Parents and their Adult Children: Creation of a Social Support Exchange

Family support contributes to the maintenance of health and well-being in later life. Although there are several commonly-used measures of both partner and sibling support, there are few well-validated measures of social support involving adult children. This state of affairs is ironic: child-parent bonds tend to be enduring, adult children are expected to outlive elders’ siblings or partners, and elders themselves are living longer—likely assisting with family caregiving and potentially needing care. Semi-structured interviews with community-dwelling elders resulted in the creation of a measure of social support exchanged between elderly parents and adult children. Domains addressed include proximity; emotional, instrumental, and material support exchanges between parents and their adult children; and, relationship dynamics, including common disagreements and typical responses thereto. The measure can be used to understand not only the nature of support exchange between parents and their adult children, but also how all of these facets contribute to aging well