An increasingly prevalent family constellation is a home headed by a grandparent who is raising grandchildren. We explore the state of our knowledge about such grandparents with particular attention to its implications for service providers and researchers. In our review we address several key areas: (a) the costs and benefits of raising a grandchild; (b) the heterogeneity of custodial grandparent caregivers; (c) the critical need for social support among custodial grandparents; (d) parenting practices and attitudes among grandparents raising grandchildren; and (e) helping efforts at multiple levels with custodial grandparents. We also discuss directions for research and practice concerning custodial grandparents.

We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of more completely understanding grandfamilies along a number of parameters, as well as presenting specific recommendations for future research and practice.

This study compared three groups of grandparents, attempting to disentangle grandparental role demands from child-specific problems as sources of role-specific and grandchild-relationship distress. Those grandparents raising grandchildren reported to demonstrate neurological, physical, emotional, or behavioral problems exhibited the most personal distress, the least role satisfaction and role meaning, and the most deteriorated grandparent-grandchild relationships. Custodial grandparents raising grandchildren reported to have few difficulties also differed in the ways listed above from those grandparents not raising their grandchildren and from those raising grandchildren displaying problems. For men, but not women, more positive grandparent meaning was associated with raising a grandchild. Significantly, custodial grandparents were more likely to be raising boys, suggesting that boys may be either more difficult for grandparents to raise or that boys react more negatively to the adverse circumstances under which grandparents assume care.

This cross-sectional study compared three groups of custodial grandparents, those raising problematic grandchildren, those raising "normal" grandchildren, and noncustodial grandparents to identify the unique challenges and expectations faced by custodial grandparents due to their nontraditional roles while attempting to disentangle grandparental role demands from child-specific problems as sources of distress. Those grandparents raising grandchildren demonstrating neurological, physical, emotional, or behavioral problems exhibited the most distress, the most disruption of roles, and the most deteriorated grandparent-grandchild relationships. Although custodial grandparents raising apparently normal grandchildren demonstrated less distress, less disruption of roles, and less deterioration of the grandparent-grandchild relationship than those grandparents raising grandchildren displaying problems, in these respects, they still demonstrated higher such levels than did traditional grandparents.

These chapters refl ect the fact that resilience is best understood as not only multidimensional in nature, but also in a complementary fashion, that resilience as a meaningful construct is also domain specifi c. In these respects, Smith and Hayslip discuss the construct of resilience: its evolution and development, the historical context in which an emphasis on resilience has surfaced, and issues related to the defi nition and measurement of resilience in the context of protective factors, risk, and adversity. Fagundes, Gillie, Derry, Bennett, and Kiecolt-Glaser examine the biophysiological dimensions of resilience, addressing the relationship between immunological functioning and resilience in a causal framework. Lavresky explores the literature on resilience to stress and aging and how this is related to mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, wherein psychological and biological factors contributing to resilience that are universal across all ages, as well as those that are unique to later life are reviewed, and suggestions for intervention are offered. Ryff, Friedman, Morozink, and Tsenkova discuss key personality attributes associated with resilience and health, placing special emphasis on resilience in the context of emotional expression and emotional regulation, wherein multiple dimensions of well-being are central to understanding resilience. Stine-Morrow and Chui explore resilience in the context of the necessity to maintain cognitive functioning into later life, emphasizing the development of new skills and/or cope with declines in one' s skills as a special case resilience. Aldwin and Igarashi treat resilience as a key factor in enabling adults and older persons to minimize poor person-environment fi t as well as seeing resilience as a key construct that enabling one to identify a development niche that is positive, wherein in this light, diabetes is discussed as a health diffi culty that can be understood and treated at multiple level. Ramsey discusses the role of resilience in contributing to spirituality as a resource as well as a coping mechanism to help defi ne successful aging, examining the cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal antecedents of resilience in later life. ABSTRACTThis chapter presents an overview of resilience in later life as it relates to both intraindividual plasticity over time and to interindividual differences in developmental outcomes. It discusses the historical antecedents of the current expanding interest in this construct, challenges in its defi nition and measurement, the importance of understanding and designing intervention to impact resilience at multiple levels. It is argued that resilience needs to be understood in light of the interaction of personal and environmental factors, and that key aspects of resilience (protective factors, risk/adversity, outcomes) are diffi cult to defi ne clearly, contributing to ambiguities in the defi nition of resilience in adulthood and later life. Developmental and sociocultural aspects of resilience are discussed, and the...