Kids are more likely to open up to their grandparents vs. their parents, survey shows

There’s a reason grandparents are so valuable in a kid’s “village”– they are easy to talk to, have decades of wisdom, and often are the listening ear a kid needs when they don’t want to tell their parents something. A new survey by Preply, conducted in 2023 including 1500 Americans in 50 states, shows that almost half of kids would choose to confide in their grandparents over their parents.

In addition to this fact, we learn from the survey that nicknames often prevail over real names, even including a map where we see lots of uses of “Papa” and “Papaw” over “Grandpa,” and a few corners of the country, such as Washington, Arizona, and Maine, where “Gramps” prevails. We also learn more about the current state of grandparent-grandchild relationships, which paints a promising and meaningful picture. 

Maternal grandmas are often the closest relationship, the survey also shows, followed by paternal grandmas. Then comes the granddads. Almost half of people report speaking to their grandparents at least monthly on the phone, and the average American visits their grandparents 27 times per year.

So is it a bad thing if kids want to talk to their grandparents over their parents? Probably not, with some caveats. If a grandparent is withholding information that would be necessary to properly parent the kid, that could get sticky. Or, if the parent and child aren’t really having meaningful conversations in addition to the grandparents, that’s also problematic. But overall, having another safe and close adult to go to can only enrich a kid’s life.

A version of this story was originally published on Oct. 15, 2023. It has been updated.