Problematic children affect parent's mental health: study

Updated on: Sunday, August 29, 2010

Problem children can be called a psychological burden as they adversely affect their parents' mental health.

Researchers at the Purdue University found that mothers and fathers are tormented by their adult children who face specific lifestyle or behavioural problems, including trouble with the law, drinking or drug problems, troubled relationship or divorce.

Having just one such child can affect the mental health of middle-age parents and it doesn't get subsided even if they have other children who were successful, they found.

This finding suggests that parents feel a greater impact from their children's failures than from their successes, lead author Karen Fingerman said.

"Having two children suffering problems may be more demanding than having only one child who suffers problems. By the same token, having a successful child did not buffer the effects of problem-ridden children," Fingerman was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

For their study, the researchers surveyed 633 parents in the Philadelphia area who in total had 1,251 children. Parents rated the success of their grown children compared with other adults of the same age in terms of their education, career and relationship achievements.

Parents also answered questions about their own psychological well-being, what kind of relationship they had with their children, and whether their children had faced
specific physical, emotional, lifestyle and behavioural problems like drinking, taking drugs and criminal activities.

It was found that the majority of parents, 68 per cent, had at least one child who had suffered lifestyle, emotional, behavioural, or physical problems within the previous two years.

Nearly half of parents indicated at least one of their children was highly successful, while 17 per cent said none of their children suffered problems and 15 per cent said none of their children achieved above average success.

Most families, 60 per cent, had a mixed bag of successful and unsuccessful children.

Having just one problematic child increased parents' risk for poor psychological health, even if other children in the family were considered successful.

Simply having one successful child did not appear to buffer the negative effects of having other troubled children, the researchers said, adding the study showed that children's failures than their successes put a greater impact on their parents.

"Parents may react to even a little problem in grown children, whereas the success of a child doesn't overwhelm them in the same way," said Toni Antonucci of the University of Michigan.

The findings of the study were presented recently at the American Psychological Association annual meeting in San Diego.

Problematic children affect parent's mental health: study

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