversation is one line: Grandpa moves slow, so we walk slow. Lily needs a little more, and Caleb at eleven can have plain fact, including that old people die and that this belongs to the same story as everything else. I'd use the word died when the time comes. A child told someone "went to sleep" will lie awake with that.

I wouldn't rehearse the worst of it. Nobody needs to walk a child through what might happen next spring. Answer what they've seen and what they actually asked, and when it's something I can't answer I say I don't know, which I wrote about in I Don't Know Is a Fine Answer for About a Week.

Make the Sunday call shorter on purpose

Six minutes is a real call.

It used to run twenty, and now it's sized to what a person has in them on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody failed.

So the kids go first and the grandparent's energy goes to listening, which is easier than starting things. Each child picks one item: a story, a question about the garden, a piece of news. Caleb's is usually baseball ("I hit a double Saturday" works on anyone). If Grandpa wanders off the subject nobody corrects him, and if he asks a third time how school is going, the answer is the same cheerful one. The third time costs a child nothing and might mean a good deal to him.

Afterward, in the car or wherever you are, ask what they noticed. Don't ask whether it was nice, because the answer is always yes. Ask what he sounded like today. Whatever they say is what they'll be carrying around until next Sunday.

Let them do the real jobs

President Boyd K. Packer wrote about his wife's father in the Ensign in May 2003, in a piece called "The Golden Years," and one sentence of it has stayed with me:

"Nurses taught our children how to care for our bedridden grandpa. What they learned is of great worth to them and to us."

It leaves out something I like. Nobody assigned the children to anything. A nurse showed them how, and they were let in, which is a long way from handing a nine-year-old the job of watching Grandma. That one belongs to the adults.

What children can do is small. Carry the plate. Push the wheelchair down the sidewalk if there's a chair and a sidewalk. Cut up the oranges. Read two pages aloud, since reading tires older eyes first. Sort the old photographs and ask who is who, because a grandparent will always have energy for that one. Make a card for the refrigerator, or for someone in the ward whose own grandchildren live in Idaho. A job with a destination gets finished more often than one without. Ask the grandparent for a job back, too. Grandpa can teach a nine-year-old to sharpen a pocketknife at his own pace, and for twenty minutes he is the one who knows things.

It's the same idea as real jobs for a two-year-old, an eight and an eleven, only the job is with a person and not a dishwasher.

What the Church says about it

In the Ensign in May 1991 Elder Dallin H. Oaks passed along a reminder from President Ezra Taft Benson: "Remember, that parents and grandparents are our responsibility, and we are to care for them to the very best of our ability." The word that stops me is "our." It doesn't say the children's, and it doesn't say whoever lives closest.

And the old law is older than any of us.

Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.
(Leviticus 19:32)

The verse is about a face. You're told to honour the face of the old man, which is a way of saying you look at him, and a child sitting through a tired, repetitive Sunday call is doing that already.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old does a child have to be before I explain a grandparent's decline?

Don't wait for an age. Start when they start noticing. Three and four-year-olds already know Grandpa moves slowly, and "his body is tired" covers it.

Should I tell my kids a grandparent is going to die?

Not as a forecast. If they ask, use the real word and answer directly. If they haven't asked, I'd put the energy into the calls and visits and let the hard talk come when something has actually happened.

What if my child is scared of how a grandparent looks now?

Tell them it's allowed to feel that. Then name the strange things ahead of the visit: a hearing aid is glasses for ears, a bruise is how thin the skin has gotten. The fear I've seen came from meeting something nobody warned them about.

What if a grandparent doesn't recognize the child?

Tell the child before it happens that it could, that it's the memory and not the love, and that they can say their own name and keep going. Sit next to them for the call. Don't leave a child alone with that one.

Isn't it too much to ask a kid to help?

Carrying a plate or reading two pages isn't. Being the one who watches Grandma is, at any age under about eighteen.

If one of your grandparents is slowing down this fall, start with the next phone call. Let your child talk first and keep it short on purpose. Ben has had a colander on his head since lunch and has told me twice he is a knight.

with love, Melissa