Strengthening Older Adulthood Parent-Child Connections

Relationships between parents and children are enduring emotional bonds that may be experienced differently from different perspectives and at different points in the lifespan. While the bulk of advice and information on parenting focuses on raising young children, research demonstrates that unique benefits and challenges are experienced within the parent-child relationship throughout middle adulthood and later adulthood.

By focusing on common experiences of parents and children across the adult lifespan, this informational brochure intends to provide context and suggest strategies for fostering positive parent-child dynamics across adulthood and aging. We focus on four different concepts and experiences that impact the parent-child relationship in middle to later life: 1) geographic distance and contact frequency, 2) family characteristics, 3) relationship quality and 4) long-term attachment and enduring ties.

• Our ability to interact with and connect to family members is integral, especially for those older individuals in the second half of life.
• Parent-child connections are a core family attachment. Parents and children often exchange practical and emotional support throughout the lifespan.
• Throughout adulthood, parent- child dynamics and roles shift. Adult children and aging parents have unique experiences and perceptions of their relationships through time.

Once grown children are launched from the “nest,” the amount of time you have together will decline. As adult children focus on careers and raising their own families, they often have increasingly busy lives, leaving less time to dedicate to their relationships with their aging parents. When miles separate families, face-to-face interactions are more difficult to schedule.

Geographic distance can pose a challenge to maintaining closeness and intimacy in the parent-adult child relationship, but keeping a strong bond is still possible and rewarding from a distance.

As adult children reach midlife, they often realize how valuable their relationship with their parents is and seek out that connection more. Likewise, older parents come to appreciate interactions with and support received from their children and tend to increasingly rely on these relationships through time.

Flexibility in how often and what type of communication you will use, as well as willingness to prioritize the relationship, will be key in keeping the connection between parent and child. Engaged families are able to find many ways to maintain frequent contact from a distance as well as make their limited in-person time together high quality and meaningful.

Families vary in characteristics based on many factors such as culture, traditions and values. The parent-child relationship is affected by broader family dynamics, but it also is strongly impacted by characteristics such as gender and family structure. The roles and responsibilities that mothers and fathers typically engage in differ.

Differences also are seen in mother and father relationships with daughters and sons. Mothers tend to take on a strong caregiver role for their children, and this typically doesn’t end once their children are grown. Because of this, bonds between mothers and their children often are perceived as the closest throughout the lifespan. This is not to say that fathers do not also play an important role, provide advice and have close relationships with their children. They do!

Parents’ relationships with their adult sons and daughters also vary, often reporting greater closeness and reliance on their daughters. This may be because daughters are more likely than sons to take on a caretaker role and provide care for their parents in later life.

Family structure affects the parent-child relationship. For example, when parents have multiple children, their overall contact frequency tends to be high but spread out among each of their children. Parents with fewer children may have frequent contact with each child. Parents also report varying levels of closeness with each of their children.

Larger families experience both benefits and challenges to having multiple siblings involved as parents age. For instance, when caregiving for a parent, siblings may experience conflict or increased shared support. The structure of stepfamilies can affect the parent-child bond throughout the lifespan as well. Stepparent bonds tend to be stronger when formed early in the stepchild’s childhood.

The parent-child relationship tends to be quite complex. Relationship quality fluctuates during childhood and adolescence. Although these ups and downs continue through adulthood, the quality of the parent-child relationship tends to become increasingly positive through time. During adulthood, the parent-child bond is often a very stable relationship and parent and adult child can rely on it. The attachment formed during childhood continues throughout adulthood, and this strong emotional tie can be protective for everyone’s well-being.

The function of the parent-child relationship changes in adulthood as children mature and are better able to relate to their parents on a personal level and as parents learn to accept their adult children as mature, independent adults. As a result, the parent-child relationship becomes more reciprocal, with parents and children providing mutual support to one another.

While parents maintain their desire to help their children in any way possible, now children, too, are likely to take on the role of helping their parents. In addition to exchanging instrumental support such as child care or help with household tasks, parents and adult children become more likely to confide in one another and share mutual emotional support. Being able to accept each other’s faults and strengths can be key to maintaining a high-quality parent-child bond through midlife and late life. The increased maturity and reciprocity of the adult parent-child relationship can lead to greater closeness as well as positive implications for well-being and health.

The parent-child bond is the first attachment we have in life. With attention and care, this early bond can flourish, grow stronger, and endure throughout the entire lifespan.

Parents’ influences on their children have long-term effects, including children’s decisions, beliefs, well-being and success. The roles of parenthood changes throughout the lifespan, but it always is a core part of a mother or father’s identity. Moreover, as they grow into adults, children increasingly recognize the benefits and relationships with their parents.

As children move into adulthood and may become parents themselves, the intergenerational dynamic of grandchild — parent/child — grandparent can further strengthen the parent-child relationship. During midlife, the intergenerational bonds shared among three generations often increases the closeness of family ties.

As parents approach late life and face declining health, a role reversal can occur, with adult children providing more care and advice to their parents and taking on more of the decision-making within the family. Such role reversals can prove challenging for some parent-child relationships, but it is increasingly becoming a normal part of the family life cycle. Adult children willingly step up to provide care in various forms to their parents as they age, and report feelings of appreciation. They find that caring for their parents in exchange for the care given to them starting in childhood and continuing throughout life is rewarding.

Parents:

How do you feel about the level of communication you have with each of your children?

How have your relationships with each of your children changed with time?

Think back to a favorite memory you share with each of your children. Why do you think this is your favorite and most memorable?

Children:

How do you feel about the level of communication you have with each of your parents?

How have your relationships with each of your parents changed with time?

Think back to a favorite memory you share with each of your parents. Why do you think this is your favorite and most memorable?

National Council on Family Relationships: www.ncfr.org/ncfr- report/focus/family-focus-aging

Birditt, K., Fingerman, K., Lefkowitz, E., and Kamp Dush, C. (2008). Parents Perceived as Peers: Filial Maturity in Adulthood. Journal of Adult Development, 15(1), 1–12.
https://doi- org.ezproxy.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/10.1 007/s10804-007-9019-2

Birditt, K.S., Miller, L.M., Fingerman, K.L., and Lefkowitz, E.S. (2009). Tensions in the parent and adult child relationship: Links to solidarity and ambivalence. Psychology and aging, 24(2), 287–295.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015196

Connidis and Barnett (2018). Family Ties and Aging, 3rd edition. Sage: Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Thomas, P.A., Liu, H., Umberson, D., (2017). Family relationships and well-being, Innovation in Aging, 1(3). https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igx0 25

Ward, R., Deane, G., and Spitze, G. (2014). Life-course changes and parent-adult child contact. Research on aging, 36(5), 568–602. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027513 510325

In adulthood, parents and children often want to stay connected and foster closeness in their relationship but don’t always have the tools to do so. Sometimes in life we get busy and struggle to keep in touch. In other instances, we may have trouble finding the words to say or know what topics to bring up to help us connect. What better motivation than a letter writing challenge to get you started?

The letter writing challenge below provides explicit prompts for writing a weekly letter to your parent/child for a series of six weeks. We challenge you to write a hand-written letter/card addressing each of these prompts. Everyone loves receiving mail, and think how appreciative your child or parent will be to get mail from you for six weeks straight. Feel free to share this challenge with them and participate together or make this a surprise for them. If letter writing is not feasible for you, writing emails or sending text messages are wonderful alternatives.