Grandparents often have more time than working parents to support young people in activities and are well placed to talk to their grandchildren about any problems the young people may be experiencing.

The first national survey about the relationships that adolescents have with their grandparents shows that grandparents who are involved in the upbringing of their grandchildren can contribute to a child’s well-being.
This research led by Oxford University, in collaboration with the Institute of Education, London, challenges previous research showing that grandparents who are heavily committed to looking after their grandchildren could become depressed and have a negative effect on the children, ScienceDaily reported.
The research surveyed questionnaires from 1,596 children, aged between 11-16 from across England and Wales, and researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 40 children from a range of backgrounds.
Another key finding of the research was that almost a third of maternal grandmothers provided regular care-taking for their grandchildren, with 40 percent providing occasional help with childcare.
The survey reveals that grandparents often have more time than working parents to support young people in activities and are well placed to talk to their grandchildren about any problems the young people may be experiencing.
They were also found to be involved in helping to solve the young people’s problems, as well as talking with them about plans for their future.
Principle investigator Professor Ann Buchanan, Director of the Center for Research into Parenting and Children in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at Oxford University, launched the research findings at the annual meeting of the Grandparents’ Association in London on June 5.
Professor Buchanan said, “We were surprised by the huge amount of informal caring that the grandparents were doing and how in some cases they were filling the parenting gap for hard working parents. Most adolescents really welcomed this relationship.
What was especially interesting was the links we found between “involved grandparents“ and adolescent well-being. Closeness was not enough: only grandparents who got stuck in and did things with their grandchildren had this positive impact on their grandchildren.“
Co-investigator Dr. Eirini Flouri, from the Institute of Education, said, “We found that close relationships between grandparents and grandchildren buffered the effects of adverse life events, such as parental separation, because it calmed the children down. This suggests future investigations should pay more attention to the role of grandparents in developing resilience in young people.“
A range of factors predicted the involvement of the grandparents in the upbringing of their grandchildren including: living in a less deprived area; frequent contact; and the good health of the grandparent.
The young people surveyed did not view physical proximity as being necessarily important as they used modern technology to communicate. They said they felt grandparents became closer when they undertook some traditional parenting tasks.

The big decisions of life are best made on a full stomach, says a new study.
Skipping meals can lead to reduced levels of a brain chemical that helps to keep careless and impulsive behavior in check, says a study by a Cambridge University team.
Equally, a good meal may help prevent people behaving in a cranky, aggressive and unfair way, Telegraph said.
Serotonin has become know as a “feel-good“ chemical because low levels have been linked to crotchety behavior.
Since the raw material for making serotonin--an amino acid called tryptophan--only comes from diet, levels of the chemical decline between meals. This in turn can lead to aggressiveness and impulsiveness, say the team.
Some foods are particularly rich in the amino acid, notably chicken soup and chocolate. Red meat, dairy products, nuts, seeds, bananas, tuna, shellfish, and soya products are also good sources.
Ms Crockett, a PhD student, said, “Our results suggest that serotonin plays a critical role in social decision-making by normally keeping aggressive social responses in check. Changes in diet and stress cause our serotonin levels to fluctuate naturally, so it’s important to understand how this might affect our everyday decision-making.“

Punching your way out of a paper bag could become a lot harder, thanks to the development of a new kind of paper that is stronger than cast iron.
According to NewScientist, the new paper could be used to reinforce conventional paper, produce extra-strong sticky tape or help create tough synthetic replacements for biological tissues, says Lars Berglund from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
Despite its great strength, Berglund’s ’nanopaper’ is produced from a biological material found in conventional paper: cellulose. This long sugar molecule is a principal component of plant cell walls.
Cellulose is extracted from wood to make paper, is the basis of cellophane, and has also recently been used by materials scientists developing novel plastic materials. But they have used it only as a cheap filler material, ignoring its mechanical properties.
The new method involves breaking down wood pulp with enzymes and then fragmenting it using a mechanical beater. The shear forces produced cause the cellulose to gently disintegrate into its component fibers.
The end result is undamaged cellulose fibers suspended in water. When the water is drained away Berglund found that the fibers join together into networks held by hydrogen bonds, forming flat sheets of ’nanopaper’.