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It is claimed that in intergenerational familial communication, participants strive to achieve a balance in their relations, maintaining comfortable closeness and yet preserving some distance. Communicative adaptation within families helps to achieve this balance, whether communication is built on hierarchical relations or on a more equal footing between players. Current research on familial communication is brought into discussion. For instance, the author traces two types of communication in mother-daughter relations — connected and enmeshed (Miller-Day 2004) — and provides examples from Ostrovsky’s plays demonstrating that these types of communication are not a very recent phenomenon, but existed in Russia about a century and a half ago.

Chapter 6 draws attention to the fact that the elderly in Russia experience a communication deficit in an intergenerational context. The chapter outlines possibilities for positive efforts in reducing this deficit. Three aspects of this work are discussed: educational opportunities for the elderly, service learning opportunities for promotion of intergenerational communication, and volunteer projects that involve an intergenerational component.

The chapter reviews educational opportunities for the elderly in the US, Russia, and other countries, and draws comparisons between educational systems. The chapter presents examples of elderly participation in education in a traditional university setting, in special universities for the elderly, and in studyabroad courses where non-traditional students are forced to engage in intense intergenerational communication. The author, who regularly leads study-abroad programs for American students in Russia, provides an analysis of the intergenerational communication and educational experience of the elderly who have participated in his programs.

With the growth of the aging population, there is a variety of opportunities for intergenerational service learning. Potential partners in this venture might include adult day care centers, community groups, senior centers, facilities for veterans, long-term care facilities, and hospitals. It is proposed that Russian universities could adopt strategies in service learning already developed by their American counterparts and involve students in various intergenerational projects and communication. The chapter ends with a review of volunteer projects in Russia aimed at helping the elderly meet their communication and other social needs.