A Comparision Study of Grandmothers and Grandfathers Involvement and Support to Mentalley Retarded Grandchild

Grandparents acknowledge several benefits when raising their grandchildren. These include a sense of purpose, a second chance in life, an opportunity to nurture family relationships, a chance to continue family histories, and receiving love and companionship. Grandparents also benefit from giving and receiving love, and perceiving themselves as more effective caregiver. An attempt was made to compare the grandmothers and grand fathers involvement and support as a caregiver, as a disciplinarian and as a friend in a family having a mentally retarded child. Families with mentally retarded children from RASS and MORE CBR projects in chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh numbering 200 families with boys and girls of age 6-15 yrs having mild moderate and severe levels of retardation was selected. Out of 200 families only 81 grand parents came forward voluntarily for the study. A designed grandparents involvement inventory comprised of as a caregivers, as a disciplinarians and as a friends was used for this comparison study, the results reveal that the grandfathers roles dominated for some selected areas as care takers and Disciplinarians where as grandmothers roles dominated for the area as friends.