Gramps offered child-care refresher

Changning district plans to offer child-care classes in 10 townships this year to help local grandparents hone their potentially rusty parenting skills, local media reported Sunday.

The district government-sponsored seminars suggest that grandparents may have fallen behind on the latest developments in child-care as decades may have passed since they last raised a child. Still, the situation hasn't weakened some grandparents' resistance to taking child-care advice from their own children. "My parents and parents-in-law seldom surf the Internet so what they know about child-care is outdated," said Wu Yan, the mother of a 9-month-old girl. "But they are reluctant to listen to my advice because they think they have a lot more experience at raising a baby than I do."

The issue may be especially critical in Changning district, where grandparents take care of their grandchildren in a vast majority of households. According to a survey by the Changning District Women's Federation, grandparents are raising the children in 90.5 percent of district households, according to a story in the Oriental Morning Post. Yet, some 60 percent of grandparents lack knowledge about child-care.

"They used to say that mothers should give up breast feeding and use baby formula because breast milk isn't as nutritious - an idea that doctors have refuted," Wu told the Global Times.

She added that she would try to get her parents and in-laws to go a child-care class if possible.

Jiang Youjun, a 51-year-old grandmother, said that she changed her mind about a child-care seminar that her daughter-in-law paid for. "I thought it was going to be a waste of time when my daughter-in-law first told me about the class, but later I found that it was worthwhile," she said.

For example, after taking the class, Jiang decided to embrace the convenience of diapers, which she had believed would cause the baby to end up bowlegged. She also gave up on her plan to wrap her granddaughter's legs in bandages to ensure they grew straight.

Zeng Fanlin, an associate professor of children's psychology at East China Normal University, said the seminars should not just focus on a child's physical needs. "Grandparents need more help learning how to play with children. A lack of interaction can hinder a child's physical and psychological development," Zeng told the Global Times.

Zhu Jialei contributed to this story.