Parenting Grown Children: What Dr. Spock Forgot to Tell Us

Our grown children's pain is our pain, and it's worse as we age.

The parenting is never over--nor is the pain of setbacks for our kids, even when they're grown up and in charge of their lives. A few posts ago, I looked at some  insights about our kid's pain becoming our pain--bearing witness to the adage, we're only as happy as our unhappiest child.

That said, researchers at Cornell report yet another study on the topic. The findings:  The ramifications of our children's pain goes well beyond causing us unhappiness. The parent-child relationship is a two-way street throughout life, with adult children having a profound effect on their parents’ psychological well-being.

The study reports that older mothers--women well past those menopausal and empty nester years--are prone to depression if their adult children struggle with serious problems such as financial difficulties or alcohol or drug abuse. According to co-author Karl Pillemer, a professor of gerontology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, the lifelong bonds of attachment are so powerful that, even among mothers (dads were not included in the study)  in their late 70s and 80s, problems in their children’s lives profoundly affect their mental health. Pillemer says he has interviewed 100-year-olds who were still worried about their 78-year-old children.

The researchers had expected that the mothers--they interviewed more than 350--would be more depressed if the adult child they felt closest to or expected help from struggled with serious issues. It turned out that worry is an equal opportunity angst. Regardless of favorites, the moms were deeply concerned about what happens to all of their offspring. A ne'er do well is still an open wound that moms fret and worry about--even when those ne-er do wells have children and grandchildren of their own, children and Grands about whom they worry and whose pain afflicts them.

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The different world our grown children face as parents--and their different attitudes

 When I think of the pre-Internet days when we raised our children, I realize how easy we had it: Exposure to pornography? We checked under their beds to see if they were hiding any risque magazines. The danger of strangers? We told them not to take candy from anyone they didn't know. Bullying? We called the offender's parents and talked to them about the problem.

The Internet changed that calculus. But that's only the beginning of the challenges our kids-as-parents face. A recent Pew Research Center report looked at the different landscape and attitude changes our kids face in or have about raising their children. Spoiler alert: It's not all bad news, especially the last point.

Among the findings:

Non-traditional living arrangements. Today, 69% of children younger than 18 are living with two parents, down from 87% in 1960.  In 2014, fewer than half of children  lived in a household with two married parents in their first marriage, down from 73% in 1960.

Everyday worries. Six-in-ten parents say they worry that their children might be bullied at some point. At least half also worry that their children might struggle with anxiety or depression (54%) or that their child could be kidnapped (50%).

White parents are more likely than black parents to say they worry that their children might struggle with anxiety or depression (58% vs. 35%) or that they could have problems with drugs or alcohol (40% vs. 23%). Black parents, in turn, are about twice as likely as white parents to say they worry that their child could get shot at some point (39% vs. 22%).

Child care. Across all income groups, majorities of parents with children under 6 years old say it’s hard to find high-quality, affordable child care in their community. Four-in-ten parents with school-aged children say it is hard to find high-quality, affordable after-school activities and programs for their children. This is especially the case for lower-income parents.

Involvement with school. 46% of those with school-aged children say they wish they could be more involved, while slightly more (53%) say they are satisfied with the way things are. There are no clear links between parents’ income or education and views of their own involvement in their child’s education. However, black parents (58%) are more likely than white and Hispanic parents (43% and 41%, respectively) to say they wish they could be doing more when it comes to their child’s education.

How they rate themselves as parents. They seem to be more confident than we were. According to Pew, the younger they are, the more likely the moms are to give themselves high marks: 57% of Millennial moms say they are doing a very good job raising their kids, compared with 48% of Gen X and 41% of Baby Boomer moms--and 43% of Millennial dads.

They care what we think.  72% of those with a living parent want their own parents to think they’re doing a good job raising their kids. Smaller but substantive shares also care a lot that their friends (52%) and people in their community (45%) see them as good parents.

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Is there a way to avoid making their pain your pain?

Read enough stuff on parenting adult children and you come across some insightful tidbits. A life coach in California, Tracey Barnes Priestley, was answering a reader query about how to avoid feeling the pain from a grown child's trials and tribulations. The reader wasn't talking about major sources of anguish--divorce, death of a spouse, a child's debilitating illness. She was asking about feeling calmer about the lesser ups and downs of her grown child's life.

Tracey had a 5-point plan to deal with the problem. (Here's a link to the full story). But more than the plan, what struck me was her over-arching message--and one that's on my Notes to Self: Keep up your own interests.

Tracey put it this way: "My best advice? Support your adult children in a manner that is healthy and positive while spending the bulk of your time and attention creating your own best life!"

Not only can that help keep the worry-warts at bay but it gives us something to add to any conversation we have with our grown children. They really don't want a constant focus on them and what they're doing all the 

 What if they're struggling with major problems? A new University of Michigan study provides insights on the affect of children's problems on their parents.

To assess parental reactions, Kira Birditt, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and her colleagues conducted a daily diary study of 197 middle-aged parents. Among the parents in the study, 60 percent reported having at least one adult child with a problem, and 34 percent reported that all of their adult children had at least one problem.

The parents reported their interactions with adult children for seven consecutive days and also provided saliva samples at different times during the study. This allowed the research team to assess daily fluctuations in cortisol levels, a widely used marker of stress.

Researchers examined the parental affect when children face two types of common problems. One set of problems involved physical-emotional difficulties that included physical and mental health problems and developmental disabilities. The other was lifestyle-behavioral problems that entailed financial trouble, drug and alcohol abuse, trouble with the law, and serious relationship trouble — such as divorce.

Here's what Birditt reports finding: “Interactions with adult children who had physical or emotional problems had more immediate, same-day associations with cortisol whereas interactions with adult children with lifestyle or behavioral problems resulted in more delayed, or next day, associations.”

The findings have implications for parents trying to manage their distress. Those with adult children who have lifestyle and behavioral problems "may want to focus on learning effective coping strategies for reducing stress they already have," the research notes. "In contrast, parents of adult children with physical and emotional problems may spend more time anticipating problems and may benefit from strategies to help prevent stress.”

Another way for parents to reduce the stress of negative interactions with children who have problems is to attempt to balance these interactions with positive encounters, which buffer the harmful effects. “If you have a conversation that makes you feel irritated, hurt, or annoyed, try to follow it with one that makes you feel good,” Birditt said.

The study appears in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

 

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