Grandparenting: Navigating risk as the pandemic continues – . Health Blog

In late March, when the pandemic changed our whole lives, I wrote a blog post about how grandparents could handle the safety recommendations made back then while keeping in touch with their families. Many of us hoped that the crisis would be short-lived and that we could soon be "normal" again. It has now been six months, and as a reader recently wrote to me: "We grandparents are confused."

What's next for grandparents when fall is here and winter is on the way? People with serious medical conditions may have changed little since March: it is still safest to limit personal contact with grandchildren and the outside world. For grandparents who have had the opportunity to connect with family members outdoors for bike rides, gatherings in a park, outdoor dining together, or even vacationing together, new choices lie ahead when grandchildren return to preschool or school and spend more time with other children and other families. Given what we currently know about COVID-19, how can we make decisions about the risks and opportunities of grandparents and then steer them with our adult children?

Do the basics

We all benefit from basic preventive measures: hand washing, physical distancing, meeting outdoors when weather permits, and wearing masks. It's also important that everyone in the family get a flu shot this fall. Fortunately, the same steps that help protect against COVID-19 also keep us safe from the flu and other diseases.

Balance between safety stacks and risk stacks

As pediatrician Aaron Carroll wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times, we can summarize our actions as piles of safety and piles of risk. Like many experts, he advises compromises: if we do something that involves a certain risk, we should reconcile it with behavior that involves low risk. Operationally, if you choose to see your grandchildren around the house, you can also further limit store shopping or spend time in public. And you can ask your children to further limit their contact with friends and their own activities.

Keep the conversations going

Would we all have a conversation with our grown children and then be done with it? At this point in the pandemic, most grandparents have noticed that talks are ongoing about COVID-19. In the beginning, many encountered a large dose of protectionism: their adult children were on a mission to protect them. Many of these protectors have since waned, in some cases so much that grandparents are now able to defend caution.

Grandparents need to make it clear to their adult children what they consider safe and unsafe – and somewhere in between. Many find it helpful to talk regularly about what everyone in the family is doing, not doing, and what they're up to. For example, if the grandparents feel that it is not safe to eat at an in-house restaurant or attend a dinner party with friends, they can quarantine themselves for 14 days after the event.

Avoid judgment

One of the many challenges of the pandemic was not being able to judge other people's choices. When it comes to having open and productive conversations with adult children, it's especially important not to sound judgmental. You may feel like your son needs to go to the dentist. In contrast, you may consider his game of doubles tennis unnecessary. Part of your arrangement with your adult children is that you do not judge or criticize their decisions, but you must be free to decline some babysitting requests (as in doubles) and accept others (as with the dentist). And if you find that certain decisions expose you to risks that feel worrying or unacceptable, you must be free to share that information, and stop collecting with it, if the risks outweigh the benefits.

I know that everyone who reads this hopes with me that the pandemic will be behind us in the not too distant future. In the meantime, we all keep mingling and making the best decisions we can make at any given time. It is important to keep updated medical information about the virus and its incidence in your area of ​​residence. It can also be helpful to speak to your health team about your personal risks and decisions. As we head into fall, many of us will visit and rethink, work, and revise rules and conversations about seeing our grandchildren. I believe we will all do our best to make choices that will help ensure everyone's health.