ABSTRACT
This chapter begins from the assumption that, from infancy to puberty and adolescence, the place that grandparents have in their grandchildren's world becomes more and more limited and loses the connotation linked to the oedipal dynamics that were seen in younger subjects. The elderly members of the family can choose whether they wish to take care of grandchildren or not, and grandchildren have constant ties with their grandparents only if their parents allow it. In Italy, empirical studies on the condition of the elderly are numerous, but few of them have considered elderly people either as parents or grandparents. S. Ferenczi emphasized that grandchildren can turn their aggressive death fantasies, destined for their father, on to their paternal grandfather. Interest in three-generation dynamics is recent and limited, in particular with regard to the contribution, of grandparents to the psychological development of grandchildren.
