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It turns out grandparents should say “yes” the next time their kids ask them to babysit their grandchildren.
A recent study published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that grandparents who provided child care for their grandchildren had better cognition than those who did not take part in caregiving.
Specifically, grandparents who took part in any number of caregiving activities (such as help with homework, care when the child was sick, cooked them meals, watched them overnight, played with them and more) scored higher in memory and language tests.
For grandmothers, the benefit was even greater; cognitive decline was slower among women who provided child care to their grandchildren compared to grandmothers who didn’t.
Researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands looked at data from 2,887 grandparents over 50, with an average age of 67. Participants self-reported if they had cared for a grandchild in the last year and the type of child care they provided (homework help, care on a sick day, overnight babysitting, driving them to school and more) via survey questions.
The grandparents also took cognition tests that measured things like memory and verbal fluency. Participants took these tests and completed the self-reported caregiving survey three times between 2016 and 2022.
“What stood out most to us was that being a caregiving grandparent seemed to matter more for cognitive functioning than how often grandparents provided care or what exactly they did with their grandchildren,” lead study author Flavia Chereches said in a press release.
“More research is needed to replicate these findings, yet, if there are benefits associated with caregiving for grandparents, they might not depend on how often care is provided, or on the specific activities done with grandchildren, but rather on the broader experience of being involved with caregiving,” Chereches continued.
Meaning, it didn’t matter the type of child care provided, whether it was homework help or babysitting overnight or something else. It also didn’t matter how often a grandparent provided care. The brain health benefits were there as long as some form of child care was provided.
There are limitations to this study, though. Study authors acknowledged that participants’ midlife habits are unknown, which could impact how able someone is to provide care to grandchildren and also impact their current cognition.
Grandparents also self-reported their child care habits, leaving room for misremembering.
Ippei Naoi via Getty Images
Learning new things and social connections are both important for cognition.
Just like we work out our muscles to keep them strong, we need to use our brain to keep it sharp.
Providing child care to grandchildren is a boon for brain health for myriad reasons.
First, it challenges the brain to learn new things and puts you in different situations. Studies show that learning new things is good for healthy brain aging and is even protective against dementia.
“Whenever we learn new things, we know that we form new connections between brain cells,” Dr. Zaldy Tan, the director of the Jona Goldrich Center for Alzheimer’s and Memory Disorders at Cedars-Sinai in California, previously told HuffPost. “Whenever you make these connections, you increase what we call brain plasticity. Plasticity is [the] ability of our minds and our brains to adapt to change,” Tan said.
Learning new things encourages your brain to grow. While babysitting isn’t the same as learning a new language or taking up a new class, it is still a way to challenge your brain and expand your knowledge.
For example, if you’re helping your granddaughter with homework, you’re challenging your brain. Or, if you’re putting on a movie for your grandchildren to watch, you may be figuring out a new setting on the TV. Similarly, if you’re hearing about your grandson’s day at school, you’re learning about his friends and his world.
All of these add up to keep your brain challenged and encourage the growth of new brain cell connections.
Another brain health benefit of child care? It’s also a highly social activity. It’s well-established in research that social interactions are also good for the brain, while isolation is damaging.
“We are social beings … and there are even changes in metabolic activity and brain activity that occur when we’re isolated that are harmful,” Dr. James Ellison, a psychiatrist at Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, previously told HuffPost.
In fact, isolation, loneliness and depression are all linked to higher rates of dementia, research shows. Getting out to drive your grandchildren to soccer practice or make them dinner on Thursday nights is a great way to disrupt isolation, depression and loneliness.
Along with things like exercise, good sleep hygiene, stress relief and a healthy diet, child care can help your cognition stay optimal as you age.
So, volunteer to watch the grandkids or help them with their homework — your brain will thank you in the years to come.