FOR YOUNG AND OLD: another heartwarming documentary pairs seniors and pre-schoolers
Trailblazing documentary Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds returns – this time helping older Australians maintain their independence at home. Tiffany Dunk checks in to see if lightning can strike twice in giving the elderly a new lease on life.
The first day of school is daunting. Unfamiliar faces, places and activities awaken anxiety while the fear of not making friends is paralysing. The students arriving at a new purpose-built school in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Coogee are certainly feeling this, filled with nerves about what lies ahead. As the doors swing open there’s a sense of excitement as everyone rushes to introduce themselves, to form tentative bonds. Sadly, several clearly feel left out and ill at ease. “They mixed with everyone bar me,” says one newcomer sadly. “I don’t know whether or not to come again.”
The terror, we are about to find out, is far worse when you’re someone who hasn’t experienced a first day of school in over 80 years.
That’s the situation 11 Australian seniors find themselves in as ABC’s Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds
returns for a second season. The acclaimed observational documentary series is performing another televised experiment aiming to prove scientifically that intergenerational care can transform both the elderly and preschoolers. But this time,
This page: In the second season of the groundbreaking show, 11 older Australians and 10 preschoolers are again put together. Opposite: Betty, 87, formed a bond with Lottie after the four-year-old made a beeline for her on the first day.
they’re putting the adults into the kids’ environment rather than the other way around. The other major difference? While season one focused on older Australians in aged care and retirement homes – who all saw incredible, and according to the show’s experts, lasting changes – season two has enlisted another group of our ageing population, those who remain in their homes. And as it turns out, they’re equally, if not more, in need of this experiment.
Currently, 1.6 million Australians over the age of 65 live alone. For many it’s because they have outlived their partner. For others they’ve lost touch with family. It’s a wish most of us have – to stay in our own homes as long as we possibly can. But while those in retirement villages have a framework and support to keep them connected, living alone makes it easier to slide into becoming less active both physically and mentally. And this in turn can have devastating health effects.
“Things like being isolated, lonely and getting older can raise the risk of age-related conditions we want to avoid,” says geriatrician Dr Stephanie Ward, who has returned for a second season to work with these 11 new elderly participants.
“Things like dementia, deteriorating memory and thinking; difficulty walking and mobility; falls, frailty and other health conditions that mean you go in and out of hospital. Australians want to live as long as possible in their own homes and to do so it’s important you have a healthy lifestyle, exercise, being connected socially, using your brain. But often you need a reason to get up and out, and it gets harder the older we get because our social circles shrink.”
That’s a problem Betty, 87, can relate to. She’s been living alone for 16 years in the house she moved into the day she was married 60-odd years ago. She’s divorced, and her ex has passed away. Betty’s family is small – one daughter, one 34-year-old ➝
grandson. “My daughter rings every morning and night. To make sure I’ve gotten up and make sure I’m still here to go to bed,” she chuckles wryly. “And one or the other visits once a week.”
She used to fill her days travelling into the city, catching up with friends and going to the theatre. But that’s become increasingly rare. A recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s has made it physically difficult, while the march of time has put paid to the company. “I always had a large group of friends,” she says sadly. “But now there’s only one who is still alive, and even she can’t get around much these days.”
Enter Lottie. The bright and cheerful four-year-old made a beeline for Betty on their first day of class and it was the start of what has become a beautiful friendship.
“Her little eyes would light up and she’d run up and throw her arms around me,” says Betty. “You couldn’t ask for a sweeter little child.
“Children expect you to be able to do things. They don’t expect your old bones don’t bend like they used to, you don’t move as quickly as you used to. But she’d say, ‘Come on Betty, you can do it,’ and you found you were doing things because she was there.”
This is the beauty of mixing our most vulnerable groups, the young and the old, says child psychologist Dr Carol Newall, who has replaced Dr Evan Kidd this season in measuring the benefits to the pint-sized participants.
“Sometimes we don’t have a great idea of how children think and that’s true of the ageing population as well,” she says. “Many of us have a negative view of what old people can do and what ageing looks like. But these children have the privilege of seeing what the older generation are capable of – and they’re capable of so much. For the children, having direct contact and experiences with older people, means they can paint a more complex and positive picture of what ageing looks like – develop an almost emotional connection with ageing. And there’s research that shows children who spend time with their grandparents or an ageing population show less ageism than their cohorts.”
Reversing the tide
While tackling the problem of depression and low quality of life was very much the backbone of season one’s experiment (and clearly still has a place here) there’s another issue that the experts hope to address this time around: frailty.
