Grandkids are a blessing in more ways than one for seniors, a new study says.

Grandparenting is good for the aging brain, potentially serving as a buffer against cognitive decline, according to findings published Jan. 26 in the journal Psychology and Aging.

Seniors who provide childcare for their grandchildren score higher on tests of memory and language, researchers found.

This effect is more pronounced among grandmothers, who saw less decline on cognitive testing if they cared for grandkids, researchers said.

Interestingly, it didn’t seem to matter how often grandparents cared for grandkids. In general, any grandparent who provided care at any point in the past year benefitted from it, the study found.

“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,” lead researcher Flavia Chereches said in a news release. She’s a doctoral student in psychology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

For the study, researchers examined data from nearly 2,900 grandparents who took part in a long-term English study of aging. The participants, with an average age of 67, answered survey questions and completed brain tests three times between 2016 and 2022.

The survey asked if they’d cared for a grandchild at any point in the past year. They were also quizzed on how often they provided care and what they tended to do with their grandchild.

“Many grandparents provide regular care for their grandchildren – care that supports families and society more broadly,” Chereches said. “An open question, however, is whether caregiving for grandchildren may also benefit grandparents themselves."

Results showed that caring for a grandchild was good for the aging brain, regardless of how frequently it was provided.

Some activities appeared to provide slightly more brain benefit.

For example, researchers found that more time spent with leisure activities and more frequent help with homework appeared to boost verbal and memory skills.

Likewise, grandparents who regularly prepared meals for their grandkids or took them to or from school tended to have better verbal fluency.

“More research is needed to replicate these findings, yet, if there are benefits associated with caregiving for grandparents, they might not depend on how often care is provided, or on the specific activities done with grandchildren, but rather on the broader experience of being involved with caregiving,” Chereches said.

She said further work should also be done to explore whether family dynamics might influence the potential brain benefits of grandparenting.

“Providing care voluntarily, within a supportive family environment, may have different effects for grandparents than caregiving in a more stressful environment where they feel unsupported or feel that the caregiving is not voluntary or a burden,” Chereches said.