Go ahead, drop your kids off at grandma and grandpa’s house.
Sure, that special bonding time is fun, but a new study has determined that there are real health benefits of being a grandparent — especially when it comes to staying sharp in old age.
But it’s not merely the fact of having grandkids that does it — a certain activity is essential.
“Many grandparents provide regular care for their grandchildren — care that supports families and society more broadly,” said lead researcher Flavia Chereches, MS, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands. “An open question, however, is whether caregiving for grandchildren may also benefit grandparents themselves.”
Publishing in the journal Psychology and Aging, Chereche and her team examined nearly 3,000 grandparents with an average age of 67. They tracked how often they are for their grandkids — and what kind of care was involved, including overnight stays, meal preparation, homework help, driving children to activities and playtime.
Even after adjusting for age, health, and other factors, researchers found that grandparents who provided childcare scored higher on memory tests and verbal fluency than those who didn’t.
These high scores were consistent across care types and frequencies.
The team also found that grandmothers who served as caregivers showed less cognitive decline than those who didn’t.
“What stood out most to us was that being a caregiving grandparent seemed to matter more for cognitive functioning than how often grandparents provided care or what exactly they did with their grandchildren,” said Chereches.
These findings align with a 2025 study that found that staying socially active as we age can delay cognitive decline.
The exact role social activity plays in brain health isn’t entirely clear. One theory is that it challenges older adults to engage in complex social interactions, which could help maintain or strengthen neural networks, much like a “use it or lose it” approach.
In other words, socializing keeps brains sharp, making them more resilient to age-related changes. Conversations, navigating social situations, and even playing games all activate the brain areas responsible for thinking and memory.
In this sense, keeping company with the youth can help keep the brain young.
Chereches notes that more research is needed, and maintains that these benefits may be associated with caregiving in general, and not exclusively with caregiving for grandchildren.
She suggested that future research should explore the effects of context on caregiving, specifically voluntary care versus obligatory demands.
Indeed, a separate study from Finland’s University of Turku found that caring for young children can be challenging for older adults with limited strength reserves.
The number of people with dementia in the US is predicted to double over the next 30 years, reaching about one million cases annually by 2060. The surge is largely driven by the aging population, as more Americans are living longer than previous generations.
In addition to socialization, physical activity, eating a heart-healthy diet like the Mediterranean diet, and doing activities that work your brain, such as puzzles or even dancing can all boost brain health.
