Dolbin-MacNab, M., & Keiley, M. K. (2009). Navigating interdependence: How adolescents raised solely by grandparents experience their family relationships. Family Relations, 58(2), 162-175. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/
This study examines 41 adolescents who participated in qualitative, semi structured interviews. With those results studies suggest that relationships with parents are
primarily marked by distance and distrust. Grandchildren are said to have a strong emotional bond to their grandparents, although they also negotiated several sources of stress.Subjects also reported feelings of gratitude because of the positive influence their grandparents had on their lives.
Today, at least 1.6 million children live in their grandparents’ without either parent present.Childhood abandonment from a parental figure has many different contribution as to why numbers are so high.Children are raised by grandparents because of parental difficulties such as substance abuse, incarceration, abuse and neglect, abandonment, HIV/AIDS, mental illness, divorce, and death.
After much surveying and questioning of grandparents this study actually gives the grandchildren a voice as opposed to another grandparent analysis. Specifically, the study examined interdependence, defined as how grandchildren navigated their relationships with both their parents and grandparents, among a sample of early to late adolescents. A secondary purpose was to explore linkages among the care
giving context, grandchildren’s development, and grandchildren’s experiences of interdependence.
loveyourselfpsych 