PSYC 336 Week 6 Blog Entry 6 Example

Blog Entry 6 and Comment

PSYC 336 Gerontology, Blog Entry 6 (entry and one comment)

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The visit, the people in it and the classmate's blog are composites standing in for the student's own; the textbook and published meta-analysis are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for PSYC 336.

Blog Entry

On Sunday afternoon I helped lead fifteen teenagers from our church youth group on a visit to a nursing home across town. In the van on the way, most of them were quiet, and one boy asked whether the residents would remember us after we left. In the activity room, each teen sat with a resident for an hour.

Two moments stayed with me. A shy fourteen-year-old who rarely speaks at youth group discovered that his resident had played minor league baseball as a catcher in the 1960s, and the two of them talked about curveballs until the staff called dinner. A girl who had told me she was "scared of old people" learned a card game from a woman of 97, lost four times and asked to come back for a rematch. On the drive home, the van was loud with stories about whose resident was the funniest, and three teens asked when we could go back.

The afternoon made me wonder whether visits like this actually change how young people think about aging, or whether the good feelings fade by Tuesday. Youth groups often do one visit a year at Christmas, and I suspect that pattern does little. Burnes et al. (2019) gathered controlled studies of programs meant to shrink young people's and adults' prejudice against the old. They compared three approaches: education about aging, intergenerational contact and programs that combine the two. All three improved attitudes, and combined programs, which pair accurate information with real relationships, produced the largest effects. That suggests our visit was a good start but could be stronger. Next month, I plan to spend fifteen minutes before the visit talking with the teens about common myths of aging, drawing on what Quadagno (2018) writes about stereotypes and the variety of older adults' lives.

I also had to admit something about myself. Before this course, I would have described a nursing home as a sad place. The residents I met on Sunday were funny, opinionated and curious, and several asked the teens more questions than the teens asked them.

Readers: has a single visit or conversation ever changed your view of older adults, and did the change last?

Comment on Marcus's Blog

Marcus, your blog about your grandfather's move into assisted living was moving, especially the detail that he insisted on bringing his workbench even though he had no room for it. That detail captures what the textbook describes as the importance of continuity and control when older adults change living arrangements (Quadagno, 2018). The workbench may matter less as furniture than as a sign that his identity as a builder is coming with him. Many facilities have a workshop or garden for residents, and some invite residents to repair things for the community. Has the facility found a way for him to keep working with his hands, perhaps in a hobby room or a project for other residents?

References

Burnes, D., Sheppard, C., Henderson, C. R., Jr., Wassel, M., Cope, R., Barber, C., & Pillemer, K. (2019). Interventions to reduce ageism against older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. American Journal of Public Health, 109(8), e1-e9. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305123

Quadagno, J. (2018). Aging and the life course: An introduction to social gerontology (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.