Grandparents and grandchildren play important roles in each other’s lives. In fact, according to Medical News Today, a good relationship between these two generations may improve their respective psychological well-being.

Assistant professor and study co-author Sara M. Moorman and her colleagues at the Institute on Aging at Boston College analyzed data on 376 grandparents and 340 grandchildren. At the study’s midpoint, the grandparents were around 77 years old, while the grandchildren were approximately 31 years old.

Based on their findings, older adults who were close to their grandkids and grandkids who were close to their grandpas and grandmas were more emotionally sound and showed lesser symptoms of depression than those who were alienated from each other. For the children, this effect lasts until they reach adulthood.

"The greater emotional support grandparents and adult grandchildren received from one another, the better their psychological health," Moorman says.

(Photo by Mark Evans via Flickr Creative Commons)