It’s an inevitable aspect of ageing, you may argue, but Dr Ward stresses that not only can you put in place preliminary measures to stall the onset of frailty; you can also actually reverse it.
“It doesn’t matter how old you are, so often there is the potential to improve aspects of our health,” she says. “The best way to do that is to increase your activity levels and strength which also prevents the risk of things like falls.”
Two years ago, Rita, now 85, saw her life implode after a terrible fall left her hospitalised for over six weeks and told she may never walk again.
“I went off that day bright as a button and fit as a flea,” the former nurse says. “I was halfway up an escalator and this man rushed past me. He lost his footing and grabbed me and of course I went down. I had multiple fractures of all sorts – spine, clavicle, shoulder, you name it.”
At times in her recovery, she admits, she felt like giving up. It took away not only her freedom as she’s now largely confined to home and unable to get out by herself, but also her confidence.
“It affected me in every way,” she says now. “You think, ‘Am I going to fall? Am I going to be okay? Am I going to be a burden to my family?’ You feel a little bit lost, shall I say.”
She’d watched the first season religiously, she tells The Weekly, and when producers asked her to take part she jumped at the chance, hopeful it could give her a new lease on life.
As in season one, the 11 older Australians, along with their 10 preschoolers, take part in a series of challenges from the mental to the physical, hoping to improve their quality of life overall. Rita felt uncertain she would manage some
of those tasks but then along came a pint-sized saviour.
“This blonde, blue-eyed boy made a beeline for me on the first day of school and said, ‘Hello, my name is Arthur. You won’t forget that now will you?’” she smiles at the memory. “He said, ‘I do like your earrings’. And I said, ‘I bet your mummy has beautiful earrings.’ And he said, ‘I don’t have a mummy.’ I thought, oh that poor little boy. But then he says with a big smile, ‘but I have two daddies’.”
Those daddies are Paul and Wade and they say that Rita has had a tremendous influence on their child thanks to an experiment which changed Arthur’s life as much as it did Rita’s.
“He was always pretty social but I think he’s just slowed down his speech now and become more patient,” Paul says. “He’s also found his voice. Here, it’s a big busy household. He’s got a big sister and things like that, so it’s nice that he found his voice with Rita.”
Arthur would come home every day after class, Paul says, talking about his new friend. “I was shocked at how close they became,” he reflects now of what seems on the surface to be an unlikely duo. “It’s really casual, it’s a normal part of our life now. And it’s nice to know there’s someone who actually cares about him.”
Since filming finished, the family has kept in touch with Rita. They’ve been to her house, she’s been to theirs. They’ve exchanged various gifts and are now looking forward to watching the show together when it comes out later this month.
“This really speaks to the role that having someone in our lives as a mentor and carer can have – encouraging us to be more resilient and to be braver,” says Dr Newall of the benefit older Australians can have on a young child’s life. “And don’t we all just need more love?”
A new dawn
While the results of the program are being held tight to producers’ chests ahead of it airing, it’s safe to assume that the second season of Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds is going to have a happy ending.
“The day I got to reassess everybody [at the end of the experiment] was one of the best days I’ve had as a doctor, to be honest,” says Dr Ward with a grin. “You want life to be better for people. I would say I was really delighted and it gave me joy.”
Certainly, it has big shoes to fill. Season one received global recognition, including an Emmy Award for Best Non-Scripted Entertainment. Last February, Anthony Albanese said that the show was “the future of aged care”, describing his vision for intergenerational care, combining preschools with retirement villages. Several such co-aged and co-located aged and childcare centres are starting to slowly pop up around the country. And then there was the reaction from the public.
Playgroup Australia has had more than double the number of registrations for its Ageless Play sessions, says Dr Ward. “And now, for the first time, some nursing homes have welcomed groups of childcare, preschool and primary school children through the door. Likewise, schools are reaching out, wanting to be more involved in local aged-care facilities. There’s a real enthusiasm around intergenerational contact, and that’s been spurred on by the show, which is exciting.”
It’s crucial we keep that momentum going, Dr Ward stresses. In fact, she adds, she is currently working on a study with a shorter intergenerational pre-school program which she hopes can be sustainable in the long-term.
“Reach out to older people in your community,” she urges. “Stop and listen and talk. Keep connected to family members who are older. And, when the public health landscape makes it easier, talk to schools, or talk to aged-care facilities you’re involved with to see if children can visit. Because I know that it can be transformational and magic and make a really big difference.” AWW
Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds debuts on Tuesday, April 6, at 8.30pm on ABC TV and iview.