How to set boundaries with your children

Written by Sue Williams for Australian Seniors

An Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) survey from 2022 found that 63% of grandparents with a grandchild under the age of 10 were now providing childcare, sometimes during the week and regularly over school holidays. And while many relish the opportunity to babysit grandchildren, for others the obligations and expectations bring feelings of dread or resentment. Some believe they have no choice but to fulfil their children’s demands to provide care, and usually at their own expense.

If that is the case, then what is the best way to have those tough conversations?

“The important thing, first up, is to be really clear about the parameters of any arrangements, so there are no misunderstandings,” says Dr Marjorie Collins, president of the Institute of Clinical Psychologists. “It’s a good idea to have them written down on paper, too, so everyone can remember the same thing.

“Without communication around expectations from the start, I’ve found sometimes grandparents can end up having greater and greater responsibility for their grandchildren, especially as we’re living longer.”

Dr Collins practises what she preaches, too. She gave up a full-time role in academia for a more flexible working life so she could care for her grandchildren but puts strict caps on the hours each week. “That’s my limit as I’m in the period of my life where I’m still saving up super,” she says. “And I’m not alone in that. A lot of grandparents are still in productive parts of their careers.”

The need for downtime

Saying no to children can be terribly hard, but the alternative can often be even worse. Many grandparents are still in the full-time workforce and, if they’re not careful, they can work all week then spend weekends looking after grandkids, says Dr Lixia Qu, a senior research fellow at the AIFS.

“Employment among the older population in their late 50s and early 60s is at an all-time high,” she says. “So they might simply not have time to look after grandchildren as well and they have to be straightforward about that.”It’s hard work too – usually unpaid, sometimes under-appreciated and always unregulated.

“You might be used to being the fun grandparents who come in with a bag of sweets and suddenly you have to be strict and provide a much more structured environment of care,” says demographer and social researcher Dr Liz Allen from the Australian National University. “So boundaries have to be set, with clear lines of responsibility established. It’s a privilege for parents to have grandparents providing care but it involves quite a degree of inequality, and I would hazard a guess that there aren’t many situations that don’t incur some level of conflict.”

In such a setting, there’s also potential for elder abuse, too, whether financial or emotional. Parents might try to levy a degree of coercion on their elders to help out, with the omnipresent threat of denying them access to the grandkids in the future. In these cases, Dr Allen says, they shouldn’t hesitate to speak out against their children, or to seek support from social workers if they’re on a pension, from a psychologist, from any of the grandparent organisations on Facebook, or from their GP.   

Boomerang kids

Another growing issue for parents are the record numbers of adult kids who’ve come back home, often because they can’t find anywhere suitable to live in today’s national housing crisis.

If your children are returning home, that requires rules up front as well. “It’s really important to set boundaries beforehand, from both sides,” says Dr Qu. “It’s difficult as often you don’t know how long it’s going to be for, but they should always be around tolerance, respect and understanding from both sides.”

Boundaries to consider include whether the young adults should pay rent or make a contribution towards household costs, whether they should be buying and preparing their own meals, how often they share in family chores, and guidelines on noise, comings and goings, and bringing friends home.

By the numbers

The Australian Seniors Series: Empty Nesters Report 2024 finds that…

• 39.1% of adult children move back home due to financial struggles
• 29.7% move back because of relationship and personal problems
• 28.2% return home due to the lack of alternative living options
• 59.1% of parents are happy about their children’s return